This review group will make proposals to enhance the current method of contracting/employing international players.
THIS HAS been the 'mission statement' for the 'Contracting of England Players Review Group' which I have sat on this summer and it has been our aim to examine the current system and from these results make recommendations.
My role within all this, following the invitation of our chairman Donald Trangmar, was to collect the views of the England players on this subject. This I did along with obtaining the opinions of several former England players still playing as well as a couple of county coaches and cricketers whose views I have come to respect over the years even if they have not played for England.
The first and most important response I received from the overwhelming majority was that the current set-up is not satisfactory and needs changing. It was felt that the demands, both physically and mentally, on England players were too great for them to be able to perform at the highest level each time they walk out to play for England. England players in an English summer are forced to play too much cricket and the amount of cricket they play needs to be controlled.
As for what structure should be put into place, four alternatives were given which were, in order of popularity among the players:
1. We keep the current system but give the England Selection Committee the power to withdraw players from county matches when they so wish and do with them as they wish.
2. Players have contracts with both their counties and the ECB. The amount of cricket the players play, however, is controlled by the ECB, ie the England Selection Committee.
3. England players are pulled out of counties and contracted solely to the ECB. Their cricket, fitness, practice etc is controlled by the ECB.
4. We stay as we are, with the counties controlling the players and the England Selection Committee having to ask them if they would be prepared to rest a player or not.
From this you can gather the majority of the players wish to remain in contact with or under contract to their counties. They are not the money grabbing, let's go to the highest bidder sort of characters that some counties would have you believe. The players do care for their counties and it is a relationship they enjoy, one they feel offers them greater security.
The players enjoy the fact that if the England 'thing' does not work out there is still someone out there who is willing to employ them. By taking them out of the system players feel a county may bring in someone specifically to replace them and when the player's 'England contract' finishes the county may not want him back.
Playing cricket for England is a lifetime's ambition and something you want to do for a long time but it is also something of a bonus, the icing on the cake, not something many, if any, can look at with any real certainty. One player told me, and I am sure he speaks for a few, that his mortgage is based on his county salary, not his England wages.
Now this may give you a feeling that insecurity exists in an England dressing room and, to a certain extent, it does but you cannot blame the players for that, considering the way they have been in and out of sides in the past.
The players also expressed reservations at the risks involved in turning down a three, four or five year contract with their county for a one or two-year deal with England even accepting that a financial equilibrium would be maintained. Buying a player out of a five-year deal, with the possibility of a benefit being awarded at the end of it, could cost the ECB in excess of £500,000.
Other views were raised concerning the registration and contested player rules that currently exist and how they would need to be altered so that the counties who supply three or four international players are not unfairly weakened.
Compensation was also mentioned and the fact that if, say, Alec Stewart missed 60 per cent of Surrey cricket due to England commitments they would receive 60 per cent of his salary back in compensation. As you can see we have had our hands full but it has been our task to try and amend some of, if not all, of these problems as well as many other findings raised by the review group.
We hope the recommendations that are made this week will be accepted by the First-Class Forum.