Cricket news 2022: Australian Test captain Pat Cummins targeted by new cashed-up Indian subculture

Pat Cummins has become the target of an extraordinary secret threat to cricket’s establishment with the Aussie offered seven figure sums to defect.

Pat Cummins has become the target of an extraordinary secret threat to cricket’s establishment, with Australian administrators warned to heed the frightening wake-up call.

As if the Indian Premier League with its $8 billion television deal wasn’t a big enough danger, a new Indian subculture has emerged where state associations are creating cashed-up ‘city-based leagues’ which resemble mini-IPL’s.

Australian Test captain Cummins has been approached by more than one of these Indian city-based leagues, backed by local marketing contracts and their own broadcast rights deals, who are willing to pay superstar players $1 million plus contracts for cameo T20 appearances.

Neil Maxwell, a Cricket NSW board member and long-term advisor of Cummins, says Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association must move fast to sell elite players a vision for the future or risk losing control of their superstars.

Australian Test captain Pat Cummins in action against Pakistan. Picture: Aamir QURESHI/AFP

“I’m not saying Pat Cummins is going to accept a city-based competition or anything like that right now, because playing for Australia is far too important for him,” Maxwell told News Corp.

“But is it for Glenn Maxwell? Is it for Steve Smith? Is it for Dave Warner?

“For Pat Cummins to be approached by a city-based league and offered money that is proportionate to his Cricket Australia contract is just mind-boggling.

“The game needs to address that, proactively.

“I’m urging Cricket Australia and the ACA (the players’ association) to have a five-10 year plan of what we’re going to do in order to control our market and fit into a global competitive landscape.

“The really important part here is selling a vision to your players. To protect the game here, we have to provide a vision for this generation and the next.

“You cannot be thinking about the next 12 months anymore without thinking about the next 10 years.”

For years, leading players asked Cricket Australia for the security of three-year contracts, but were only given one-year deals in the knowledge there was nowhere else for players to go.

Under new high performance boss Ben Oliver, CA does now offer multi-year contracts.

But the balance of power in cricket has flipped to the point where you might ask why a player would now want to lock themselves into a long-term central contract, when the earning opportunities available to them overseas have exploded.

Cummins has featured for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL.

“Where does a Glenn Maxwell play for the next five years? Who is looking at that?” asks Maxwell.

“And how do we make sure that is maximising the revenues and potential of Australian cricket, not (for example) the Gujarat Cricket Association’s, regional, city-based competition?

“There’s this proliferation of T20 leagues, both international, domestic and then regional and that’s going to change the dynamic of the game because there’s going to be so much competition for what is effectively a very small labour market – the players.

“Cricket has to be ahead of this changing landscape and not react to it.”

Maxwell says cricket has been a rarity in the global sporting market in that country versus country competition has long been its main money driver.

However, it’s clear the game is evolving, and the pressure is on administrators to ensure control is not lost to the franchise revolution and that international cricket can benefit from the new world order, and not suffer as a result of it.

Glenn Maxwell playing in the IPL in 2018. Picture: AFP PHOTO/Dibyangshu SARKAR

“The International Cricket Council openly admits that it is an events management company now. That is a danger of Cricket Australia that we fall into that path,” said Maxwell, who is a leading advocate for private equity and investment being harnessed as an asset in Australian cricket.

Maxwell believes the game’s administration needs to open itself up to new ideas from outside cricket and bring in bright minds from the world of marketing and social media to provide a fresh outlook.

“We have to be a pro-active marketer and promoter and developer and inspirer of the game,” he said.

“The ACA has a huge role to play in that as well and must look at this on behalf of players, because it runs the risk of not being relevant.

“The system as a whole is at a crossroads and a huge crossroads, yet we’re still reacting.

“Someone has to have an eye on the world stage because federated models are extremely antiquated.”

Originally published as Cricket news 2022: Australian Test captain Pat Cummins targeted by new cashed-up Indian subculture