Cricket Country Club Debate: Latest FICA Report drops a BOMBSHELL, Players to pick Clubs over National Duty? Follow Live Updates

Cricket Country Club Debate: The Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA) has dropped a bombshell, and things are not looking good for the ICC moving forward. In its latest report, FICA has indicated that 82% of the top 100 T20 cricketers want both national and T20 franchise contracts. To make matters worse, 40% of the world’s top men’s T20 players only want to play in private T20 leagues. Follow Indian Cricket Live Updates on InsideSport.IN.

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Cricket Country Club Debate: Bombshell FICA report released, 82% of world cricketers want both national & T20 franchise contracts, 40% only want to play leagues

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In addition, another 42% are functioning on a hybrid model. They have a combined national and domestic contract to go with one overseas T20 league contract.

FICA’s report came out on Tuesday. Its findings are based on the Global Player Survey conducted this year. The responses of 400 cricketers (mostly international cricketers) from 11 countries form a part of this report. No responses from India and Pakistan players are recorded in the report, as they do not have a player’s association.

The latest development is likely to put international cricket in jeopardy very soon. The reason being that their permanent and associate members might run out of players to feature in Test and ODI cricket.

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The Country Club debate is back

Recently, New Zealand cricketers Trent Boult and Martin Guptill decided to shun their national contracts with the intent to play in overseas T20 leagues. In India, the BCCI doesn’t allow that to happen. So, players like Unmukt Chand decide to call time on their careers to play in the USA.

These are just the most recent examples of how professional cricketers are dumping national duty in pursuit of getting lucrative T20 contracts in their hands. With time, the gap between international cricket and T20 franchise cricket is only expected to widen even more.

England Test skipper Ben Stokes retired from ODIs and Quinton de Kock retired from Test cricket at the age of 29.

This trend appears to be continuing, with more domestic leagues being formed and IPL media rights reportedly selling for more than $6 billion USD over the next five years.

“When combined with an increasingly crowded global playing schedule, and scheduling overlap between domestic leagues and international cricket, tension is created with many of the best players in the world incentivised to prioritise domestic leagues and forgo international fixtures and/or central contracts. This is further amplified by the workload of domestic leagues being generally half that of international cricket on a time / wage basis – i.e. ‘twice the pay for half the work’, the report added.

Back in 2017, former South African skipper Faf du Plessis warned about how T20 leagues are a threat to international cricket. The IPL came into existence in 2008 and since then most of the cricket boards, have adopted the formula of private T20 leagues to fill in their coffers with truck loads of money.

Cricket’s latest format, T10, is making waves across cricket’s global landscape and dominating the international calendar.

Come 2023, the cricket calendar will witness the ILT20 and the SA20 leagues. This means more opportunity for the players to pick and choose what they want to play. Given the cramped ICC schedule, premature retirements from international cricket shouldn’t be a surprise anymore to participate in private leagues and earn livelihood.

With 82% of the top 100 T20 players wanting both national and private T20 leagues, the numbers are only expected to get wider in the coming days.

Recently, Alex Hales made a return to the England set-up and had no qualms about not playing Test cricket for England. He participates in The Hundred, has a domestic T20 contract, and is likely to fetch an IPL contract after his heroics with England in the 2022 T20 World Cup.

“Some of the individuals playing for 3 teams or more represent a potential new category of free-agent player ‘The league specialists’ – many of whom have limited international careers, including playing very little Test cricket, with their primary focus being in the Domestic Leagues landscape,” the report said.

Some other prominent names include the likes of Tim David, Rashid Khan, Md. Nabi, and Mujeeb. All of them have over six T20 contracts in their kitty already. The trend of players picking private T20 league contracts over national duty is not going to die soon.

49% of the men’s cricketers said they would consider rejecting a central contract if they were paid more to play in domestic leagues. However, 74% consider Test cricket to be the pinnacle of the game.

The ICC is trying its best to keep all the three formats of the game co-exist. They now find themselves in a position, where they are helpless.

If the trend of players picking clubs over country widens from here on, which is in all likelihood going to, then its the players who will be calling all the shots and not the governing body. A hard pill to swallow for the ICC, but the truth might bite them sooner rather than later, if the current situation is allowed to worsen further.

Cricket Country Club Debate: Bombshell FICA report released, 82% of world cricketers want both national & T20 franchise contracts, 40% only want to play leagues

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