Jason Roy’s Stateside jaunt the inevitable endgame for cricket as we know it

‘The US jamboree is £300,000 for a fortnight of fun, as opposed to £70,000 for Roy’s entire England contract.’ Illustration: Matt Johnstone

There was something weirdly gripping about the sight of the Sky Sports punditry team reacting live on a deliciously sun-dappled Oval outfield to the news on Thursday that Jason Roy has accepted an offer to play in the new US-based T20 league, in the process ripping up the last few months of his England contract.

This is both something and nothing, a tell, a symptom, a creaking of the weather vane. Such has been the pace of change in the wider super-structure, cricket’s ossified old board-led calendar blown simply away by a series of pop-up leagues conjured out of the air on fumes and paychecks, that it already feels like an inevitability.