England Test head coach Brendon McCullum believes international boards, including the ECB, would be “completely naive” to assume their stars would turn down long-term franchise contracts.

McCullum feels the cricketing landscape is changing and the time is not far when several players will choose big money in T20 leagues across the world over playing for their countries.

“In the end, the game is going in a different direction,” McCullum told Senz Radio in New Zealand. “The last few years, there’s been a shifting of the sand somewhat around international cricket and we’d be completely naive to think that players would turn down huge amounts of money on long-term contracts for a lot less work in these T20 leagues because they should be playing international cricket.

“Those days are fast approaching to be over,” said McCullum, who stepped down as IPL side Kolkata Knight Riders’ head coach after he was offered the job to manage the England Test side.

McCullum opined that the boards will have to find a solution to the tricky issue as they cannot just allow their top cricketers to play only in the leagues while giving international cricket the short shrift.

“So, what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to work with these players, you got to work with these leagues and try and allow ideally players to have their cake and eat it too because you want your best players playing (international cricket),” he said.

“It’s not good enough to say. You know what if they don’t want to play international cricket for us, then bugger them... we’ll move on and find someone different, because as a spectator, you want to see the best players in the world representing their countries.

“I think you’ve got to work with them and that’s something which we’ll be challenged with.”

Written with PTI inputs

Bradburn Pak coach

Lahore: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Saturday confirmed former New Zealand cricketer Grant Bradburn’s appointment as the men’s national team’s head coach for two years.

The PCB also announced that former South Africa cricketer Andrew Puttick has signed a two-year contract as the batting coach of the men’s side while strength and conditioning coach Drikus Saaiman and physiotherapist Cliffe Deacon will continue to work in their roles.

Bradburn served as the head coach of the side during the recently-concluded home series against New Zealand on consultancy basis. He is well-versed about the strengths and challenges of the national side having previously served as fielding coach from 2018 to 2020 before he moved to the National Cricket Academy to work on development of coaches.

Prior to his roles in Pakistan, Bradburn worked as head coach of the Scotland men’s side.

Mickey Arthur will continue as team director.

PTI