Daily Times

Ricky Ponting has called for a limit on the number of Twenty20 leagues international players can appear in annually to protect Test cricket from further decline.

The Australian legend has added a second coaching job to his ever-expanding workload, signing to lead Washington Freedom in the US-based Major League Cricket. Despite being heavily involved in T20 franchises, Ponting still wants to see international cricket thrive.

“Certain countries have got limits on how many competitions their players can play in, and I actually think that’s not a bad model,” Australia’s all-time leading run-scorer said in Melbourne on Wednesday. “That protects the country from international availability for their players and still allows individuals to go out and make money outside their international commitments.

“It is going to be the biggest challenge for the game going forward, how we manage the growth of these domestic competitions and slotting them all in with international duty and even overlapping one another.

“Our little window (in Australia) is just being gobbled up more almost every year to the point with the BBL finals this year where most of the overseas and better players are not playing in the BBL to fill contracts elsewhere.”

South Africa sent an under-strength and inexperienced squad to New Zealand for a two-Test series after the country’s board demanded its best players play in the SA20 instead. New Zealand Cricket were unable to reschedule the series to a time that suited the South African board, leading the Proteas to field an unrecognisable XI in Mount Maunganui.

The Proteas were smashed by 281 runs in the opening match and seem destined to lose their first red-ball series against the Black Caps since the nations started playing Tests against each other back in 1932.

The Proteas’ side in New Zealand was stripped of virtually all its first-choice players by the concurrent scheduling of the South Africa T20 league and the inability of the two boards to find an alternative window to play the Test series.

“We all had grave fears for it as soon as we saw that time of year that the SA T20 was happening and then that Test tour programmed, we all expected that was the way it is going to be,” Ponting said.