Lancashire cancel 2020 deals with Watling, Maxwell, and Faulkner

Since the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, the England and Wales Cricket Board has postponed all cricketing events until May 28. Owing to that, many overseas county deals for the 2020 season have been cancelled. Over the past couple of weeks, New Zealand’s Matt Henry (Kent), Australia Nathan Lyon (Hampshire) and Michael Neser (Surrey) also had their contracts cancelled by their respective county teams. In the latest revelation, Lancashire have called off their deals with New Zealand’s BJ Watling and Australia Glenn Maxwell and James Faulkner. However, the board kept an option open to sign the trio during the 2021 season, according to Lancashire's director of cricket Paul Allott.

"I would like to thank BJ, Glenn, James and their representatives for their total understanding of the current situation and full agreement of this decision. These are clearly very uncertain and challenging times for all counties, both financially and operationally, and it's clear the issues we face at the moment will have an impact on the way we prepare for the domestic season. The overseas player situation is a policy that has been discussed nationwide and we think it's prudent to mutually come to an agreement with the players we had originally signed,” Paul Allott, as quoted by Cricbuzz.

"We will keep in touch with the players and their representatives, and as part of the agreement we've come to, we do have an option to sign them for the 2021 campaign."