Cricket bosses have been urged to show “leadership” in a bid to clear up the game’s schedule as the tug of war between domestic T20 competitions and international duties continues.
The problem regarding the game’s calendar has been highlighted by Pakistan paceman Haris Rauf’s decision to reject selection for the upcoming Test series in Australia in favour of playing in the Big Bash League instead.
The CEO of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA), Tom Moffat, called the scheduling a major problem for the sport.
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“This is definitely one of the biggest issues that the game needs to resolve. The best players in the world can’t be everywhere at once,” he told SEN.
Moffat sympathised with players making decisions such as Rauf, and suggested international cricket could suffer if changes aren’t made.
“The reality is players, like all of us, are always going to make decisions based on what’s right for themselves and their families, and that may mean gravitating more and more towards where the most lucrative offers are,” he said.
“We know for example in countries outside of the biggest three cricket-playing countries the average earnings for an international cricketer are around half what those players can earn if they go and play in three of the bigger domestic leagues. In those leagues they’d be playing for a significantly smaller amount of time per year.
“We know that players love playing for their countries. We love international cricket and we want to protect it, but those are the reasons why we think if everything keeps on being scheduled on top of everything without a real coherent structure bringing those two landscapes together there’s going to be one winner ultimately and we don’t want to see that.”
Moffat believes with domestic leagues and international cricket can co-exist if there is “leadership” shown by those in the decision-making seats.
“We’d like to think that there is a structural solution to enabling both international cricket being strong … but also enabling the domestic leagues to thrive as well,” he said.
“The concept of (scheduling) windows is one that we’ve talked about a lot and that’s easier said than done and there’s a lot to unpack with cricket’s global schedule.
“We’d like to think that there are structural solutions to the issues that we’re talking about if there is a genuine will and some leadership on the global level on that.”
Moffat’s comments come as Pakistan team director and former captain Mohammad Hafeez criticised Rauf for his decision.
“If an individual thinks he doesn’t want to play red-ball cricket, that is an individual act,” he said prior to the team’s departure for Australia.
“The central contract was given on the basis that all players will be available for all formats if we need them. In the Haris Rauf case, he has shown unavailability for red-ball cricket, so with central contracts any decision will be taken keeping Pakistan’s FTP commitments in mind and that is how it will be decided who we give what contracts to in what category.
“First of all, the priority is Pakistan representation. After that comes everything else. All centrally contracted and domestic contracted players, for all of them the priority is Pakistan.
“What I understand is that when you are offered a central contract for Pakistan, there is a strong reason you’ve been offered it. The point of offering it to the 20-25 players, with Pakistan’s FTP commitments in three formats in mind, is to play them, is that they are available for it.”
Pakistan will kick off its tour of Australia with a clash against the Prime Minister’s XI in Camberra on December 6 before the three-Test series starts with the first Test in Perth on December 14.