English cricket should bemoan Hales' IPL jaunt

Imagine a shop that hides its most popular product from customers, opens when they are unable to visit and displays a sign saying "The shop next door is much better" and you have, by and large, imagined the NatWest T20 Blast.

This should be English domestic cricket's vehicle for change. It should be an opportunity to attract new audiences and raise revenues.

And, in some aspects, it is excellent. Now benefiting from a semi-regular Friday night spot, most of the counties have bought into it and have signed some of the most exciting overseas players currently available: Brendon McCullum, Glenn Maxwell, Chris Gayle, Aaron Finch and Wahab Riaz to name but a few.

But, somewhere along the way, the ECB - and, for the purposes of this piece, the ECB means the administrators at Lord's rather than the counties they are meant to represent - appears to have stopped believing in its product.

Indeed, lovers of conspiracy theories might even suspect that some at the ECB - those keen on a 10-team franchise-based T20 competition - are even wishing the Blast to fail. If it does, it will prove far easier to push through the changes required to bring in a franchise system.

This impression has been underlined by the sudden departure of Alex Hales - who has been signed by Mumbai Indians for a brief stint at the IPL - just as the Blast season begins.

Let's be clear: this is not a criticism of Hales. Even if this decision was purely financial - and it almost certainly isn't - there is no disgrace in a man seeking to maximise his earnings or broaden his horizons. Hales has departed - and, who knows, might not even miss a T20 match for Nottinghamshire - with everyone's blessing.

But allowing England-qualified players to miss fixtures during the domestic season to play in another nation's domestic tournament is perverse.

The ECB has let down the English game by allowing some of its most attractive players - its prize assets - to miss games. With it also being decided, against the original understanding with the counties, to rest England players from the opening round of games, it meant that many of the most "box office" names in English cricket - the likes of Hales and Jos Buttler and Eoin Morgan - have been allowed to go absent just when they could have played a role in the resurgence of the sport.

Equally, the scheduling of the Blast remains bizarre. While a majority of counties have requested that the start date of the competition be pushed back a month so it coincides more with school holidays and warmer weather the ECB has insisted on a start date that clashes not just with the IPL but with exams, so rendering it far more difficult for many teenagers to attend. Again, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that not everyone is pulling in the same direction in English cricket at present.

It is important to remember the purpose of the Blast. It is not just about talent development. It is about developing another generation of supporters. So the perception, whether accurate or not, that the most glamorous, most eye-catching players are engaged in another nation's domestic tournament makes it too easy for people to come to the conclusion that the Blast is a second-rate competition.

It makes it too easy for the cynics to suggest it is nothing more than a feeder competition for the IPL or Big Bash. It makes it too easy to denigrate what is, in many ways, a very good competition. And a competition that, this year, will break all modern attendance records for county cricket.

Hales' departure probably should not have come as a surprise. The ECB had already allowed Morgan (among others) to miss an ODI in order to play in the IPL - an extraordinary decision bearing in mind he was captain during England's awful World Cup campaign - and seems to have had a change of heart since the days when Kevin Pietersen had to fight for any involvement with the competition.

The ECB now argues, with some logic, that experiences of foreign leagues help players' development. It argues, with some evidence, that the knowledge learned in such leagues can be passed on to other players in the English game.

Paul Collingwood, for example, credits his time at the IPL for helping him understand the value of left-arm seamers in white ball cricket and led to England preferring Ryan Sidebottom to James Anderson at the World T20 in 2010. As it remains the only global limited-overs competition they have won, the significance of such a realisation should not be underplayed.

The next World T20 tournament - less than 12 months away - will be played in India, too. So the benefits of involvement are not disputed. Even if they are sometimes talked up by those looking for a justification - an unnecessary justification - for their income.

The issue is more about the damage their absence inflicts to the English game. So not only is it harder to sell the Blast product without the appearance of its star players - and Hales' six sixes in six deliveries on Friday night surely confirmed his billing as a star - it also dilutes the quality of the competition. It means the gap between domestic and international cricket grows for future England players.

Only by the likes of Hales and Morgan and Buttler participating alongside them can young English players know what it takes to succeed in limited-overs cricket. They can learn from watching Buttler scoop or trying to contain Hales. They can see the standards necessary to prosper at international level. They can experience a level of competition that will minimise the step up to international level. Hales and co. must not just learn; they must teach.

The ECB - the individual counties and the board - has the power to decline requests from players to go to the IPL. All the players have contracts; all contracts in English cricket could have clauses prohibiting their absence. Hales, by contrast, has a clause saying that he can go if he wishes.

While the financial attraction of IPL contracts is clearly a factor, few English players will choose to decline the relative security of a county or central contract for the short-term gain of IPL deals or the itinerant life of a T20 specialist. The ECB needs to fight a little harder to retain its assets. And if that means paying the best players more, so be it.

Of course, English limited-overs cricket needs to improve. And of course English cricket can learn from the IPL. But the main lessons are not necessarily on the pitch. Instead the ECB can learn from the BCCI's determination to protect, promote and fight for its own product.

Somewhere along the way, the ECB seems to have lost faith in its T20 competition.