{"id":926041,"date":"2026-10-13T00:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926041\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T00:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:56:11","slug":"cricket-2026-zak-crawley-misses-out-on-england-central-contract-39-players-signed-with-11-on-two-year-deals-30-million-spent-latest-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926041\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket 2026: Zak Crawley misses out on England central contract, 39 players signed with 11 on two year deals, $30 million spent, latest news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Discarded England opener Zak Crawley has received another setback in his bid to turn his international career around, missing out on a central contract as the ECB unveiled an unprecedentedly long list.<\/p>\n

A whopping 39 players have earned contracts \u2013 nearly a tenth of the nation\u2019s professional cricketers \u2013 with Crawley\u2019s opener replacement Emilio Gay and resurgent seamer Ollie Robinson among previously uncontracted players to earn a deal.<\/p>\n

Captain Joe Root and stars Harry Brook, Jofra Archer and Jacob Bethell are among 11 players who have been given two-year contracts, while nine of the 39 are on development deals.<\/p>\n

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Watch Australia\u2019s Tour of South Africa Live & Exclusive on Fox Cricket, available on Kayo Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The list includes players from all three formats, with forgotten spinner Mason Crane, who played his one and only Test in Australia in the 2017\/18 Ashes, earning a development contract.<\/p>\n

However, there was no room for Crawley, who hasn\u2019t featured at Test level since England\u2019s disastrous tour of Australia last summer.<\/p>\n

The much-maligned 28-year old averaged just 27.3 for the series, including a pair in the first Test in Perth, and was dropped from the team for home series against New Zealand and Pakistan following a poor start to the County Championship.<\/p>\n

Among the poster boys for \u2018Bazball\u2019, Crawley had previously played all but three Tests under Brendon McCullum\u2019s four-year tenure as coach, memorably hitting Pat Cummins for four off the first ball of the 2023 Ashes.<\/p>\n

Zak Crawley walks off after being dismissed during the Boxing Day Test. (Picture: Michael Klein)Source: News Corp Australia<\/p>\n

He ended that series as England\u2019s top run-scorer, but a record of just five centuries in 64 Tests at an average of 31.18 appears to have his cards marked.<\/p>\n

Among those snubbed for the multi-year option were opener Ben Duckett and wicketkeeper Jamie Smith, with England\u2019s managing director of men\u2019s cricket Rob Key saying he hoped the decision would provide a catalyst to get both back to their best after recent lean runs of form.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel this is the best thing that gets the best out of those guys,\u201d Key told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

Exiled quick Brydon Carse will serve out the second year of his two-year deal despite being pushed out of the Test squad following a nightclub incident that saw him escorted from the venue in handcuffs in August.<\/p>\n

Crawley is one of five players on the previous contract list to miss out on a new deal, alongside retired duo Ben Stokes and Mark Wood.<\/p>\n

All up, the ECB will pay \u00a316 million ($A30m) worth of contracts over the next year, with a deal struck between the governing body and the Team England Player Partnership preventing funds being banked.<\/p>\n

The retirements of Stokes and Wood, both on reportedly lucrative contracts, allowed the significant expansion to the list.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a generation, England central contracts have morphed from a slim 12-man unit, designed to give shape and continuity to the Test team, to a broader group,\u201d former great Michael Atherton wrote in The Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost one in ten of the entire professional cohort \u2014 39 players in all \u2014 has some kind of contractual relationship with the ECB rather than, or as well as, their county.\u201d<\/p>\n

FULL ENGLAND CONTRACTS LIST<\/p>\n

Two-year deals: Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Sonny Baker, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Harry Crocombe, Jordan Cox, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Joe Root, Josh Tongue.<\/p>\n

One-year deals: Rehan Ahmed, Tom Banton, Shoaib Bashir, Jos Buttler, Brydon Carse, Sam Cook, Liam Dawson, Ben Duckett, Matthew Fisher, Emilio Gay, Dan Lawrence, Saqib Mahmood, Jamie Overton, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Adil Rashid, Ollie Robinson, Phil Salt, Jamie Smith.<\/p>\n

Development deals: James Coles, Mason Crane, Josh Hull, Eddie Jack, Ben McKinney, Liam Patterson-White, Thomas Rew, Matthew Revis, Mitch Stanley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Discarded England opener Zak Crawley has received another setback in his bid to turn his international career around,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-926041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926041","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=926041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}