The tension between franchise and international cricket is only heightening, DANIEL CHERNY reports on the latest development.
The Big Bash League looks poised to benefit but several of Australia’s top white-ball stars may need to forgo tens of thousands of dollars because of an impending scheduling clash between the cashed-up UAE T20 league and the Aussies’ home series against the West Indies.
While a formal announcement is still yet to be made, it appears increasingly likely the Indian Premier League-aligned ILT20 league in the UAE will begin around January 19 or 20 and run until February 18, a change from the ILT20’s announcement earlier this year that the second season of the event would begin on January 13.
That the event is being pushed back is good news for BBL organisers and clubs, who will now be able to draw on the likes of global white-ball guns Alex Hales, Chris Jordan and Nicholas Pooran for much if not all of the regular season before they depart for the more lucrative UAE competition.
But the flip side of the UAE competition being pushed back is that it is now set to overlap entirely with the white-ball component of the Windies’ tour of Australia at the end of the Aussie home summer.
Australia is due to play the Windies in three one-day internationals and three Twenty20 internationals in the first half of February, starting with an ODI in Melbourne and February 2 and finishing with a T20 in Perth on February 13, meaning they fall within the ILT20 window being flagged by industry sources.
ILT20 contracts can be worth as much $700,000 (AUD) for around a month’s work, making it a hugely appealing competition for players.
Aussie white-ball mainstays Marcus Stoinis and Adam Zampa both had stints in the inaugural ILT20 last year after the elimination of the Melbourne Stars from the BBL, while David Warner has already signed with the Dubai Capitals for the second edition of the UAE competition, which is on the clear second tier of franchise tournaments behind the IPL.
That trio are all centrally contracted and would require releases from Cricket Australia to play in the UAE league over playing for Australia. Given the ODIs will take place not even three months after the World Cup final in India, they have little international context, though the T20s are more meaningful given they are part of preparations for next year’s T20 World Cup in the Windies and US. While Warner has announced his plans to retire from Test cricket at the completion of the home series against Pakistan in early January, he has also indicated a desire to be part of the T20 World Cup side.
The tension between franchise and international cricket is only heightening, with freelancers Tim David and Daniel Sams having both in recent times turned down Aussie call-ups to play in overseas leagues. But CA has shown it is still willing to pull rank, with all-rounders Mitch Marsh, Glenn Maxwell and Aaron Hardie all barred from playing in England’s Hundred competition as part of workload management heading into the World Cup across October and November.
With its overseas draft falling on September 3, BBL clubs are working on the basis that the ILT20 will be pushed back. Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan is believed to have nominated despite earlier this year saying he would consider his future in the league after CA pulled the pin on a series against Afghanistan, a response to the Taliban regime.