Even as franchise-based cricket is sprouting here, there and everywhere, making player availability for national duty increasingly challenging in a packed international calendar, ICC chief executive Geoff Allardice remains optimistic, at least publicly.
England captain Ben Stokes left the 50-over format last month due to an “unsustainable” schedule, while India’s Virat Kohli has spoken out against the players’ increasing workload.
“There’ll still be all-format players,” Allardice told ESPNcricinfo.
“Whether they play every match that their country schedules in those formats is a different question.”
The calendar has been strained by the growth of franchise-based leagues and the ICC’s own aspirations to host one major event year.
According to Allardice, players prioritising different formats is not a new problem, and the present calendar has backlogs from when the pandemic forced the postponement of multiple series.
“…certainly, the balance of players playing international cricket versus domestic leagues will continue to evolve,” he said.
“I’m hoping that the best players play international cricket as often as they can.”
Most players still had a “huge ambition” to play in World Cups and ICC events, he said.
“It’s a case of finding that balance in how they spend their calendar year. Across which international competitions, which series and which leagues they should play.”
Besides, it was not a universal problem, he said.
“There are only some countries that are going to need to do that. There’s a lot of countries wanting international fixtures.”
“There’s no shortage of demand for international cricket among the members,” he said.
According to Allardice, it was up to individual boards to deal with the issue of players’ workload.
“The management of their players. It’s not something that necessarily bounces off to the ICC on any sort of regular basis.”
