Cricket eyes overseas models for contract answer

New Zealand Cricket is looking at the contracting models used in Australia and England as it tries to find a perfect solution to the cricketing environment forever changed by the Indian Premier League.

NZC's contracting process hit the headlines twice this winter.

The 20 players selected to receive central contracts did not match particularly well with the squads chosen just days later to tour Sri Lanka, prompting convenor of selectors, Glenn Turner, to tell this newspaper that the process was "flawed".

Players' Association manager Heath Mills said, however, that "nobody with a good understanding of how the system works could reach that conclusion".

The second time the central contract system fell under the spotlight was when six players - Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum, Jacob Oram, Ross Taylor, Jesse Ryder and Kyle Mills - delayed signing because they feared the impact it would have on their IPL availability.

There is an acknowledgement within NZC that the contract system, as groundbreaking as it has been for cricket in this country, may need tweaking.

In Australia they have instituted a move whereby their 'superstars' have their match fees guaranteed during their 12-month contract period. This gives players some security around injury concerns and also gives selectors more freedom to manage workloads.

When John Bracewell started building depth for the 2007 World Cup, a lot of the resistance coming from senior players like Nathan Astle was that every time they were 'dropped' from the one-day squad they were kissing goodbye to $2500 (now $3175). There is provision for players who are legitimately rested to receive match payments but there is a fine, and often controversial, line between being given a spell and being given the hook. Match-fee guarantees would alleviate this problem. The injury factor is not such a concern here because the players pay premiums to ACC and are eligible for compensation if they miss games through injury.

Another chestnut is multi-year deals, a move some senior players favour given that they are perceived to be one injury or one bad year away from the financial purgatory of a major association contract where the numbers top out at $36,500.

Jamie How has become the poster-child for that school of thought having plummeted from No 6 on the central contracts list last year (retainer $144,000) to a Central Districts contract a year later.

Again multi-year deals create issues because if How was, for example, in the middle of a two-year deal and yet was not a serious consideration for selection, NZC would be paying somebody else match fees and touring allowances for his position, meaning they were effectively paying twice for one service.

Perhaps the simplest and most effective solution is to contract more players to NZC, perhaps 25 as they do in Australia, in the acknowledgement that with three strong forms of the sport, more players are likely to be called upon to play for New Zealand.

Mills said they will look into a number of options, including increasing the number of central contracts, when they begin negotiations for the new Collective Agreement at the end of the year (the current agreement expires on July 31, 2010).

"You always try to improve on what you're currently exists but we do not see any fundamental issues with what we have."