Oh boy, I'm definitely using this as a framework for something...This is an objectively good thing: if county cricket is to serve the interests of the England team then encouraging more players to seek loan opportunities can only be a good thing. It sucks a little bit for Prem Sisodiya who might have been looking forward to being the first-choice spinner at last, but not to worry.
I was thinking about how one might design a ruleset to encourage that the best players get the most game time rather than having counties who hoard all the best players to the extent that their hypothetical second team would beat the plurality of first teams (yes I'm obviously talking about Surrey). Ultimately I took inspiration from baseball when designing the following.
So naturally I war-gamed this a little bit. (All loans here are hypothetical)
- All counties should nominate an Active Rosterof 18 players.
- All players who are added to the Active Roster must remain on the Active Roster for a minimum of 28 days, unless they are transferred onto the Injured Reserves list.
- A team's Active Roster can include players who are on Indefinite Loan from other counties.
- A team's Active Roster can include no more than one player who is on Indefinite Loan from each other county.
- Any player who is added to their county's Injured Reserveslist must remain on the list for a minimum of 28 days to ensure players are not rushed back from injury.
- A player who is on their county's Injured Reserves list cannot be put out on Indefinite Loan until they are fit again.
- A player who is already out on loan can be placed on the Injured Reserve list of either their loan club or their parent club as agreed by both parties.
- Any player who is not on either the Active Roster or the Injured Reserves is available to be signed by another club on an Indefinite Loan. An Indefinite Loan can end for any of the following reasons:
- The player is added to his parent club's Active Roster for a minimum of 28 days.
- The player sustains an injury, and is added to his parent club's Injured Reserves for a minimum of 28 days.
- The club where he is on loan removes him from their Active Roster.
- A player who is out on Indefinite Loan cannot be selected to play against their parent club without the consent of their parent club.
Case Study 1 - Surrey
Active Roster
Injured Reserves
none that I'm currently aware of
Others
(on loan to Northamptonshire)
Big counties like Surrey might end up being obliged to send out a lot of their spare players out on loan. This is fine.
Case Study 2 - Northants
Active Roster
(on loan from Surrey)
Injured Reserves
Others
Teams like Northants could benefit from signing fringe players from bigger counties, while the England team might benefit from making sure the likes of Shoaib Bashir get game time.
(yes, for those interested, this is another teaser of something I was already planning)
