Players’ body hits out at ‘confusing’ schedule and wants Nations League of cricket

The World Cricketers’ Association has called for reform of the global calendar and of the International Cricket Council, the world game’s governing body, describing the current schedule as “chaotic and confusing”.

In a report published on Wednesday, based on interviews with 64 stakeholders including the Australia Test captain, Pat Cummins, and England’s Jos Buttler, the WCA demanded that the ICC be “modernised” to “ensure it is fit for purpose to lead the global game”, criticising its “lack of cen­tralised global leadership”.

The players’ body suggests the introduction of a global leadership committee, on which national boards, franchise leagues and players are equally represented, as an interim measure.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a meeting with the ICC’s men’s cricket committee is said to have been frosty, and it will meet the women’s cricket committee on Thursday. More support may soon come given the subcommittee that produced the report included Tom Harrison, the former chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, who is favourite to replace the ­outgoing ICC chief, Geoff Allardice.

Central to the WCA’s proposals is a reorganisation of international fixtures similar to Uefa’s successful introduction of the Nations League, with ad hoc bilateral series replaced by a competitive structure that would give “all international cricket meaning”.

International teams would be split into divisions of up to eight in each of the three major formats, with all teams in each mini-league playing each other at least once in every two‑year cycle with promotion, rele­gation and World Cup qualification at stake.

This would replace the ­existing World Test Championship, which may anyway soon be overhauled. Currently teams do not all play each other in every cycle, forcing a convoluted scoring system that Ben Stokes, England’s Test captain, criticised last year as “utterly confusing”. The ECB is also due to petition the ICC to stop deducting WTC points for slow over rates, without which England would have finished third in the most recent cycle rather than fifth.

Most fixtures in the WCA’s proposed leagues would be played during four windows each year – they suggest that each should be about 21 days long, which notably would not be enough for a five-Test series. No major franchise cricket would be played during these breaks.

The WCA, which represents ­players in most major cricketing nations – but not India – also argues for a more equitable distribution of the game’s wealth. India receives nearly 40% of the ICC’s net earnings, while 87% of revenue from bilateral international cricket is kept by the three major cricket markets of India, England and Australia.

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It calls instead for each nation’s share of ICC revenue to be capped at 10%, with the smallest teams receiving 2%. If national boards cannot agree to share revenue more equitably – which it admits is “a likely scenario” – it suggests creating an unspecified “new global cricket product” that would do so.

“While current models may suit the bigger countries in the short term, they ultimately limit the sport’s growth potential,” it writes, advocating a fairer system that would “increase investment, talent depth and retention, and in turn competitive balance across more countries”.

It also calls for the system for freeing players to appear in foreign franchise tournaments – which is entirely at the whim of their national association – to be scrapped and replaced with a “compulsory player-release mechanism”.

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