Shane bond has apparently terminated his contract with New Zealand cricket to play for the rebel ICL.

The way his body was going, he would not have lasted long even otherwise.

Even in the past he has hardly been fit on a consistent basis. WHile he is (was) the main strike bowler for NZ, I do not believe his loss will be that great for NZ cricket becasue NZ played most matches without him anyway.

Rebel ICL ?????????

It's not the modern day version of World Series Cricket, over half the Australian's have signed for it with the Australian cricket boards approval.

Memories of the late 70's when we used to see the West Indies smash our WSC squad in the "supertests" then watch the same West Indies squad absolutely thump the living daylights out of the second graders (minus AB, Wood, Hughes, Thommo and Hoggy) that were what was left of our ACB contracted test team.

That's the IPL you're talking about. The ICL is a completely separate, unofficial league which only really has a whole heap of retirees.

A bit like Beach Cricket with Border, Gooch, Jones, Garner, Walsh etc ??

Yeah....except with real pitches, and more coverage in India than Beach Cricket ever got. And they have young Indian players in the sides too. Actually no, not like Beach Cricket

ICL was massive in India when it came around. It drew big crowds, and wide TV coverage on (I think) STAR Network. I remember sitting in my hotel room in Goa watching it thinking "If Tony Greig wasn't commentating, this would be fantastic!"

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The frustrating thing about this for me is that if you beleive Bond and player's association chairman Heath Davis than Bond signing for the ICL is not in breach of his current contract with New Zealand Cricket.
However I understand the ICC (at the bequest of the BCCI) have put pressure on NZC and other countries not to select players who signed with ICL. So really Bond has been forced away form playing with his country without actually doing anything wrong. The ICL were going to let him play for NZ when required.
He's also said he would have retired from test cricket had he stayed with New Zealand so I guess that makes his loss a little easier to swallow. NZ desperately need him fronting the attack in tests but are a bit more capable in one dayers of playing without him.
All in all at 32 Bond has to look to setting himself and his family up for the future so I don't blame him for taking a seven figure pay day to play 2020 a few weeks a year against other retirees and a bunch of junior cricketers. Good luck to him it's just a shame we only saw him in 16 tests.

Due to injuries and maybe other problems, Bond's international career never really took off, which is a pity for such a great bowler. Rather than ending on a poor note by signing up for some dubious moneyspinning outfit, he should retire gracefully and go back to being a cop.

Come on, he's reportedly going to earn $500,000 US for 2 months work. Working as a cop it would take him about 10-15 years to earn that money. With a young family I know what I'd choose.

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Well if it wasn't for your country poaching him to play in a mickey mouse event for stupid money he still would be playing test cricket.

Thanks India for ending the career of a high class player.