ICC to take action against franchise leagues: English Media

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided to take action against the franchise leagues around the world in a bid to prevent Test cricket, English media outlet The Telegraph reported.

According to the details, the ICC expressed concern about the players prioritizing franchise cricket over international assignments and thus wants to control the leagues.

In a bid to retain the integrity of international cricket, the cricket governing body is looking to impose certain changes to the franchise leagues.

Consequently, the ICC will limit the number of overseas players in a team’s Playing XI and will bind the franchises to pay national boards for each of the players they sign.

Thus ICC will then be able to protect the interests of various national cricket boards thanks to the decrease in the number of foreign players per side.

Recently, the chief executive of the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Richard Gould raised concerns over the fast-growing numbers of franchise leagues.

“The difficulty for ECB and our revenues is that we have so many mouths to feed, whereas the franchise tournaments can take the cream off the top, they don’t get charged for the players,” Gould told The Final Word this month.

“They are very efficient models at getting money back into the players’ pockets, but they are not funding the pathway. We need to fund the pathway. We will always do that. Having a really strong, healthy pathway is the secret to long-term success,” he added.

Recently, a similar controversy emerged in the cricketing world after England’s hard-hitting opener Jason Roy terminated his ECB central contract to partake in the lucrative franchise league Major Cricket League (MCL) in the United States of America (USA).

Later, Roy shared his statement to address the long-going speculations about him leaving and expressed his hope to continue playing for England for “many more years”, while also sharing that the ECB has allowed him to play in MLC after “clear and supportive conversations”.

“Following a bit of unwanted speculation over the last 24 hours, I wanted to clarify that I am not and never will ‘walk away from England’,” said Roy in a tweet.

“Representing my country continuous to be my proudest moment as a professional cricketer. I hope to play for England for many more years, that remains my priority.”

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