Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Australian cricket may face the prospect of losing players from the Big Bash League to play across the Tasman in a privately owned Twenty20 league to launch as soon as next season.
An ugly political fight has unfolded in New Zealand over the summer, costing former NZ Cricket chief executive Scott Weenink his job and fracturing numerous relationships amid the concerted push for a privatised league, dubbed the NZ20.
Daniel Vettori, Ben Stokes, Brendon McCullum and Stephen Fleming.Credit: Artwork: Aresna Villanueva
Cricket Australia chair Mike Baird and chief executive Todd Greenberg travelled to Auckland two weeks ago to make a presentation to the NZC board about the possible inclusion of a New Zealand team in the BBL in 2028. The NZ20 group also made a presentation.
Should the NZ20 launch with private investors in time for next summer, it may be in a position to offer lucrative contracts to overseas players, including those from Australia, well before possible plans to accelerate player salaries in the BBL through the selling of stakes in the league.
NZ20’s chair, Don Mackinnon, has talked up the prospect of a Queenstown-based franchise led by Brendon McCullum and England skipper Ben Stokes, who was born in Christchurch and regularly visits family in New Zealand.
Overnight, New Zealand advanced to the final of the T20 World Cup in India by hammering South Africa, via a blistering opening stand between two BBL players: Perth Scorcher Finn Allen, who made a century from an eye-popping 33 balls, and Melbourne Renegade Tim Seifert.
Weenink had been at the vanguard of talks between NZ Cricket and Cricket Australia about expanding the BBL with at least one team from New Zealand; at the same time CA has been locked in complex negotiations with its state association owners about private investment.
But a consortium of cricket and business figures, including the former World Anti-Doping Agency chief and Wellington Cricket chair David Howman, Auckland Cricket chair Brendon Gibson and New Zealand players’ boss Heath Mills, mounted a coup d’etat of sorts.
They did so by gaining the agreement of each of the six provincial associations to proceed with plans for NZ20, a six-team franchise league that would be privately owned and licensed by NZC similar to the Caribbean Premier League.
It was only after getting all the provinces on board that NZ20 approached NZC, which responded by stating that the consortium’s plans would be considered alongside other scenarios including BBL expansion.
An independent report by Deloitte is due to be handed back to NZC later this month, but the launch of the NZ20 is widely considered the most likely outcome, regardless of what the report recommends.
Greenberg and Baird told NZC, according to two sources with knowledge of confidential discussions, that they want New Zealand to be part of the BBL, but will be happy to look elsewhere for expansion options, including Singapore, if necessary.
Mills and Weenink declined to comment. Cricket Australia was contacted for comment.
While the NZ20 would be primarily built on the best New Zealand players, Australian players are also watching with interest, in particular around what salaries might be offered to the top tier. The Australian Cricketers Association has been agitating for higher player payments, with the likes of Pat Cummins and Travis Head the subject of big overseas offers in recent times.
The NZ20 would replace the Super Smash, the current T20 tournament in New Zealand that has struggled for relevance as top players head to the BBL and elsewhere during the southern season. In a statement to this masthead, New Zealand Cricket said the board was still looking at all options.
Meanwhile, the NZC board wrote to the International Cricket Council late last year to assure the game’s global boss Jay Shah that any new T20 league would not be a “rebel” competition. “The players have not taken over cricket in New Zealand. World Cricketers Association is ‘not coming for us’. There is no hostile takeover,” the letter, signed by NZC chair Diana Puketapu-Lyndon, NZC board ICC representative Roger Twose, and the chairs of the six major associations, said in part.
Weenink was a notable absentee from the letter’s signatories. He was sent away on leave for much of the summer before exiting NZC on January 30.
The provincial associations and the players remain adamant that the NZ20 league structure is the only proposal they would endorse.
Tim Seifert, nicknamed “Bam Bam”, in action during the BBL.Credit: Getty Images
There is concern among those groups that agreeing to the inclusion of a solitary team in the BBL would reduce New Zealand to satellite status, as is the case for teams in the NRL, NBL and A-League.
For New Zealand cricket to stand on its own two feet in the BBL, they argue, CA would need to endorse the inclusion of as many as four new teams. Alternatively, the NZ20 could in time become the “eastern conference” of a bigger T20 league encompassing both countries.
The counter-argument is that New Zealand’s small population and broadcast market cannot support a league of its own, and would be better off marrying into the BBL, at first with one club and perhaps with additional teams over time.
Current Australian team assistant coach Dan Vettori, former Melbourne Stars coach Stephen Fleming and England head coach McCullum are among the former New Zealand stars who have been linked to NZ20 as advisors.
“Given it’s a short time for it to be put in place – if it’s decided that privatising the T20 here is a good way to go – then we have to be very mindful of the time that it takes to set that up,” Fleming said on local radio during the New Zealand Open.
“So the clock is obviously ticking on that.”
