The Cricket Australia (CA) Board endorsed changes to the definition of an Overseas Player for Australian domestic competitions at a meeting today. The changes are designed to allow Australian players who have dual passports to play in more than one (ICC full member) domestic competition.
Phil Jaques currently represents Yorkshire on a British passport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
CA wants as many quality cricketers playing in its domestic competitions as possible. These changes will allow Australian players with dual passports to play first-class cricket in more than one country.
A number of Australian-qualified cricketers currently playing in ECB competitions in particular are doing so as a local player, meaning if they play in Australia during the summer they need to do so as an overseas player to retain their ECB eligibility.
However, CA’s current overseas player definition prevents someone born in Australia, or holding a valid Australian passport, from qualifying to play here as an overseas player. Changes approved today will ensure state associations and BBL teams will be able recruit Australian players without them having to give up their eligibility to play overseas as a local player. It will remove the burden on these players to choose which domestic competition to play in.
Middlesex’s Sam Robson is now free from having to choose between New South Wales and Middlesex, making eligible for both England and Australia.
A number of other cricketers had given up their first-class careers in Australia to play as locals in England. The likes of Michael Hogan (West Australian and Glamorgan), Phil Jaques (New South Wales and Yorkshire) and Sam Hain (Queensland and Warwickshire) may now play in the Sheffield Shield, limited overs and Big Bash League competitions as domestic players.
James Buttler
As the editor of World Cricket Badger he is intent on building the website to give quality coverage of the domestic game around the world.
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