International Cricket Council (ICC) took a big step in their effort to prevent T20 specialist players from retiring from international cricket to play in franchise leagues. ICC introduces some big changes to its rulebook for all the new leagues in the hope of protecting international cricket.
There has been a rapid rise in new franchise cricket tournaments or leagues in the last two years and stakeholders have expressed their concerns regarding too much cricket. Players from full-time members are preferring playing in overseas cricket leagues and ICC is looking to regulate their participation.
ICC has now decided that all new franchise cricket leagues will require to have at least seven home-grown players or players from associate members in their playing XIs. The new rule only applies to new upcoming leagues so the major tournaments like IPL, PSL, SA20, and ILT20 will be held with no changes.
In addition to the cap on home-grown players, the host board of new leagues will have to pay a 'solidarity fee' to a participating player's host board as well.
"Moving forwards, new events requiring a sanction will need to ensure the playing XI of each team will include a minimum of seven local or associate member players to support the development of the game," ICC chairman Greg Barclay said. "Additionally, a solidarity fee will be payable from the organizing member to the home board of a player to reflect the role the member played in developing and promoting the sport globally."
ICC also introduced new modifications to the over-rate sanctions in Test cricket to maintain slow over-rates. A player will be fined 5% of his/her match fee for every over that falls short, with a maximum penalty capped at 50%. ICC is looking to ensure to keep the fine to a minimum rate to avoid deterring players from playing Test cricket.
“The Men’s Cricket Committee felt strongly that over-rate penalties in the form of WTC points deductions should remain but recommended that players should not have 100% of their match fee at risk. We believe this provides a balance between maintaining over-rates and ensuring we are not deterring players from playing Test cricket," ICC Men’s Cricket Committee Chairman Sourav Ganguly said.
