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Heinrich Klaasen on the rampage before he quit international cricket.Credit: AP<\/p>\n
Last year, Head and Cummins both played in the IPL and the American Major League Cricket tournament either side of that year\u2019s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean. Head told this masthead that he had wanted to experience what it was like to play franchise cricket more intensively.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played MLC to get a taste of what it would be like to play franchise cricket,\u201d Head said. \u201cI had IPL into a World Cup into MLC, so I wanted to see what it was like to basically play four months of franchise cricket.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to have every option available to you, you want to experience things and understand how things operate. A lot of people are making certain decisions around the world, and it was a perfect opportunity for me to understand that and see what it was like for whenever the time comes for what I may or may not do in the future.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhether I could do it, whether I liked it, whether I was good at it. I hadn\u2019t played a lot of T20 cricket for a period of time, so get back into that. It was a perfect time in my life [to do that], then that time moves past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, Head has decided that he will concentrate on playing in the IPL and the BBL when available, while extending his international career for as long as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently I\u2019m playing for Australia, and I don\u2019t see a timeline where I can play anything [else] really,\u201d Head said. \u201cThe IPL takes a big chunk of things, and I want to commit, as much as I can, to Australia. I missed a tour in the West Indies for some rest, which I needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIdeally, I wouldn\u2019t want to do that, but in the current situation we\u2019re in, we need to plan the year out. If I\u2019m missing cricket for Australia, I\u2019m not going to fill in games in the MLC or the Hundred [in the UK].\u201d<\/p>\n
Head defended the rights of players, such as Klaasen, to drop out of international cricket, and said that not all players viewed national duty with the same reverence.<\/p>\n
![\"Travis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/d7432c9e1004b42b5a64f86bbf6f5ccd471d086c.jpeg\")
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Travis Head in action.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent a lot of time with Klaasen over a period of time while he was making decisions,\u201d Head said. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any written rule on what you should or shouldn\u2019t play or what you should or shouldn\u2019t give up. There\u2019s an idea on what people should think, and what they should do.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying international cricket is the pinnacle. A lot of people hold it so high in regard, but some people don\u2019t. People have got to respect that there\u2019s no one way to go about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people would give their left nut to play international cricket, and that comes from someone who\u2019s played a lot of cricket or someone who\u2019s played none, who wants to do it. So when someone gives up that opportunity it\u2019s \u2018why are you doing it?\u2019 But there\u2019s a reason, and you\u2019ve got to respect that.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhat\u2019s happening in the world at the moment is people have opportunities to make those decisions, which we\u2019ve never had [before]. So it\u2019s hard to knock someone who is making a decision in their own personal state and trying to get job satisfaction. Fair play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klaasen recently said he thought bilateral 50-over cricket would need to disappear from the calendar in the future to create room for other formats.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the only change that I will make is probably take [bilateral] one-day cricket away from international cricket,\u201d he told Cricbuzz. \u201cMake it more Test matches for teams that don\u2019t play a lot of Test matches. Play more T20 cricket because that\u2019s what the people want to see. You can keep your one-day world cups, and just maybe a month before the one-day World Cup starts, you play five games for every team, just to get used to that format.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they don\u2019t take care of the international players, they will go out and go to the leagues to make some extra cash. If you look at the Aussies and the England boys, they get looked after well, so they don\u2019t need to go around the world and go play all these leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n