Yorkshire demand summit over international T20 threat

Director of cricket Martyn Moxon and chief executive Mark Arthur want the game to have an urgent discussion to better balance the various priorities of the England and Wales Cricket Board, the players and counties, and are taking their fight to ECB level.

Yorkshire believe that unless action is taken due to the growth of T20 tournaments around the world, and the consequent effect on player availability, county cricket will suffer and the next generation of Test players will fail to develop.

“Myself and Mark Arthur want the game to have this discussion now,” said Moxon. “We need to agree on a protocol and what we should be doing.

“We need to work out how the game can better work for the best interests of the ECB, the players and the counties, because it’s only going to get worse. Once we get to 2020, when the franchise competition starts here, players are going to want to be involved in that, so their focus is going to be on T20, and it’s already shifting towards that anyway.

“If we’re serious about continuing to be a strong Test-playing nation, we’ve got to protect county red-ball cricket, because where are the next generation of Test cricketers coming from? If the majority of players’ main focus is on being good at T20, then we’ve got a problem. I’ve already spoken to the ECB cricket committee, I’ve spoken to the PCA (Professional Cricketers’ Association) and said that we need to have this discussion.”

The problem has been brought into focus by the recent Indian Premier League auction, which saw Yorkshire face the loss of five players for the start of next season – Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Adil Rashid, Liam Plunkett and David Willey, all of whom then went unsold. Root was even rested for England’s forthcoming T20 tri-series against Australia and New Zealand rather than for the IPL.

“I think it’s a huge problem for counties, the growth of T20 around the world,” added Moxon. “The desire to play in T20 competitions from players is shown in England’s recent decision to rest Rooty and also Jonny (Bairstow) from England T20 matches; that was their rest period because potentially they were going to play IPL. Getting a rest period so that players can go and play IPL kind of sums up where we’re at as a game. It doesn’t sit comfortably with me, I’ll be honest, and it’s almost as if counties are bottom of the pile.

“It’s a bizarre situation, and in any other sport you’d find it hard to replicate the position that cricket finds itself in. The problem is money. Ultimately, that’s what it boils down to.

“It’s like some of our (Yorkshire) lads going to play T20 in Bangladesh in the winter, when they can earn a significant amount of money for just a few weeks. It could be nearly half their county contract in a few weeks of playing T20 in Bangladesh, so you can understand the draw for a player, but where does that leave a county if that happens throughout the winter and is replicated by more than one player on the staff? It puts us in a vulnerable position.”

There is also the question of player salaries. “Financially for counties, what do you pay players now?” said Moxon. “What do you pay a player who goes off and plays all winter in T20 competitions, and who might play IPL? What should his basic salary be when he might not play much for you in the summer? These are big questions.”

Moxon has already called for players to be paid more for red-ball cricket, so that it becomes as lucrative to play Tests as franchise T20, and feels that clubs are in a no-win position.

“We could stop our players going off to play T20, just as England could stop Rooty or Jonny or any contracted player putting themselves forward, but then how does that affect the relationship between player and employer with potentially life-changing sums at stake? If England are letting players miss games to go and play IPL, it’s hard for counties to say, ‘No, we’re not letting you’.

“If we simply said, ‘Sorry, we’re not going to pick any of you, we’ll play all our young players instead in Championship cricket’, and we ended up relegated, it’s the club that would be under the cosh.

“Also, whenever our England players are available, it’s vital that they’re match-ready, because it’s much harder for them to perform if they come back to us straight after a long break, which needs to be part of this wider discussion.”