With T20 franchise cricket leagues gaining vast popularity, Cricket Australia (CA) is likely to suffer a massive setback with several key players looking to prioritise overseas T20 leagues over their domestic Big Bash League (BBL). According to a recent report by the Sydney Morning Herald, a few senior cricketers, including the likes of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, and others, might look to play the South Africa T20 league – SA20 – in January 2028.
This comes with players finding out about the crunch in salary contracts in the BBL over the global franchise-market standards. The report has claimed that several of these to Aussie stars believe that their value is close to $1 million, which is far beyond the current BBL offers they are under. As a result, they are inclined to opt for SA20 deals over BBL contracts in the January 2028 window.
Although, CA has declined to comment on the prospective SA20 offers, but Head of Cricket James Allsopp made it clear which players are in demand. Addressing the media last week, James Allsopp said, as quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald, “The two priorities, in my mind, are making sure multi-format players that drive a lot of commercial value, and also performance value for the team, are well looked after, and we can compete with those market forces.”
While admitting that these players continue to remain in high demand, he added, “There’s a world now, where they can jump on the franchise circuit and make really good living away from Australian cricket, or even away from our BBL, and that’s not going to be in the best interests of Australian cricket.”
Pat Cummins refutes reports of The Hundred offer
While the report also revealed the Aussie pace trio of pat Cummins, Josh Halzewood and Mitchell Starc being approached with The Hundred offers, it added that they rejected them due to Australia’s test series against Bangladesh in August. However, later in the day, the Aussie skipper himself took to X and confirmed the news to be completely false.
In a post on X, he wrote, “Everything you’ve written about me in this about SAT20 NOC and The Hundred offer is made up.” While clarity around it is still awaited, this summer’s BBL is set to be severely affected by a concurrent Australian Test tour of India, which is scheduled to be played from January 21 till March 3, 2027.
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