Heath Mills: NZ Cricket Players Association CEO on Kane Williamson turning down a central contract

New Zealand Cricket Players Association boss Heath Mills is adamant athletes will keep having to choose between club and country until the global calendar is aligned. 

Kane Williamson has joined a growing list in turning down a central contract to pursue the overseas T20 dollar but will still be available to a large extent for the Black Caps across all formats. 

Mills says each national board and T20 league design their own schedules independently, rather than collaborating. 

He told Mike Hosking that until they come together and agree on a programme that makes sense, then players are going to have to make these sort of decisions. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Caine Williamson as I'm sure you're well where by now
stepping down as captain, turn down a heavyweight contract for
a casual one, is going to look for some income
in those overseas T twenty leagues next year. Now the
Players Association boss Heath Mills is with us on this morning, mate,
Good morning, Mike. Is this bolt but better handled? Sort of?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Possibly? Yes, I think that's fair to say. I think
when Trent first he accepted the contract a couple of
years ago and then had the opportunity to go and
play in the Ilt League and the UAE, and that
was pretty new, it probably not handled that well by
all of us. But we're now really have a good
system in place, I think where we have a casual
international playing agreement and you know caters for the situation

(00:39):
where some of our players are very compelling, you know,
players for overseas leagues and T twenty leagues and we've
got the opportunity now for them to go and play
in these leagues. But we'll still play for New Zealok.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
For if you're a Kane Williamson, why wouldn't you need
to set your family up? And if there's money in
India or the Caribbean whatever, then go.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
For them absolutely right. I mean as well we all
over the world where you know, we all need to
pay the bills and in our players that have huge
opportunities now. And I think part of this issue that
we have as stems from the fact that there's there's
not a coherent global schedule. We have international cricket colliding
with franchise T twenty cricket all around the world now
because the national boards haven't come together in the Greeder

(01:20):
program that made sense where you had windows for T
twenty leagues or windows for international cricket. So this is
just a symptom of that bigger problem. And we saw
it last year when the South African side since the
best players stayed at home to prioritize playing in their
T twenty CMP rather than come here and play a
two series in New Zealand. So that's a bigger problem
at play here.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
I've got I've got tremidia sympathy for your argument. It's
sort of like North South rugby as well. But when
you're dealing with millionaires who own stuff, they will do
it the way they couldn't give them monkeys about you,
heath or anything. Else apart from their own competition.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I do feel that at times might don't worry. But
what I would say if it was that National boards though,
if you own and run a lot of these T
twenty competition is like the South African one other big
BESH league, So these are actually run by the national boards,
so they're actually competing with themselves, which is the first
thing about us where you have they're trying to run
a team eleven months of the year international program whilst

(02:13):
at same time playing TEA twenty franchise competitions, trying to
get the best players in the will to play them.
So until the issue, until they come together in a
greer program that makes sense his context and meaning his
room for both, then we're going to have players making
these sorts of decisions. And indeed, as we saw last year,
national boards sending effective b r C teams and play

(02:33):
international cricket. No one wins out of that.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
No, that is true, Keith Heath go well, appreciate it.
Good catch up, Heath Mills You Zealand Cricket Players Association.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
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Speaker 1 (02:45):
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