Jonny Bairstow from England. Dawid Malan and Chris Woakes withdraw from the rescheduled IPL, which resumes in the United Arab Emirates next week; IPL will continue to show a lot of interest in England with Eoin Morgan, Adil Rashid, Moeen Ali and Chris Jordan among those involved.
Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow have withdrawn from the IPL, which resumes next week
Jonny Bairstow, Chris Woakes and Dawid Malan have joined England teammate Jos Buttler to withdraw from the Indian Premier League, which will resume next week.
A bloated winter schedule is on the horizon for the quartet, who have been selected to England’s provisional squad for the Twenty20 World Cup that kicks off next month in the United Arab Emirates, as they all compete for Ashes spots.
Rajasthan Royals announced last month that Buttler will be absent for the remainder of the IPL, which restarts on September 19 in the UAE after being suspended in May amid an exponential rise in Covid-19 cases in India. .
His fellow wicketkeeper-hitter Bairstow, seam bowling all-rounder Woakes and Malan, the world’s number one T20 hitter, are also believed to have retired.
Bairstow is the top run scorer for the Sunrisers Hyderabad, but they sit at the bottom of the standings at the midpoint and seem unlikely to make it to the knockout stages, while Woakes and Malan have only had partial roles with Delhi Capitals and Punjab. Kings respectively.
Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer are not available to the Royals, but there could still be 10 English representatives on display with 2019 50-year-old World Cup winning captain Eoin Morgan leading the group as patron of Kolkata Knight Riders.
Jason Roy, Adil Rashid, Moeen Ali, Sam and Tom Curran, Chris Jordan, Liam Livingstone, Sam Billings and George Garton will also participate in the very lucrative T20 competition.
While all England players will be flying commercially, the Mumbai Indians announced that Captain Rohit Sharma, Fast Pitcher Jasprit Bumrah and batsman Suryakumar Yadav arrived in Abu Dhabi on a private charter flight on Saturday morning.
The trio could have been involved in India’s fifth and final Test against England at Emirates Old Trafford, which was dramatically canceled on Friday, just a couple of hours before the game on the first day due to Covid-19 concerns in the tourist camp.
England and Wales Cricket Board Executive Director Tom Harrison was alarmed by suggestions that the IPL had been prioritized over a prestigious Test Match, rejecting the idea that fear of missing the T20 tournament had caused unease among the India team.
“Let me be very clear, I don’t think the IPL has anything to do with this,” he said Friday afternoon.
“This is not a situation that was created by the reprogrammed IPL, fundamentally I don’t believe it for a second. This Indian cricket team is as passionate about test cricket as the fans are in our country.”
The remainder of the IPL will take place from September 19 to October 15, with each game live on Sky Sports Cricket.
