‘A broken sport’: Franchise free-for-all compromises players’ incentives،
You are a T20 cricketer who has spent the last three weeks in a franchise league playing for a team performing below expectations. Your final group match is approaching and only a victory will be enough to qualify you for next week's knockout stages – but you're faced with a dilemma.
Your agent has called you and informed you that a team from another league is looking for a replacement for a player who has gone on international mission. You're their first choice, but the deal could fall through unless you're available next week. How does this knowledge affect your mentality before your must-win group match?
Similar scenarios played out daily this month: whenever a team was eliminated from the SA20, its foreign stars took flights to Dubai or Dhaka to play in the ILT20 or BPL. More than a dozen players – including Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone and Jimmy Neesham – have already made appearances in more than one league this month.
For the economically rational cricketer, the financial incentives are clear: early elimination from one league is likely to open up an extra week of availability for another, thereby maximizing overall winning opportunities. Any situation in which it might be in a player's best interest for his team to lose should cause concern; one franchise executive describes it as “the sign of a broken sport.”
There is no indication that a player deliberately underperformed in one league in order to ensure his availability for another. But, as one agent says: “It’s a weird thing to have in mind. » The fault lies not with the players, who are making the most of the boom in T20 cricket, but with the administrators who have allowed an unregulated market to mutate.
There are other confusing scenarios for players who represent the affiliates of one Indian franchise but play in the IPL itself for another. Last month, Nicholas Pooran made his debut for the Durban Super Giants – the South African branch of his IPL team, Lucknow – against MI Cape Town. His stay lasted three matches: nine days later he played for – and captained – MI Emirates in Dubai.
The status quo doesn't work for fans, regardless of their preferences. Purists lament the fading status of two-way international cricket, but even younger fans who grew up within the leagues are poorly served. Is there any meaningful way to follow – let alone support – a franchise whose team changes every two days, often without any public announcement?
The six ILT20 franchises brought together 129 players – the vast majority of them from abroad – in 30 group matches this season. The seven BPL franchises used 133 between them in the first 28 matches; that number will rise further this week when Keshav Maharaj plays for Fortune Barishal, even as South Africa's understrength Test team faces New Zealand.
The fundamental problem is that five leagues – the BBL, SA20, ILT20, BPL and PSL – hold at least part of their season between the end of January and the end of February. The problem has been exacerbated this cycle by the World Cup, which ran until November 19, but will again in 2024-25, with the Champions Trophy due to begin in early February. Everyone wants a window, but there isn't room for everyone.
There are some attempts to find a solution. FICA, the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations, will invite players to a global programming symposium in the second half of this year. “The collective opinions of current players are essential,” FICA CEO Tom Moffat told ESPNcricinfo. “They are on the ground and should be at the center of these conversations.
“This is ultimately a scheduling problem…the same national governing bodies that control international cricket scheduling also own most of the domestic leagues. As difficult as this may be to achieve, if global scheduling were Built around clearer scheduling windows for international cricket, and therefore the leagues, this would provide more clarity, allow for appropriate balance and naturally align the leagues in a more symmetrical manner.
The solution must involve collaboration – exemplified by the Caribbean Premier League's success in avoiding a clash with the Hundred in its 2024 window – as well as long-term thinking. It's curious that league windows are often vague until weeks before they start, and are removed from the Future Tours (FTP) program despite so much else going on.
But the men's international calendar is effectively blocked until March 2027 via the FTP, and cricket administrators cannot wait that long to tackle the perverse incentives created by the leagues. Instead, boards must find collective regulatory solutions to these problems, which can then be presented for approval at the ICC level. These could include:
1. Restructuring of contracts
Most leagues operate with a contract system in which players receive the majority of their salary via fees, with match fees and victory bonuses making up only a small proportion. Changing the balance could avoid certain situations where players could benefit financially from early elimination.
2. Mandatory “reflection periods”
Franchise league contracts and certificates of no objection (NOC) are rewritten to stipulate that players are required to declare their availability for the playoff stages of a tournament when participating in a draft or signing a contract. If they declare themselves available for the knockout stages, they should be made unavailable for all other domestic cricket until the day after the final, regardless of how their own team progresses.
3. Standardize the “Bravo Rule” of Blast
England's T20 Blast has long stipulated that, for knockout matches, counties can only field players who have been in the matchday squad for at least one group match, a rule designed in response to Essex's signing of Dwayne Bravo specifically for finals day in 2010. is expected to follow suit, incentivizing teams to utilize local talent in their squad. Bizarrely, the ECB introduced the same regulation for the second season of The Hundred – then removed it during the third.
4. NOC limits for centrally contracted players
Boards could consider following the example of the Pakistan Cricket Board and implementing a limit on the number of NOCs they grant to their players within a certain window, making very short-term stays less attractive for those who intend to spend a significant portion of the year playing in leagues. .
The fourth suggestion was advocated by Ricky Ponting last week, but the context of his comments – he was speaking as he was unveiled as the new coach of Washington Freedom, in addition to his roles with the Delhi Capitals and the Hobart Hurricanes – describes the scale of the challenge. Change will require administrative leadership in a sport where it is rare.
Cricket surrendered to the free market long ago and its governance now rests on an uneasy truce between interested players. Players – and their agents – have more power than ever and want to make hay while the sun shines. Boards of directors want to keep their players, but also make them happy. Leagues want to attract fans, but also generate profits. The only unrepresented interest is that of sport itself, without a central authority powerful enough to control these actors.
Franchises want to increase their visibility, but also to win. Therein lies an important question: What do SA20 team owners think about the idea that their early elimination could open up an extra week of winning opportunities for their players elsewhere? The irony would be obvious if private investors ended up being the parties pushing for regulation.
