2023 World Cup: Raising concerns over pacer Trent Boult’s deal with New Zealand Cricket (NZC), former Black Caps coach Mike Hesson said his contract is “untidy” and “will open a can of worms”. Boult gave up his New Zealand contract last August to spend more time with family and continue playing franchise cricket around the world. Boult, who features in the IPL, will play in the inaugural season of United States Major League Cricket, starting next month.
The 33-year-old left-arm pacer wasn’t a part of NZC’s latest central contract list announced last week but the board offered him a casual playing agreement. “If you want the IPL and two or three or four other tournaments as well, you probably can’t have everything and that’s a decision you’ve got to make at the start of the year and I just think the flexi contracts just make it a bit untidy,” Hesson said on Sky Sports.
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“It just gets really untidy when you’ve got 20 contracts or however many is on that (NZC) list now and then you have an extra one (for Boult) and next year you might have three extra ones and it just gets untidy.” Boult, who last played for New Zealand during the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia, is likely to be a part of the Black Caps squad for the ODI World Cup in India later this year.
With T20 leagues mushrooming across the world, Hesson feels NZC would soon face a situation where it will have to offer different contracts to different cricketers depending on their circumstances. “Under the current (NZC) model it doesn’t. You get ranked in three different forms and you add the points up and that’s your number and everyone has known that and it’s actually worked pretty well for an extended period of time.
“This flexi contract it might work really well for Trent and it might actually work well for New Zealand Cricket, but it does open up a whole can of worms,” Hesson said. Former New Zealand batter Craig McMillan also expressed his displeasure at Boult’s contract.
“It seemed only 12 months ago Trent Boult was more than happy to make his decision to move away from international cricket and take the riches of the T20 franchises around the world and you couldn’t bemoan him that,” McMillan said.
“He’d had a wonderful career for New Zealand and been a great servant and now almost wants a little bit of a dollar each way. It’s a difficult one.” The former New Zealand assistant coach said he has “an issue when players are coming back again and if they’re trying to pick and choose when they play for New Zealand.
“It doesn’t sit overly well with me and I’m sure it doesn’t sit with some of the other players within the setup who are doing the hard yards then have to move back (when they return),” McMillan added.
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