Stop Blaming Alastair Cook or Dinesh Karthik. Cricket’s Broken Calendar is the Real Problem

Every few months, cricket finds itself having the same argument with different people.

This time it was Alastair Cook on one side and Dinesh Karthik alongside Mo Bobat on the other. The subject was Jacob Bethell, but the debate was much bigger than one young cricketer. It was about where a player’s loyalty should lie in modern cricket.

Cook argued that England should always come first. Karthik and Bobat countered that a professional contract is a professional contract, and players cannot simply walk away because they are not making the playing XI.

Social media instantly picked sides. Some labelled Cook outdated. Others accused Karthik and Bobat of putting franchise cricket ahead of international cricket.

The truth is that neither side is wrong. But neither side is addressing the real problem either.

The villain isn’t Cook. It isn’t Karthik. It isn’t the IPL. It isn’t the ECB.

It is cricket’s calendar.

Cook’s argument comes from a place every international cricketer understands.

He captained England for years. He knows what it means to wear the Three Lions. From his perspective, England were preparing for a crucial Test series while one of their most talented young batters was spending weeks sitting on the bench in the IPL.

His question was simple. How does that help English cricket?

Cook even pointed out that Bethell returned without significant match practice and didn’t score runs in the opening Tests. Whether the lack of cricket directly caused that is impossible to prove, but his broader concern remains valid.

International cricket has always been the pinnacle. National boards spend years identifying talent, investing in academies, paying central contracts and building players capable of succeeding at the highest level.

Naturally, they expect international commitments to take precedence. If England’s No. 3 batter is unavailable because he is tied up elsewhere, administrators are bound to be frustrated.

Cook is speaking for every national board that fears losing control over its best players. That concern is genuine.

Now look at it from Karthik’s perspective. Jacob Bethell entered the IPL auction voluntarily. Royal Challengers Bengaluru picked him. He signed a contract.

Once that contract is signed, the franchise has every right to expect the player to remain with the squad. 

Karthik made perhaps the strongest point during the debate. If every player who isn’t selected decides to leave midway through a tournament, no franchise competition can function.

Imagine a football club. A substitute cannot simply leave because he isn’t starting.

Imagine an NBA player demanding to return home because he has spent five games on the bench.

Professional sport simply doesn’t work that way. Squads exist for a reason. Injuries happen. Form changes. Opportunities arise overnight.

Phil Salt himself wasn’t guaranteed every game throughout his career. Neither was Virat Kohli during his early years. Being part of a squad is still fulfilling a contractual obligation. On that front, Karthik is absolutely right.

Mo Bobat’s point was equally compelling.He spoke about the learning environment. Even if Bethell wasn’t playing, he was sharing a dressing room with Virat Kohli, Josh Hazlewood, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and some of the world’s best players. That exposure matters.

Young footballers improve simply by training every day with elite professionals. Young NBA players develop by spending months inside championship organisations. Development isn’t limited to minutes played. Culture matters. Preparation matters. Standards matter.

Bobat’s argument wasn’t that the bench is better than playing county cricket. His point was that elite environments accelerate growth. There is evidence across sport that supports that thinking.

So where does that leave us?

With three intelligent cricket people arguing over a problem none of them created.

Because the real issue is this:

Why are players being forced to choose at all? That is the question cricket refuses to answer.

Football solved this decades ago. No one expects Real Madrid to release Jude Bellingham in the middle of the Champions League because England have a friendly.

There are defined international windows. There are defined club competitions. Everyone knows the calendar years in advance. Players never become villains for honouring contracts. Clubs never become villains for expecting availability. National teams never become villains for demanding commitment. The system protects everyone.

Cricket doesn’t.

Instead, every board protects its own tournament. The IPL has its window. The Hundred has its window. The SA20 has its window. ILT20 has its window. Major League Cricket has its window. The Caribbean Premier League has its window. The BBL has its window.

Then bilateral cricket is squeezed into whatever dates remain.

The result is constant conflict.

This fragmented scheduling model is becoming even harder because the same ownership groups are now operating across multiple leagues.

Reliance own Mumbai Indians in the IPL, MLC, SA20, ILT20 and The Hundred.

Knight Riders have teams across several countries.

Sun Group, GMR, RPSG, Delhi Capitals ownership, Lucknow ownership—almost every major IPL investor is becoming a global cricket brand.

That sounds exciting on paper. But the calendar makes it impossible.

A player could theoretically have obligations to franchises owned by different investors across four or five competitions inside one calendar year while also representing his country.

That isn’t sustainable. Eventually something has to give. Usually, it’s international cricket.

Cricket is trying to build a football-style club ecosystem without adopting football’s governance.

That’s the contradiction. Football doesn’t just have powerful clubs. It has FIFA. It has UEFA. It has continental confederations. It has globally recognised transfer windows.It has mandatory international release periods. It has regulations governing player movement.

Most importantly, everyone follows the same calendar.

Cricket has none of that.

The ICC is supposed to be the governing body, yet every major board effectively operates as an independent power centre.

India has one schedule. England has another. Australia another. Franchise leagues negotiate separately. Broadcasters negotiate separately. Boards negotiate separately.

The calendar becomes an annual compromise rather than a long-term blueprint. Imagine if cricket adopted a proper football model. Every year could have clearly protected windows. A fixed period for every franchise league and protected international windows for Tests, ODIs and ICC tournaments.

In that case, there won’t be any overlap, any negotiations every season, or any public arguments about loyalty.

Players would know exactly what commitments they are signing up for years in advance. Franchises could build squads without fearing withdrawals.

National boards could plan series with certainty. Broadcasters would know their inventory. Fans wouldn’t be forced to choose between competitions. Everyone wins.

Does that require sacrifices? Absolutely.

But those sacrifices shouldn’t come at the expense of ODI or Test cricket. If anything, those formats need greater protection than they receive today.

The problem isn’t bilateral cricket. The problem is a global calendar that lacks structure.

Football offers an important lesson here. The sport doesn’t thrive because club football is bigger than international football or vice versa. It thrives because FIFA has created a calendar where both coexist. Clubs know exactly when they’ll have their players. National teams know exactly when they’ll have theirs. Nobody is forced to choose between honouring a club contract and representing their country because those decisions have already been made by the calendar.

Cricket needs to adopt that governance model.

The ICC, together with its member boards, should establish fixed, non-negotiable windows for both international and franchise cricket. A protected IPL window. A protected SA20 window. A protected BBL window. A protected Hundred window. A protected MLC window. And equally protected international windows reserved for Test and ODI cricket, with bilateral series and ICC tournaments scheduled exclusively within those periods.

That doesn’t mean reducing the importance of bilateral cricket. In fact, it should make it more meaningful.

The World Test Championship already provides context to Test cricket. Build on it. Make every Test series part of a bigger narrative. For ODIs, strengthen the format around the World Cup and Champions Trophy by ensuring bilateral series contribute meaningfully to rankings, qualification and rivalries instead of feeling like standalone events squeezed into gaps in the calendar.

Players would no longer have to choose between a franchise and their country. Franchises would know exactly when their stars are available. National boards would stop fearing player withdrawals. Broadcasters could plan years in advance. Most importantly, fans wouldn’t be watching the same debate unfold every season with different names.

This is also why framing the conversation as “international cricket versus franchise cricket” misses the point entirely.

The two don’t have to compete.

International cricket creates the stars that franchises market to the world. Franchise cricket provides financial opportunities, raises playing standards and helps sustain the game’s economy. Neither survives in its current form without the other.

Cook wants England to remain the pinnacle. Karthik wants professional contracts to be respected. Bobat believes elite franchise environments accelerate a young player’s development.

All three are making valid points.

The problem is that cricket’s calendar forces those viewpoints into conflict.

Until the ICC starts governing the global calendar with the same authority FIFA governs football’s international windows, the Jacob Bethell debate won’t be the last.

It’ll simply be another player, another tournament and another impossible choice created by a system that still hasn’t decided how international cricket and franchise cricket are meant to coexist.

Football admittedly has one advantage that cricket doesn’t. It has only one format.

Whether it’s the Premier League, Champions League, La Liga or the FIFA World Cup, the sport remains fundamentally the same. Players aren’t switching between different versions of football every few weeks. The challenge is purely one of scheduling.

Cricket’s problem is far more complicated because it is trying to keep three formats alive simultaneously. Test cricket, ODI cricket and T20 cricket each demand different preparation, different skillsets and different windows in an already overcrowded calendar. On top of that, franchise cricket exists almost exclusively in the T20 format, while international cricket has the responsibility of preserving all three.

That makes the ICC’s role even more important than FIFA’s.

It’s not just about deciding when players represent their clubs and when they represent their countries. It’s about ensuring every format has a clearly defined place in the calendar. Test cricket cannot be treated like an inconvenience because it remains the sport’s ultimate examination. ODI cricket cannot simply be squeezed out because it still produces some of the game’s greatest tournaments. And T20 cricket, through franchise leagues, has become the financial engine that fuels the modern game.

The challenge, therefore, isn’t choosing one over another. It’s building a calendar where all three formats can coexist without constantly competing for the same players, the same broadcasters and the same weeks of the year.