Players turning into subcontractors
Greg Baum, in the Age , explores the idea of "splitters" in cricket as players increasingly resemble subcontractors, switching between clubs, counties, states, countries without hesitation.
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
Greg Baum, in the Age, explores the idea of "splitters" in cricket as players increasingly resemble subcontractors, switching between clubs, counties, states, countries without hesitation.
This is a labyrinth. Cricket authorities, transfixed by Twenty20, say international club competition is the great unexplored frontier. Lalit Modi, Indian board mover and shaker and the brains behind the Indian Premier League and the Champions League, says soccer comfortably divides its fixtures between club competitions and internationals, so cricket should.
But soccer never asks players to choose between clubs in the same competition. Nor does it ask them to switch constantly between radically different styles of the game, nor to squeeze club and country commitments into consecutive days.
Also in the Age, Brendan McArdle wonders if Cricket Australia really had the players' best interests at heart when it scheduled the All-Stars Twenty20 game.
Eight players involved in last night's match will be playing in today's Sheffield Shield match at the MCG between Victoria and Tasmania, and to accommodate their travel back from Brisbane the game starts at one o'clock. One can only wonder at the thoughts of David Hussey or Brad Hodge if they are walking out to face Ben Hilfenhaus or Brett Geeves in semi-darkness at 7.30 tonight.
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here