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H<\/span>ave you heard about Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s six? When a cricket ball has spawned off the edge of the bat and flown all of 35 metres, is that really a six at all? How about when it comes in a hulking yet virtually empty 50,000-seater stadium in Canada, the ball smashed into the empty stands and kerplunking down the vast swathes of unpopulated seats to be retrieved by a clinically unbothered fielder?<\/p>\n You might have seen some of the footage from Canada\u2019s \u201cSuper60\u201d T10 tournament in Vancouver this week, particularly a delivery from the Mississauga Masters\u2019 Ali Khan that soared over the Toronto Sixers batter Kieron Pollard\u2019s head and away over the lilliputian straight boundaries of Vancouver\u2019s BC Place. For once this was unquestionably not <\/em>a six but a five, a wide plus four: a six can only be struck off the bat. But the pertinent question was, what even is any of this?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s crazy. My goodness,\u201d laughs Faf du Plessis when the Spin discusses the incident with him. The former South African cross-format captain is one of the most experienced and well-travelled franchise cricketers and is still in demand into his 40s. \u201cI\u2019d heard from a few guys that the boundary was ridiculously short, but when I saw it I thought it doesn\u2019t look like proper cricket. In terms of the sixes being hit and some of the scores, teams chasing down over a hundred in four overs and edges flying over the boundary for six. I bet it didn\u2019t feel like cricket either.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBills to pay, brother,\u201d was Sam Billings\u2019 now deleted response on social media when he was asked why he was playing in the tournament. Billings\u2019 response tells us plenty but his subsequent deletion is also indicative of a kind of franchise omert\u00e0, of not wanting to bite down too hard or too openly on the hand that feeds. Billings was happy to provide a pithy summary of the franchise free market, however.<\/p>\n \u201cMan has a job,\u201d he posted on X. \u201cMan has a family. Man gets paid for job to provide for family. Family is happy. The end.\u201d<\/p>\n I reached out to several players involved in the tournament to talk about their experience and it was telling that none wanted to go on record. How would Du Plessis have felt if he found himself playing in it? Initially he responds with a straight bat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guys out there say it\u2019s a great competition, that it\u2019s fun because obviously Canada is a great place, Vancouver is a great city and it\u2019s an experience playing in that stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n Sounds a bit like a paid holiday with a bit of cricket on the side?<\/p>\n \u201cWell the destination is important. Some guys would go: \u2018Where\u2019s great golf courses? And they\u2019d go: \u2018You know, Dubai is great. I can play golf every day. Or Europe \u2013 Ireland, there\u2019s some great golf courses.\u2019 I\u2019m not a massive golfer but golf is like a disease to some of these guys at the moment. Everyone just wants to be a professional golfer.<\/p>\n \u201cIt depends on where you are in your career and what your priorities are,\u201d he adds about the myriad franchise lives you can lead.<\/p>\n \u201cPost stopping playing international cricket, my priorities were to play in the best competitions around the world because that was now my version of international cricket, so you had the IPL, The Hundred, The Big Bash and the SA20 \u2026 and then you\u2019d look at the gaps and your other commitments and maybe go and play in the Bangladesh Premier League or the IL20.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s never been a better time to be a professional cricketer but there is a tightrope to be danced. No one begrudges players at all stages of their career the chance to earn money and gain experiences but they also can\u2019t be impervious to awkward questions if the cricketing product they perform in turns out to be one that can only be identified by its dental records.<\/p>\n
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