Key points
- Franchise cricket expanding across global leagues
- Australian stars committed to national duty
SYDNEY: Australian skipper Pat Cummins and star batter Travis Head have reportedly turned down highly lucrative offers — each worth nearly USD 10 million — to quit international cricket and commit full-time to franchise-based T20 leagues.
An informal approach was made by an Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise consortium aiming to bring the Australian pair into a global T20 network covering India, the UAE, the USA, and the Caribbean.
With franchise cricket expanding rapidly, IPL team owners have bought stakes in several leagues, including SA20, ILT20, Major League Cricket (MLC), Caribbean Premier League (CPL), and The Hundred. These competitions now offer players multi-million-dollar contracts — often significantly higher than earnings from their national boards.
Financial incentives
Top Australian players under central contracts with Cricket Australia (CA) are believed to earn around AUD 1.5 million annually. Cummins, as the national captain, receives close to AUD 3 million, in addition to a USD 3.7 million IPL contract with Sunrisers Hyderabad. Head, who also plays for the same franchise, earns about USD 1.2 million.
Despite the substantial financial incentives, both players remain committed to representing Australia in all formats. Head, in particular, has made it clear he has no plans to step away from international cricket in favour of franchise opportunities.
In a recent interview, Head explained that he joined the MLC to gain insight into franchise cricket:
“I played MLC to get a taste of what it would be like to play franchise cricket. I had IPL in a World Cup into MLC, so I wanted to see what it was like to basically play four months of franchise cricket. You want to have every option available to you, you want to experience things and understand how things operate,” Head said.
He described it as a chance to experience four months of non-stop T20 cricket and assess his suitability for such a schedule.
“It was a perfect time in my life to do that… Currently, I’m playing for Australia, and I don’t see a timeline where I can play anything else, really,” he said.
