Black Caps' loyalty trumps cash

World cricket bosses have been put on notice the international game will suffer and stars will walk away from their representative sides if definitive decisions aren't made around scheduling conflicts.

Black Caps fans were able to breathe a sigh of relief on Friday after six high-profile cricketers Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram, Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor committed to New Zealand Cricket for another year.

The six star cricketers had delayed signing their central contracts with NZC after it emerged next year's tour to New Zealand by Australia would cause them to miss out on game time in the Indian Premier League which starts on March 12 costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The standoff ended on Friday night with loyalty trumping cash but cricket bosses have been warned the issue won't be going away any time soon.

"It was obviously a long process and a lot of guys put a lot of thought into it," Black Caps skipper Vettori said of his decision to re-sign with NZC.

"I can only speak for myself here but I'm only 30 years old and I still have a lot of goals I want to achieve with New Zealand.

"It's always a difficult decision because guys have families and they had to work through those things.

"In the end, our priority at this stage is to play for New Zealand.

"We want to make the most of that and we want to have a successful team.

"We also realise that if these situations continue to come up, it's going to be difficult for players to continue to turn down that money.

"We implore the powers that be to do something so these decisions don't have to be made every year."

New Zealand Cricket Players Association boss Heath Mills was more blunt, declaring international cricket got a lucky escape this time around.

"I can say quite strongly that it has been exceedingly tough and some of the guys have agonised over this decision for a few weeks," he said.

"I think most people can understand why.

"They might not like the reasons why but they can understand why.

"It's been a good outcome for New Zealand Cricket but I couldn't sit here and say that if the players were faced with the same decision next year or the year after that we would have the same outcome.

"In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if we didn't."

The heat is on world cricket bosses, who come up with international schedules, to create a clear window on the international calendar to allow cricketers from all countries to participate in the IPL.

"From our point of view, it's critical that the powers at be in world cricket, particularly the big three or four boards, need to address this issue," said Mills.

"Otherwise we are going to see international cricket suffer long-term.

"The first to be affected will be countries like New Zealand, West Indies, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

"In time it will affect the bigger countries as well, where their players make decisions that aren't right for cricket but are realities for individuals."

New Zealand Cricket CEO Justin Vaughan said he appreciated the loyalty shown by senior Black Caps.

"The issues that have been publicised in the last 24 hours are real," he said.

"The fact is the players who have IPL contracts have had to make a significant financial sacrifice to commit to New Zealand Cricket.

"It's certainly a decision that I am fully supportive of but I also appreciate how difficult it was.

"Ideally, world cricket will be able to come up with a solution whereby these types of decisions aren't forced upon our players.

"I don't think it's fair and I don't think it's in the best interests of world cricket," said Vaughan.

- © Fairfax NZ News