{"id":813835,"date":"2026-07-21T06:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813835\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T06:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:47:15","slug":"auctions-expectations-and-what-price-loyalty-life-as-a-t20-franchise-cricketer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813835\/","title":{"rendered":"Auctions, expectations and what price loyalty? Life as a T20 franchise cricketer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletic\u00a0has launched a Cricket WhatsApp Channel. Click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0to join.<\/p>\n

James Coles sat in his flat in Hove, curtains drawn, watching TV as his price went up and up. Once the spiralling had stopped, London Spirit had made him the most expensive player in The Hundred, at \u00a3390,000 ($524,600) for a month\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pretty relaxed at first but then, as it got higher, I started jumping around on my own while my phone pinged with more and more messages,\u201d the Sussex batter tells The Athletic<\/a>. \u201cI started off hoping I wouldn\u2019t go too cheaply and ended up in floods of tears.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Dani Gibson, at that time on the periphery of the England women\u2019s team, suffered from \u201cimposter syndrome\u201d when she tried to get her head around being bought for \u00a3190,000, the highest sum paid to any English woman, by Sunrisers Leeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d just arrived in South Africa with England and I was watching it in my hotel room,\u201d Gibson told The Hundred Pop-Up<\/a>. \u201cMy team-mates heard my screams. The first person I called was my dad. There were no words from him, just tears. Lots of tears.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dani<\/p>\n

\n Dani Gibson was bought by Sunrisers Leeds for \u00a3190,000 (Ashley Allen\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Welcome to the modern world of the cricket auction, a franchise phenomenon introduced by the biggest and richest competition of them all, The Indian Premier League (IPL), in 2008 and replicated for the first time this year by The Hundred in England<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For context these are sums players \u2014 essentially county cricketers \u2014 could never have dreamed of, at least not until the dramatic rise of T20 cricket over the last 20 years. It is a different and occasionally random way of recruiting players and one that sees Coles and Gibson, not to mention other well-paid recruits, in far greater focus when the competition begins, under new private ownership, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

No one knows the vagaries of an auction better than Ravi Bopara, the most experienced franchise player in world T20 \u2014 and now 100-ball \u2014 leagues and a batting all-rounder who has played for more clubs than he can remember. The Athletic counted 27 on top of his 13 Tests, 120 one-day internationals and 38 T20 internationals for England.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s less excitement in the draft system because you know exactly what you\u2019re going to go for and you can kind of tell where you might end up,\u201d Bopara tells The Athletic. \u201cBut the anticipation and butterflies in your stomach at an auction are something else. There\u2019s always a chance you\u2019re not going to be picked up at all and that can be tough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst thing is when your name is called out and nobody puts their padel up. You think: \u2018Oh no, come on. Please somebody pick me.\u2019 Then when eventually someone puts it up you just think: \u2018Thank God.\u2019 If you get picked up at your base price at least you\u2019re there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ravi<\/p>\n

\n The Northamptonshire Steelbacks are one of the 27 teams for whom Ravi Bopara has played (Stu Forster\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

But, as in the cases of Coles and Gibson, for players who are considered a little below the top international bracket at this stage of their careers, a bidding war at an auction can change their lives and propel them to a completely new level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been on both sides,\u201d says Bopara, whose highest price in an auction was the \u00a3310,000 paid for him by Kings XI Punjab in the 2009 IPL. \u201cOnce you are picked up it can spiral. It can become a mind game. A club who were trying to wait to get you at the back end have to bid when someone else comes in and then it can go higher and higher. Then for some it can become life changing. It is an amazing feeling when you get picked up for more than you expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019ve also remained unsold and, the first and second times that happens, it\u2019s a really bad feeling. I thought I was a wanted cricketer and then all of a sudden no one is bidding for you and it\u2019s difficult. It\u2019s a massive wake up call.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re on the phone to your county coach or whoever you trust, saying: \u2018Right, we\u2019ve got to work on a few things to make sure it doesn\u2019t happen again.\u2019 You can either think \u2018I\u2019ve got to try to get better\u2019 or you go the other way and lose all confidence. That can happen. I\u2019ve seen it happen to a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest problem Coles, who was picked in the England T20 and ODI squads to face India this month without playing, may have is the increased pressure and expectations that come with a bigger salary than many experienced international players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe owners will look at you and think: \u2018We need you to perform now\u2019,\u201d says Bopara. \u201cThat goes for your team-mates too. Sometimes that can be difficult to deal with.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go for a high price tag you know that eyes are going to be on you and people are talking about you. You know the opposition are talking about you and maybe even your own players are talking about you. You\u2019re expected to perform to that level. If you\u2019re the most expensive player in the league people expect you to be the best player in the league, but it doesn\u2019t always work out like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes some really good cricketers are not paid what they\u2019re worth just because of how it works out, but once you\u2019ve got a price tag people expect you to deliver. I\u2019ve seen players go for a million quid, perform nowhere near what a million-pound player should do, and then go unsold the following year. It\u2019s like hero to zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can have an average season after being signed for a lot of money and then everyone writes you off. All of a sudden there\u2019s so much negativity around your name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

\n James Coles will be a marked man in The Hundred (Dan Istitene\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The big question is whether, in an ever-changing franchise scene, players actually feel any sense of loyalty and identity with the teams they are signed by, even if it is for big money? Or do they become sporting mercenaries who move on to the next pay cheque?<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up at Essex as a young boy and played for 20 years there,\u201d said Bopara, now 41, who retired this year to become a coach and commentator. \u201cIt was my home and family. When you leave there\u2019s tears and all sorts of emotions. When I left Essex I even thought: \u2018Do I really want to carry on playing?\u2019 I questioned my future when I made the move to Sussex and, for a while, I actually thought: \u2018No, I don\u2019t think I want to play anymore. If I can\u2019t play for Essex I don\u2019t want to play at all\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then I realised I didn\u2019t want to give up cricket, I loved it, and I could still offer so much more. But I decided not to put a white shirt on for anyone else. I gave up red-ball cricket and I didn\u2019t want to play first-class cricket for any other team. I had such an attachment to Essex. But with franchise cricket it\u2019s different.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve learnt is nobody\u2019s loyal, and that goes for owners as well as players. Basically if you don\u2019t perform you\u2019re not coming back next year. It doesn\u2019t matter how good a bloke you are, owners want results.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless you\u2019re a young player and they see you as an investment for the future it\u2019s pretty cut throat. If you don\u2019t perform they don\u2019t care about you, they\u2019re not signing you. They will replace you with somebody else and you end up somewhere else. That\u2019s the reality of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is hardly an environment to foster a sense of belonging that someone like Bopara clearly had for his native Essex.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a really good season for a franchise club you do get slightly more emotionally attached,\u201d he says. \u201cYou think: \u2018This is the team I want to play for, for the next however many years, as long as they still want me. I want to be here\u2019. But if you don\u2019t play well it can almost be a mutual thing. Both the player and the team accept that it\u2019s best to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ravi<\/p>\n

\n Ravi Bopara raises his bat after scoring his first Test century in 2009 (Emmanuel Dunand\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

So will those who, like Bopara, spend most of their time in franchises increasingly put the T20 leagues before international cricket?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a tough question,\u201d adds a man who once scored three centuries in consecutive Test innings for England. \u201cFrom a player\u2019s point of view there are so many opportunities and so many more chances to play on TV and in the big time now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more leagues there are the more opportunities those guys get. But if you want the highest level of cricket you might argue there should be fewer leagues and more emphasis on international cricket again. As a player I\u2019ve got to say the more opportunities the better. It\u2019s our dream to play and this gives more players the chance to realise those dreams and get paid for something we love doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to just play for your country to earn a good living now. You think \u2018I\u2019m a franchise player now\u2019 and you plan your moves accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic\u00a0has launched a Cricket WhatsApp Channel. Click\u00a0here\u00a0to join. James Coles sat in his flat in Hove, curtains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,11880,85],"class_list":["post-813835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-global-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}