There have been times in the past couple of years that Xavier Doherty has asked himself, "Why are you still playing?"
It's approaching two years since the spinner's last appearance for Australia in one-day cricket, and close to four years since his second ill-fated brief stint in the Test team. He's lost his place in Tasmania's Sheffield Shield team, has a fight on his hands to make the Melbourne Renegades' XI after their acquisition of fellow twirlers Brad Hogg and Sunil Narine, and at 34 is 15 years into his career as a professional cricketer.
Money may be a lure to an extent, but when Doherty thought about it, he realised there were more than dollar signs that were keeping him on the park.
"It comes back to just enjoying it. I started when I was eight," Doherty says.
The BBL still offers plenty of opportunities to cricketers such as Xavier Doherty.Credit:Darrian Traynor
"If I'm still enjoying it, then why stop?"
With the Big Bash League season at the doorstep, much of the focus turns to those on the cusp of Australian selection such as Glenn Maxwell, those on the comeback trail such as James Pattinson and Peter Siddle, and former international stars revelling in their cricket twilight such as Kevin Pietersen, Mitchell Johnson and Kumar Sangakkara. Breakout displays from youngsters will catch the eye too.
But then there is another group who look forward to this period perhaps more than any time of the year. The BBL has allowed the ageing journeyman cricketer to prolong his life in the spotlight.
In a previous era, Rob Quiney would have all but disappeared from our television screens. Out of Victoria's Shield side, and more than four years since his fleeting taste of Test cricket, his playing is done mainly at grade level now.
Rob Quiney will again have a place with the Melbourne Stars.Credit:Sebastian Costanzo
But Quiney, 34, hasn't retired, and there is a strong chance that come next month he will bat for the Melbourne Stars at the MCG in front of a crowd of more than 50,000, a prospect that cricketers of a generation ago could not have contemplated if they held a similar place in the pecking order.
"I don't know how much longer I've got left, but I'm just trying to enjoy it as much as I can," Quiney says.
Michael Beer bowls for the Stars.Credit:Cameron Spencer
Michael Beer is in the same boat. At 32, he earned a Victorian contract after a run of games in a depleted Bushrangers squad for October's Matador Cup, but with Jon Holland, Fawad Ahmed, James Muirhead and Sam Grimwade ahead of him in the queue of spinners, Victorian coach Andrew McDonald didn't try to sugarcoat the situation, telling Beer that he was highly unlikely to play a four-day game.
Instead Beer has been helping mentor the Bushrangers spin group, a role that complements his education studies and teaching placement at Wesley College, where he has also done some cricket coaching.
I worry about domestic cricket, and where it's going
Rob Quiney
Having left Perth after being dumped by Western Australia at the end of the 2014-2015 summers, the left-arm orthodox bowler – who played the second of his two Tests in April 2012 – is enjoying his life in Melbourne with wife Sheena and four-year-old son Hudson.
Like Quiney, Beer will briefly return to the public glare during the BBL as a Stars regular. He echoes Quiney's sentiments that the Twenty20 competition is a place where state cricketers can enjoy their cricket without being accused of taking the game too casually.
"A lot of guys are obviously playing for their states and in domestic and Shield cricket, and there's a lot of pressure over the last month or two," Beer says.
"State cricket's come under scrutiny, guys have been put under high intense pressure at that level, whereas this is a chance for a lot of guys to come out of that and relax."
That scrutiny was apparent during the recent Test series against South Africa, in which two of Doherty's Renegades teammates – Callum Ferguson and Peter Nevill – were dropped. In Ferguson's case the treatment was particularly brutal, axed after just one Test following dual failures in a heavy defeat in Hobart.
Beer still ponders what might have been if he had not been pipped by Nathan Lyon for the role of Australia's spinner for the first Test of the series in Sri Lanka in 2011, with Lyon having gone on to become the nation's most prolific Test off-spinner.
It means Beer has empathy for the likes of Ferguson and Joe Mennie, both of whom are at risk of becoming one-Test wonders having been Test discards at the first opportunity.
"You've got to feel for them. Callum Ferguson's a professional cricketer for 12, 13 years, all the things he's done, he got that crack, and things change very quickly after a loss," Beer says.
Looking back at his own experience four summers ago, Quiney feels the same way as his Stars teammate. "I'm hoping there's people at Cricket Australia that are being supportive and are still supportive of blokes like Joe and Ferg," Quiney says.
"Because I think at times you think you're OK with being dropped. He might be in a bit of a shit spot mentally about being dropped. I'm just hoping that someone's followed up and everything's OK and that the lines of communication are honest and open."
He says it raises an interesting question about how open selectors should be with players after they've been omitted. "But I don't think you constantly need to be told, 'you're close, you're close.' So where do you draw the line?"
Quiney sometimes ponders, thought, whether it would be good to tell a player, "'You know what, it's going to be f---ing hard to get in."'
He says that after his Test dalliance ended in a pair against the Proteas in Adelaide in 2012, then-coach Mickey Arthur and captain Michael Clarke were supportive and urged the Victorian to go back to Shield level and make more runs. He questions if they should have been more frank though.
"That's where communication's funny ... because all of a sudden they started talking about [Usman] Khawaja and [Phillip] Hughes," he said.
"So I'd dropped that many spots straight away without playing. So that's the communication you might want to know."
As he prepares for another BBL campaign, Quiney wonders whether enough care is being given to Shield cricket, concerned about signs he sees when he goes to children's clinics.
"Always their first option is 'I want to play Big Bash, or for Australia.' Not many kids say they're looking to go play for Victoria, until they get to under 17s or 19s," Quiney said.
"I worry about domestic cricket, and where it's going. You have to have domestic cricket, but then again I don't want to look at it glass half-empty, because hopefully there's going to be more fan engagement [because of the BBL], more people playing cricket. It might mean that in 10 years' time the Australian team's going to be ridiculously strong as a result of it."
Ultimately for this generation of cricketers, it seems the Australian team's health – and being a part of it – remains a priority, and maybe the biggest incentive to keep playing well into your 30s.
Take Doherty for example. He's not even in Tasmania's team, but he still harbours aspirations of an international return. "It still seems a long way off at the minute, not being in Tassie's Shield team," Doherty says.
"I still feel like I'm playing OK. It doesn't take a lot. I'm certainly not closing the door on wanting to play international cricket."