I guess what would help is if that didn't happen.
If the calendar year was broken into 12 monthly blocks where you 'unlock' each block depending on your reputation (which could be form/overall record/achievements (e.g. being a part of title winning sides, man of the match performances). Each block containing a tournament of a certain standard.
Say a country has a six-month block for it's domestic season, your career in England would look like this:
View attachment 249584
Then your future pathways could open up like this:
View attachment 249588
Blue - an overseas domestic contract (although does any country really have overseas players other than England?)
Green - a low-level franchise tournament. For players who have had moderate success but their reputation is still low.
Bronzey/orangey - franchise tournaments where your reputation would be a littler higher or you have done well at green level
Silver - a very good reputation, this might be for when you've broken into the international side or excelled in a bronze level league
Gold level - IPL is the top tier tournament. Same as above; excelling at silver level or international. Starting as an Indian player would mean you access this quicker but still need to improve your reputation to become a regular in the team.
So as an English player:
You play the domestic season April - September (a good T20 Blast could mean an 100 deal instead of playing the one day cup).
You do poorly - you get no 'Southern season' offers
You do OK - you might get an overseas domestic contract for the Southern season or a Shpageeza Cricket League deal for the October block.
You do quite good - you might get an Mzsansi Super League (if that still exists) deal which covers two blocks/months.
You do REALLY well - you might get the BBL deal or PSL deal.
Then it follows on - SCL could open up BBL/BPL
MSL - could lead to BBL then PSL and so on
To expand the calander, in the Northern Season, I added in a few more tournaments that aren't in Cricket 19 and removed Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as domestic leagues. I've added their T20 franchises instead (when I get people asking me to make teams, I get loads for these and the Global T20 and T10 league - don't think anyone has ever asked about SL/Ban domestic).
An option to add an extra domestic league (to the starting 7) that has a basic 4-6 teams (e.g. North, South, East, West, Central) - this could be for any test nation (meaning bringing back the option Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Ireland career paths) - would be good.
You'd of course need to add in international blocks (and slots for ICC tournaments too). Adding 'Central Contracts' would good. And present another level of achievement. Could mean you can be more selective or have some benefits. E.g. an English domestic player that takes an IPL deal might receive a slight hit to their reputation for test cricket selection (because they are missing two months of the county championship) but if you have a central contract you wouldn't get that negative penalty.
It could also have scope to allow you to be a T20 mercenary and just follow that part of the calendar. You could, in theory, end up playing IPL, T20 Blast, LPL, CPL, MSL, BBL, PSL and no one day for first class cricket.
