Worrying shift? Players opt for private leagues over national teams in cricket

Mumbai: Robin Uthappa of the Chennai Superkings plays a shot during the Indian Premier League 2022 cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and the Royal Challengers Bangalore, at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. (Sportzpics/PTI P

There are approximately 4,000 professional cricketers worldwide, and according to the Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA)’s annual report from a few months ago, around 40 per cent of those players are freelancers.

More ‘worryingly’, the survey revealed that 49 per cent of the remaining professionals are ready to reject the central contract with their respective national teams in favour of private leagues.

Granted, the FICA survey was only run across 14 ICC-affiliated countries in the November 2022-report, and they still haven’t been able to acquire useful data from India for the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) unofficial gag order, but it’s enough information to deduce that this is turning into a genuine concern.

The players’ association, expectedly, sounded ill at ease because the trend, which is mainly noticed among top providers of talent to the cricket pool, was spoken of as far back as 2010 - a couple of years after the inception of the Indian Premier League (IPL) - and has only gotten worse since.

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As it stands, players are, more so now than ever before, moving towards a hybrid model wherein they represent their national side selectively, or have completely rejected their central contracts and adopted ‘freelancer’ status.

Turns out, over 40 per cent of the top Twenty20 players in the world (among the top nine cricket countries) do not have a central contract. This is primarily because the gap between domestic earnings and international earnings has only increased in the last couple of years.

The report also says that many of the players in this category are still in their ‘cricket prime’, meaning a tectonic shift is afoot, and there is little the International Cricket Council can do to stop it at this point.

Also, the ‘traditional market’ - those sticking to central contracts - mostly comprises Indians since the BCCI does not issue NOCs (No Objection Certificates) to registered players. Therefore, players from these shores will have to retire in order to ply their wares in the many domestic leagues available around the world.

Naman Ojha, Robin Uthappa, Abhimanyu Mithun and others have opted for the option, but they have done so later on in their careers. Unmukt Chand, then 28-years-old, is among the younger lot to have severed ties with the BCCI to move to the United States.

But at the rate at which private leagues are cropping up - the latest of which is Major League Cricket - and given their limited options for Indians, the number of cricketers opting to ‘retire’ to make a living out of being a professional in franchise-based leagues is only going to go up in the coming years.

Ironically, Indians own most of the franchises in private leagues at the moment. "We don't want to miss out on the opportunity," says the current CEO of an IPL team. "We had to maximise our returns, and since there is not a lot of profit early on, we have to expand as much as possible."

Besides state-run T20 tournaments, India has but one real T20 league, and sure, it’s a big one, but there are only so many players who make the cut. Furthermore, only so many can even dream of getting a central contract with the Indian national team across three formats.

Should cricketers make the grade as first-class cricketers, there is decent enough remuneration to be had these days, but it’s not nearly as rewarding - monetarily - as private T20 leagues.

“IPL is being allowed to have its own protectionism,” says Charu Sharma, the former CEO of the Royal Challengers Bangalore. “See, approximately around 300-odd people, maybe a little more, in India can make a living out of cricket. People are putting in their blood, sweat and tears to defy those odds. I don’t get why cricket, as a profession, must be limited to those 300-odd people.

“And yet, Indian cricketers find it hard to step away because they have to cut ties with the BCCI, and that’s not easy. Indian cricketers are playing it safe, and I don’t blame them, but as the number of cricketers increases, don’t be surprised to see more and more people opt out. Also, is that a gamble you want to take when one injury can derail your earnings?”

FICA had said this in a press release as far back as 2017: “One of international cricket’s biggest challenges is the increasing prioritisation by players of T20 leagues ahead of international cricket and this can only be addressed by appropriate structural change.”

And, they revealed in their latest report that 63 per cent of players believe there should be specific scheduling windows for the international calendar.

Besides, the IPL, which continues to operate in an ‘unofficial’ globally-recognised window by virtue of payments made from the BCCI to other national boards, globally recognised leagues have eaten into the Future Tours Programme (FTP).

While the FICA anticipated the consolidation of all leagues into three or four specific windows throughout the annual calendar, the ICC’s five-year FTP - which was done after consultation with various major boards - cannot hold a candle to the work-life balance which freelancers can entertain.

“As a young father, I need this time,” says the former cricketer. “I can work for six months and spend time at home for six months. It’s ideal.”

Charu says: “They will find a way around scheduling, it’s just a matter of time, but this archaic concept that you should ‘play for the love of the game’ is rubbish. By that, should doctors just work for the love of their profession? Cricket is a profession and people need to get paid. For a long time, they were not being remunerated justly. Now, they are getting more and more money and this is for all the sacrifices they have made.

“This is not going to dilute the talent pool in India, if anything it’s going to make it better,” he adds as if pre-empting the next query.

At the very end of FICA’s report, it reads: “The 2023-2027 Future Tours Programme indicates a 10% increase in bilateral international cricket, along with a significant increase in the number of ICC Events when compared to the previous events cycle. In an already congested calendar and with the ever-expanding domestic leagues landscape, it remains to be seen how sustainable this level of scheduling is.”

Between the ICC scheduling more games, and new private leagues cropping up each year, far more cricket is being played than ever before. While that trend opens the market up to more talent, fatigue is inevitable, both for players and consumers.