The Hindu : Sport : Reject Buchanan’s suggestion: Astle

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Tuesday, Nov 20, 2007
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Reject Buchanan’s suggestion: Astle

Special Correspondent

Mumbai: Nathan Astle, who represented the Black Caps in 81 Tests and 222 one-day internationals said that former Australian coach John Buchanan’s suggestion to make world cricket franchise-based should be rejected.

“I played for New Zealand with pride and passion. One can play county cricket in England and also represent teams in competitions like the ICL’s T20 in India, but not for another country,” said Astle, after a training and practice session at the Western Railway ground here on Monday.

Astle has signed a two-year contract with ICL and will represent Mumbai Champs in the six-team competition that will begin at Chandigarh on November 30.

Buchanan had urged the International Cricket Council to convert world cricket into a franchise-based system, allowing players the liberty to pick the country they want to represent in order to make international cricket more competitive.

Recruit youngsters

“Countries should look to recruit young players from Australia and India to increase their depths of talent.

Those players would enhance the domestic competition and hopefully go on to play Test cricket for the country they move to. We don’t want cricket to become like a horse race when the favourite wins all the time. No-one will want to watch,” Buchanan had said.

No offer from IPL

Astle, who has scored over 11,000 runs with 27 centuries in Tests and one-day internationals for New Zealand, said that he did not receive an offer from the BCCI promoted Indian Premier League (IPL). “I think lot of Indian first class cricketers, especially the youngsters will benefit by playing with Brian Lara, Chris Cairns, myself and other professional cricketers.”

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