ICC takes action against franchise leagues to protect Test cricket

Jason Roy will play in Major League Cricket in the US where he can earn £150,000 in a single season. Credit: Getty Images/Gareth Copley

The International Cricket Council has set a limit on the number of foreign players that can participate in franchised teams to protect Test cricket.

The growing influence of franchise leagues, as evidenced by the fact that Jason Roy became the first English cricketer to opt out of his current national contract last month to play in Major League Cricket in the United States, has forced national advice to take immediate action. more to protect the international game.

And the ICC is set to ratify two immediate changes next month to prevent T20 cricket from engulfing the international game: reducing the number of foreign players to four per starting XI, and also requiring T20 leagues to pay national boards for every player they can sign.

The four-player limit per franchise team is an urgent response to the two new leagues that were created this year. The United Arab Emirates T20 International League will allow nine foreign players per team, while America's Major Cricket League starting next month will allow nine players per team and six players per squad.

This has created the prospect that either of these two leagues — or other new leagues, including the rumored Saudi Arabian league — are gathering the best talent in the world, regardless of nationality, similar to top European football clubs. The limit of four foreign players per full member playing squad — in line with the Indian Premier League — ensures that countries will be heavily dependent on local talent.

The limit of four foreign players per league would also reduce the risk of players leaving international cricket to sign multi-team franchise agreements. Due to fewer overseas league slots, Indian Premier League franchises are unlikely to sign more than a couple of players from each side in this way, reducing the overall risk for Tests and international play.

The second change will see all T20 leagues have to pay the national councils 10 percent of the fee they will pay each player, again in line with the Indian Premier League. As the value of the T20 leagues rises, this figure will become an increasingly important source of income for national boards of directors.

Richard Gould, chief executive of England & The Welsh Cricket Board has recently raised concerns that the leagues are not doing enough to promote player development and benefit from the work that national boards do without adequate pay.

«The difficulty for the ECB and our revenues is that we have so many mouths to feed, while franchised tournaments can skim the cream off the top, they don't charge players,» Gould told The Final. Word this month. “These are very effective models to get money back into players' pockets, but they don't fund that way. We need to finance the road. We will always do this. The secret to long-term success is a really strong and healthy path.”

The proposed changes actually revise proposals made by Johnny Grave, chief executive of Cricket West Indies, in 2018. Rejecting national contracts — as New Zealand fast-boult star Trent Boult did last year — has crystallized the need for councils to take action.

New lucrative T20 leagues were launched in South Africa and the United Arab Emirates in January. Major League Cricket will launch next month in the US, backed by prominent figures in Silicon Valley, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Cricket leaders also discussed the takeover of LIV golf in the context of a changing global gaming climate. Theoretically, the rebel competition could still become an unauthorized breakout, as happened with the World Series of Cricket in 1977.

But now a new competition will have to meet the limit of four foreign players from test countries to be considered sanctioned. cricket, and any league that didn't, was effectively forcing players to leave the entire existing franchise and international structure.

This would be a huge gamble for players considering the amount that stars can now earn in the IPL and other sanctioned leagues.

It is proposed that the foreign player limit will only apply to players from 12 full members, potentially allowing developing country leagues to create additional slots for associate players.