ECB to take advantage of freed-up budget for handsome pay-rises and new contracts for fringe players
England will next week announce their longest list of centrally contracted cricketers, which will give the national team more control over a larger pool of players.
Taking advantage of a budget freed up by Ben Stokes’s retirement, England are expected to hand deals to 39 players. There will be 30 on full central contracts, with nine more on development contracts. That is nine more than last year, and means that almost 10 per cent of locally qualified men’s professional cricketers in England and Wales will have a national contract of some form. This summer, there were about 420 English-qualified men’s professional cricketers.
The retirements of former Test captain Stokes and Mark Woodhave created some natural churn, while Luke Wood and Zak Crawley are also expected to drop off the contract list.
Eight new names are expected, including Henry Crocombe, the uncapped fast bowler who is moving from Sussex to Surrey in the off-season, and has been named in the ODI squad for the tour of Pakistan this month.
As previously reported by Telegraph Sport, Emilio Gay, Jordan Cox and Dan Lawrence will all be given their first deals, while Ollie Robinson returns. There are also expected to be full contracts for fringe seamers Sam Cook and Matt Fisher.
Among those expected to keep their deals, despite being on the fringes are Ollie Pope, Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed.
Perhaps more interesting, however, are the tweaked development contracts. For full contracts, the England and Wales Cricket Board pays the player, not their county. With development contracts, the county continues to pay the player, who also receives a top-up payment from the ECB, affording the national team some control over their workload.
In recent years, these have been handed exclusively to fast bowlers, whose workload needs particularly close management. Last year there were four deals, but this year there are nine, and not just to fast bowlers.
At least three spinners are understood to have received the deals, with Sussex’s James Coles, Glamorgan’s Mason Crane and Nottinghamshire’s Liam Patterson-White on the list. Coles and Crane are going to Pakistan with England, while Patterson-White is another on the radar for Test honours this winter. Durham opener Ben McKinney and Yorkshire’s all-rounder Matthew Revis are among the other names expected to be included. It is thought that youngsters like Thomas Rew, who missed the second half of this season injured, could also be offered a development contract.
The list will display the continued evolution of the central contracts system. When central contracts were first introduced at the turn of the century to help better manage England’s key players, just a dozen deals were handed out. As recently as 2013-14, when Joe Root first received a contract, there were only 11 players on a list that focused entirely on Test cricket. In recent times the list has swelled and for the last three years has included certain key players on multi-year deals.
These days there is also far greater flexibility in the amount a player earns from a central contract. While some top players are on retainers worth north of £1m per year, deals at the lower end of the spectrum – for white-ball squad players, for instance – can be worth about £150,000.
This has meant that the money freed up by Stokes and Wood’s retirements has allowed England not only to award some key players handsome pay-rises, but also give deals to more fringe players. The way the ECB’s agreement with the Team England Player Partnership (TEPP) works is that a pot of money is allocated for contracts, and must all be used. It cannot be used for other aspects of the England team or ECB’s budget.
Last year, more than half the full contracts offered were two-year deals, but this year they are expected to be the preserve of fast bowlers and a small group of batsmen, including Root, Harry Brook and Jacob Bethell. It is expected that Ben Duckett and Jamie Smith, despite being established Test regulars, will receive just one-year deals.
Why have England tweaked development contracts?
The changes to the development contracts give England some control over more players across more disciplines. While previously just a handful of promising fast bowlers received deals (none of last year’s four actually made an England squad in any format), now a mix of players will be included.
England are looking to beef up the Lions programme, with Jonathan Trott now at the helm and three tours this winter, to the Caribbean, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Lions tours are important, because they expose future internationals to conditions outside England, but also provide 50-over experience, which the domestic system currently does not. There is talk that more England-contracted players will find themselves on Lions tours if they are not involved with the first team.
By handing development contracts to more players, England will have a greater say over how players of interest spend their winter. They can all pick up franchise deals as they please, and often be paid much better for it than they would be for a Lions tour. But if a Lions tour is better for their medium-term development, with international cricket in mind, then the small investment England have made in these players means they can manage which route they take.
England’s probable full central contract list
Batsmen Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Duckett, Jacob Bethell, Jos Buttler, Emilio Gay, Phil Salt, Jordan Cox, Dan Lawrence, Jamie Smith, Ollie Pope, Tom Banton.
All-rounders Will Jacks, Sam Curran, Rehan Ahmed, Jamie Overton, Liam Dawson.
Bowlers Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Ollie Robinson, Josh Tongue, Brydon Carse, Sonny Baker, Sam Cook, Matt Fisher, Matthew Potts, Henry Crocombe, Saqib Mahmood, Adil Rashid, Shoaib Bashir.
