Cash or country choice for NZ cricketers

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New Zealand Cricket boss Justin Vaughan believes the age of the 'freelance cricketer' has arrived with the advent of a mirror IPL competition in Australia.

He concedes Australia’s rich new Big Bash Twenty20 League, to start next summer, is likely to force leading Black Caps to make a choice between cash and country. 

The NZC chief executive will meet Australian counterpart James Sutherland about the expansion of its domestic T20 competition, which includes private investors and franchises valued at $A30 million each.

The world’s top cricketers are expected to play in the Big Bash league, starting in the summer 2011-12 season, and with India’s IPL already a lucrative money-spinning machine, Vaughan agrees the Australian addition will create an increasing opportunity for players to forgo international careers for mutiple T20 franchise competitions.

He said it was only a matter of time before the other “big boys’’ of world cricket – England and South Africa – followed suit with revamped T20 championships of their own.

“The potential is that if the Big Bash does grow considerably, and if the English Twenty20 competition does the same, there will be a pathway for players to take part in three or four high-profile T20 competitions and forgo international cricket altogether,’’ Vaughan told Sunday News last night.

“The freelance cricketer has been talked about for some time. But the more of these T20 tournaments that gain significant traction, the more of a challenge the international game faces.’’

The Black Caps recently agreed to a new master agreement with NZC that stipulates they are entitled each year to take part in the IPL, which is scheduled for April. The same sort of leeway is unlikely to be extended for the Big Bash League, given it is scheduled to take place in the middle of the Kiwi summer, when international teams tour here.
Vaughan appreciates some of our top cricketers could be tempted to cash in but hopes the prospect of playing at events like the World Cup will keep them in the black cap.

He also said NZC could do nothing to stop them if money was their only motivation.

“Increasingly, we are of the view that if it’s just money the players are after then there isn’t a lot we can do to try and stop that happening.’’

- © Fairfax NZ News