Lancashire CEO applauds BCCI's 'fantastic prioritising' of domestic play

The BCCI directing its established players to participate in domestic cricket has been termed fantastic prioritising by Lancashires CEO Daniel Gidney who accused the English players agents for facilitating their foray into the lucrative franchise leagues at the expense of the traditional redball competitionGidney feels these agents threaten the future of the English County ChampionshipThe BCCI had mandated all international players except for seniors like Rohit Sharma Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah to play in tournaments such as Ranji and Duleep Trophy when they are not busy with national commitments the move highlighting the boards emphasis on the role of domestic cricketIn fact two of the younger stars Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan lost their annual BCCI retainership contracts for skipping domestic events at the expense of IPL While Kishan despite repeated feelers didnt play a single Ranji game Iyer did play during the knockout stage including finalThis decision by the BCCI found many takers including Gidney one of crickets longestserving chief executiveImagine a governing body BCCI actually saying that out loud That was fantastic prioritising Gidney was quoted as saying by The GuardianCalling the agents the main threat to the future of the English County Championship the Lancashire CEO said they dont care about the county gameWe need to have more of an open conversation Coaches get blamed administrators get blamed but if you want to blame anybody blame agents Gidney said on the sidelines of a match between Lancashire and Somerset at Old Trafford He added I think the game as a whole needs to come together to find a way to support the championshipEngland players dont have to play in the championship agents dont care about the championshipAlso ReadAshwinrsquos wizardry renders Bangladesh helplessAccording to Gidney increasing the players remuneration could be of helpMore prize money would help and I think we need to find a way of paying four or five players a lot more money Instead of GBP 8000090000 being the top domestic salary we need to find a way of paying GBP 200k and saying part of that deal is that you dont play franchise cricketGidney called for a cap on franchise participation to protect firstclass cricket but made it clear that he is not against players earning good money from playing in the T20 leaguesThey have a career Im not begrudging their ability to earn money but the balance has tipped When the bottom rung of the Hundred is what a rookie would earn in the championship who among us would turn down earning more money for less workEarlier this year BCCI secretary Jay Shah had asked all centrallycontracted India players to turn up for matches in domestic cricket and warned that nonparticipation could lead to severe implicationsWith agency inputs