The number of overseas leagues clashing with the English summer has grown significantly in the last five years. English players have featured in leagues in India, Sri Lanka, the US, the Caribbean, the Cayman Islands and Zimbabwe this year, while a late start to the Pakistan Super League (PSL) will add to the logjam next season.
“The global landscape and how things are shifting there is obviously pretty important to our members – or at least, the top 20% of our membership, who go around playing global tournaments,” Mitchell said. “NOCs are always on the agenda as well, and how that’s going to look moving forwards.
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“It’s a challenge, isn’t it? That’s something we are going to have to work through. It’s a bit too early to say what that will look like by the time we get to April next year. The challenges are there. Obviously there’s a lot of tournaments that encroach onto our season now, and we have to work through that, possibly on an individual basis, to see how that aligns.”
Daniel Gidney, the Lancashire chief executive, said last month that NOCs and standard county contracts have been “diluted” over the last decade and criticised player agents, saying they “don’t care” about the Championship. Mitchell said he was “confused” by the criticism: “Some of that didn’t actually make sense, particularly around the NOCs.”
Instead, Mitchell predicted that counties will increasingly look to wield their power to ensure that the best English players are available throughout the season, rather than skipping Championship games in order to play overseas.
“At the moment, they’ve got the right to [deny NOCs] within the summer months – and actually, for some of the smaller competitions in the winter as well… They probably haven’t used their rights as much as they could have done, which is obviously to the benefit of some players when they do go away.
“It’s up to the counties, and their discretion… The global landscape is shifting so quickly and the game, players, counties, the ECB – we have to evolve with it and try to find the best fit that works for everyone.”
Mitchell said that the PCA’s other main focus during the English winter will be lobbying on the players’ behalf in a bid to resolve the long-running debate around the domestic schedule, with an ambitious aim to have a plan in place for the 2026 season by the start of next summer. “The debate needs to start pretty quickly, in truth,” Mitchell said.
“Counties ideally would like to know exactly what they’re playing for. If there are going to be any structural changes come 2026, they want to know what they’re playing for in ’25, I would imagine. It’s really challenging. There’s loads of moving parts in there, and ultimately, the counties will decide what they want the structure of the county season to look like.”
Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. @mroller98
Source: ESPN Crickinfo