Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland and counterparts from around the world are in Ireland for the Int'l Cricket Council's annual conference, with the "proliferation of Twenty20 leagues among the many posers" they will seek to solve, according to Rob Forsaith of the AAP. Sutherland and company will "debate the sport's problems" in Dublin. Harsher penalties for ball tampering and a points system for the new test championship are "likely to be rubber stamped" but much discussion will center on "how best to manage domestic T20 leagues." The new Global T20 has "proven a timely godsend" for banned Australian cricketers Steve Smith and David Warner but some of the other players in Toronto are the "faces of the challenge confronting administrators." Zimbabwe int'l Sikandar Raza's decision to play for the Montreal Tigers instead of representing his country against Australia "makes an awful lot of financial sense," especially given Zimbabwe Cricket has "yet to pay some players owed income that dates back almost a year." It underlines "some of the risks" involved with new T20 competitions "bobbing up all over the place," as Sutherland put it earlier this month. Sutherland: "They need to be managed and regulated in such a way that the best cricketers still want to play international cricket" (AAP, 6/28).
