Former India international Sunil Gavaskar has suggested that prominent T20 players should be restricted to playing in only three leagues.

Ex-India international and television commentator Sunil Gavaskar has suggested that players should restrict the T20 franchise leagues they participate in to three a year.

Writing in his column for Sportstar, Gavaskar gave his opinion on the recently-concluded season of Major League Cricket, the second in the league's history. Gavaskar was present at the tournament on commentary duty.

Gavaskar: MLC international stars seemed a little casual

"The Major League Cricket, where I had the pleasure of commentating, has a new winner, with the Washington Freedom franchise winning the trophy. For some reason, the crowds were not quite there this time around," he wrote.

"Maybe it was viewer fatigue because of the ICC T20 World Cup preceding the tournament. The cricket was also not of the same high quality as last year. Maybe, because there were too many ordinary players there. The international stars who play in various T20 leagues around the world also seemed a little casual."

Gavaskar took the chance to put forward a solution to his perceived casual attitude of the star overseas players: "This makes one feel that while nobody wants the players’ source of income to be curbed, it is worth considering if players should be restricted to playing in, say, three leagues.

"The whole world agrees that the IPL is the best and most competitive tournament because of the talent pool it attracts from all over the world. So maybe a player should be restricted to the IPL and two other leagues of his choice."

Interestingly, Gavaskar's comments come soon after a meeting between the BCCI and IPL team owners, at which the franchise owners sought to crack down on overseas players pulling out of the tournament despite being picked in the auction, reportedly suggesting a two-year ban if they pull out without a good reason (injury or international/family commitments).

What are the existing restrictions in place?

Franchise T20 leagues have been in the spotlight recently, as the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) denied no-objection certificates to centrally-contracted players Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Shah Afridi to take part in the Global T20 league in Canada. Saim Ayub and Azam Khan have also not been given NOCs for the Caribbean Premier League.

The PCB has a formal policy written into players' central contracts, that they are allowed to play only in the Pakistan Super League, and two further franchise leagues in a given season.

The BCCI is another board that imposes restrictions on its players. India men's players are not allowed to participate in overseas franchise T20 leagues, unless they retire and forego the chance to participate in the IPL. However, India women's players have taken part in the Women's Big Bash League, the Women's Hundred and Women's Caribbean Premier League, to name a few.

The reason for this policy is believed to be that the presence of Indian players in the IPL makes it unique, and increases the value of the product overall. Most other cricket boards do not place such blanket restrictions on their players.

There have been increasing calls of late for a governing body such as the ICC, to introduce centralised regulations for franchise T20 leagues to ensure better coordination and manage players' workloads and movements better.

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