Pat Cummins, Travis Head offered USD 10 million to quit Australia cricket

Published - 08 Oct 2025, 11:06 IST | Updated - 08 Oct 2025, 11:20 IST

Australian captain Pat Cummins and star batter Travis Head have reportedly rejected lucrative offers worth nearly USD 10 million each to quit international cricket and commit full-time to franchise-based T20 leagues around the world. The informal approach, allegedly made by an Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise group, was to lure the duo into joining a global T20 network spanning leagues in India, the UAE, the USA, and the Caribbean.

The popularity of franchise cricket has changed the cricketing economy. IPL team owners have expanded themselves by acquiring franchises across multiple leagues, such as SA20, ILT20, Major League Cricket (MLC), CPL, and The Hundred. These leagues provide players with multi-million-dollar contracts, most of the time exceeding the salaries provided by their respective national boards.

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Notably, top Australian cricketers under Cricket Australia (CA) contracts reportedly earn around AUD 1.5 million (approx. INR 8.7 crore) annually. However, Cummins, as national captain, earns close to AUD 3 million (INR 17.5 crore), while his IPL contract with Sunrisers Hyderabad fetches him an additional USD 3.7 million (INR 18 crore). Head, also part of the same IPL franchise, earns about USD 1.2 million (INR 14 crore).

Both Cummins and Head have shown their passion for representing Australia across formats. Head revealed he has no plans to leave international cricket despite the temptations of franchise wealth.

“I played MLC to get a taste of what it would be like to play franchise cricket. I had IPL in a World Cup into MLC, so I wanted to see what it was like to basically play four months of franchise cricket. You 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. Whether I could do it, whether I liked it, whether I was good at it. I hadn’t 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. Currently, I’m playing for Australia, and I don’t see a timeline where I can play anything else, really,” Head told the Sydney Morning Herald.