Lancashire CEO praises BCCI’s 'fantastic prioritising' as County cricket struggles for survival

Shreyas Iyer (Pic: @bcci_domestic/X)

The BCCI directing its established players to participate in domestic cricket has been termed "fantastic prioritising" by Lancashire's CEO Daniel Gidney, who accused the English players' agents for facilitating their foray into the lucrative franchise leagues at the expense of the traditional red-ball competition.

Gidney feels these agents threaten the future of the English County Championship.

The BCCI had mandated all international players, except for seniors like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah, to play in tournaments such as Ranji and Duleep Trophy when they are not busy with national commitments, the move highlighting the board's emphasis on the role of domestic cricket.

In fact, two of the younger stars Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan lost their annual BCCI retainership contracts for skipping domestic events at the expense of IPL. While Kishan despite repeated feelers didn't play a single Ranji game, Iyer did play during the knock-out stage including final.

This decision by the BCCI found many takers, including Gidney, one of cricket's longest-serving chief executive.

"Imagine a governing body (BCCI) actually saying that out loud. That was fantastic prioritising," Gidney was quoted as saying by 'The Guardian'.

Calling the agents the main threat to the future of the English County Championship, the Lancashire CEO said they "don't care" about the county game.

"We need to have more of an open conversation. Coaches get blamed, administrators get blamed, but if you want to blame anybody, blame agents," Gidney said on the sidelines of a match between Lancashire and Somerset at Old Trafford. He added, "I think the game as a whole needs to come together to find a way to support the championship.

"England players don't have to play in the championship, agents don't care about the championship."

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According to Gidney, increasing the players' remuneration could be of help.

"More prize money would help and I think we need to find a way of paying four or five players a lot more money. Instead of GBP 80,000-90,000 being the top domestic salary, we need to find a way of paying GBP 200k, and saying part of that deal is that you don't play franchise cricket."

Gidney called for a cap on franchise participation to protect first-class cricket but made it clear that he is not against players earning good money from playing in the T20 leagues.

"They have a career, I'm not begrudging their ability to earn money, but the balance has tipped. When the bottom rung of the Hundred is what a rookie would earn in the championship, who among us would turn down earning more money for less work?"

Earlier this year, BCCI secretary Jay Shah had asked all centrally-contracted India players to turn up for matches in domestic cricket and warned that non-participation could lead to severe implications.

(With agency inputs)