RE: English cricket needs to wake up and face some cold, hard facts following the Adil Rashid debacle
This is one of the real risks of national cricket bodies pushing the T20 Cash Cow.
Players only have a limited number of years in the game, so who can really blame anyone for wanting to set themselves and their families up for the future? Particularly players who are considered fringe players for national selection and aren't receiving the higher end national contracts.
We've seen what pay disputes have done to the West Indies over the years, with some great players preferring to follow the T20 circuit than be paid significantly less to represent their nations.
I also recall reading recently that the ICC (or at least some member countries like Australia and England) were considering capping the number of T20 tournaments that players would be released for each year. Something seems a little bit like trying to have your cake and eat it too. You want great international players to come and strengthen the Big Bash League, but don't want to let your best T20 players play in other domestic leagues? Sounds like a recipe for restraint of trade legal challenges.
As a traditionalist I think we need to ensure there is prestige attached to playing at the top level, as well as adequate remuneration. We need to make sure players selected for the national team are done so on performance not potential, and we need to break the addiction to T20 - yes it's a good earner for crowds and TV rights, but we are risking cannibalising the other forms of the game.
It wouldn't surprise me if the likes of India, Australia and England flex their muscles and look to influence the international schedule to benefit their domestic franchises by allowing more high quality players including their own test players to compete.
The other problem we have with Test match cricket is that it's just not throwing up enough good quality matches or series at the moment. Sri Lanka's recent series with South Africa, Indian and Pakistan thrashing Ireland and Afghanistan - these aren't great adverts for the game. Even for England, in the past 12 months I can think of only 2 tightly contested Test matches we've played. The 2nd Test against WI where they beat us and the final Test against New Zealand which was a drawn match with us trying to bowl them out on the final day. All the other games we've played have been pretty one-sided whether they were defeats or victories.
And I think part of that is the fact the with so such regularity of series between the "Big 4" of Australia, England, India and Sth Africa that the others are suffering from a lack of high end competition. If your B and C list sides get more opportunities to play against your A list teams then they will continue to improve giving everyone better contests in the long term.
The ICC should be mandating that the Big 4 at the very least send A teams to tour associate nations as well as host them for significant tours where they play against several domestic 1st Class teams. Of course this would all mean investing in the worldwide expansion at grassroots level, but nobody wants to spend the money.