What is the new ECB franchise league policy?

The ECB announced last week that they were making major changes to their NOC policy for the 2025 season. An NOC is a No-Objection Certificate, which is a document a player needs from their home board in order to play in overseas tournaments. While the ECB previously operated a liberal stance on the granting of NOCs, frustration has been brewing under the surface as more and more franchise leagues began to overlap with the English summer. Surrey, for example, used their right to withhold Jamie Overton's NOC to play in the PSL earlier this year, but with the overseas opportunities available to English players during the English summer on the rise, counties are in a precarious position when restricting their players' access to lucrative franchise league contracts.

With this in mind, the ECB announced that from 2025, they would no longer issue NOCs for tournaments which overlap with the English domestic summer, which runs from April to September. The leagues this would exclude players from include the PSL, which has a new window now running concurrently with the IPL, as well as Major League Cricket. The ECB will continue to issue NOC's for the IPL, for which 12 English players were picked up in the auction for next year's tournament.

The policy will also only apply to players who have provisions to play red-ball cricket in their contract, while white-ball specialist players will still be granted NOCs for tournaments during the English summer. This means players like Saqib Mahmood and Luke Wood, who are on white-ball only contracts with their counties but with 'pay as you play' clauses to feature in Championship cricket, will fall under the new policy's jurisdiction. This is aimed to stop players skipping the early rounds of the County Championship to play in the PSL.

The ECB have also announced that they will not issue NOC's for players to play in tournaments suspected of corruption. They will also not allow players to hop from tournament to tournament after early elimination. Thus, players will not be able to sign quick, short-term deals for an overlapping tournament if they are knocked out early from another one. This mostly happens at the busiest point in the franchise calendar early in the year, when the ILT20, SA20 and BPL are all in action.

Why is the policy controversial?

English cricketers have previously had relatively free access to the myriad of franchise leagues around the world. Non-centrally contracted players, who are not employed by the ECB, have been largely able to earn far more than their county contracts by supplementing their income in franchise leagues. At busy calendar points, it's almost impossible to track all of the English players involved in franchise leagues, with numbers of those involved at the same time somewhere between 50 and 100 at their peak.

Much of the controversy comes around a perceived double-standard over the ECB's stance towards the IPL. This policy will not apply to players with IPL deals, of which for 2025, Moeen Ali and Jamie Overton are the only two England players set to feature in the competition who is not centrally contracted. Despite those players being free to play in the IPL from March to May, players will not be allowed to play in the PSL which runs over the same period. This has been perceived as the ECB allowing their biggest name players to earn often huge amounts of money in the PSL, while not allowing others to fulfil lucrative PSL deals, many of which were already in the pipeline for next year. In addition, several IPL franchises are in the mix to buy shares in Hundred sides from the ECB, with the deadline for the second round of that process set to pass on Monday (December 9).

There is also controversy over inequalities over who the policy will affect. Players with white-ball only contracts with their counties, like Jason Roy and Alex Hales, will be free to ply their trade across the world while keeping their county contract. Players who have consistently turned out in the Championship will not. Saqib Mahmood, who has a 'pay as you play' red-ball agreement with Lancashire, could find himself not playing in the Championship in April, but not free to spend that time playing in the PSL.

In addition, English players who have already signed franchise contracts for next year could take a serious financial hit by no longer being able to fulfil them.

What are the players threatening?

It was reported in The Telegraph yesterday (December 6), that a group of around 50 players are considering boycotting next year's Hundred over the policy. This would see players collectively opting out of the Hundred retention process, and not entering the draft. However, in practice, such action might be unlikely, with pay rises reportedly ratified for next year's Hundred and, if the policy is enforced, that would cut off potentially English players' biggest earner for the year. Only a select group of English cricketers are likely to be able to earn a comparable sum to the top tier of Hundred salaries in overseas leagues outside of the IPL.

The players and their agents held a series of meetings with the Professional Cricket Association (PCA) last week, with the PCA now reportedly taking legal advice over the whether the policy would count as a 'restraint of trade'. There is also frustration from the players over communication on the policy from the ECB, and concerns that the policy lacks detail. Speaking in an interview with ESPNcricinfo, PCA chief executive Daryl Mitchell said there was "clear frustration at the lack of time given for consultation, discussion and debate" before the ECB announced the policy.

There is also overlap with wider issues in the English game. With Championship performance no longer cited as the gold standard for England selection, players are reportedly frustrated at the perceived hypocrisy of making them play the Championship over the PSL. The effect of this could be some players choosing to retire from red-ball cricket, signing white-ball only contracts for their counties to allow them to pursue franchise leagues more freely.

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