Cricket Australia has offered multi-year contracts before the country’s top cricketers in effort to convince them to forgo the monetary benefits of Indian Premier League (IPL) for the next three years.
Fairfax media reported that Australia’s Test captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and fast bowlers Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins, were contacted individually by Cricket Australia. It is being reported that these cricketers were verbally offered a three-year contract in place of standard one-year contract, on the condition that they will not participate in Indian Premier League.
As per a report published on The Sydney Morning Herald Cricket Australia’s newly appointed general manager Pat Howard approached these players personally. But this offer was termed as underwhelming by players as the only benefit about it is the security of a three-year contract.
But this could change after Cricket Australia discussed at last Friday’s meeting the introduction of financial compensation to keep Australian cricketers away from IPL.
Our Take: Keeping their players away from IPL won’t be an easy task for Cricket Australia as players like David Warner and Steve Smith earn more than $1 million a year for the Twenty20 tournament and their earnings are expected to rise significantly with a new IPL broadcast deal tipped to see the event’s player payment pool double.
David Warner is arguably the most valuable overseas player in IPL. He is the leading run-scorer in the ongoing IPL 2017 with a big margin and he led Sunrisers Hyderabad to glory in the last season. Steve Smith is also a very prominent face in IPL and he replaced MS Dhoni as Rising Pune Supergiant’s captain this season. It was a big move considering Dhoni’s good captaincy record in IPL.
