Trent Boult is still hanging around NZ cricket. 

Kind of hanging around.  

He hasn't got a central contact after walking from one last year. He hasn’t got one this year either, primarily due to his lack of availability when it really counts for NZC, because he’s off filling his coffers at various T20 leagues around the globe. Which is cool. He is quite within his rights to do so.  

He has been offered an interesting compromise, as he remains selectable when it suits him. I’d say it’s not when it suits him, it’s when it suits the Black Caps. He has a ‘casual playing agreement’. For a man who has given so much to the international game, and probably still can, it’s a marriage of convenience to his erstwhile employer.  

But convenient to who? Trent was also available when the test against England was on just up the road from his house earlier this year and the team was hobbled by injury. The selectors went with Tickner and Kuggeleijn, as Trent wasn’t fit enough in their eyes for test cricket because he’d just returned from the UAE T20 tournament. They don’t want Trent, they’re just stringing us along until the ODI World Cup. 

This contract is convenient to the both of them.  

There is something not quite right about this agreement. Are the details not being revealed for fear of setting an untenable precedent? 

This I believe is the only reason behind the secrecy surrounding Trent’s ‘casual playing agreement’.