Reports: Ben Stokes faces £100,000 penalty for playing in IPL 2017

What’s the story?

England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are set to dock £3,500 (around 2,97,000 INR) per day from the central contract of each England player who participates in the 2017 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). According to The Telegraph, star all-rounder Ben Stokes may have to part with more than £100,000 (around INR 8,488,100) for plying his trade in the lucrative T20 tournament.

The development has come despite Team Director Andrew Strauss expressing encouragement for England players to gain exposure by participating in the competition. With Stokes setting his base price at £238,000 (around INR 20,201,600), quite a few franchises have already shown interest in securing his signature. However, if he does go for his base price only, the left-hander stands to lose more than half of the amount to ECB, tax and other fees.

He had said earlier, “This year's IPL is a chance, not just for myself, but a few of the other English guys to go ahead and experience what it's like. Get a different side of T20 cricket, rather than just play in England. I won't say I am lucky, but in terms of the English summer, it is quite hard to get away and go and experience what it is like to play in these foreign T20 leagues.“

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Stokes is expected to be among the biggest draw cards in the 2017 IPL auction. As per various sources, skipper Virat Kohli has instructed Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) team management to go all out to secure the hard hitter’s services.

The heart of the matter

This is not a new practice. In the recent past, ECB levied hefty deductions on their players who participated in the IPL in order to prevent them from foregoing County cricket. Though times have changed and the board want their leading names to develop their white-ball game by playing in front of massive crowds in India.

The salaries of England players were renegotiated in August last year by the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA). There are separate deals for Test and white-ball cricketers. Hence, Stokes finds himself in a situation wherein he could lose 0.5 percent of his central contract of £700,000 every day. The funds deducted will be used by ECB to compensate the Counties (Durham in Stokes’ case) for the unavailability of their marquee players.

What next?

The 2017 IPL edition is slated to begin on April 5. Stokes may have to leave for India much before so as to get acclimatised to the franchise and his teammates. The deductions will start from the day his IPL duty begins. Along with him, the likes of Eoin Morgan and Jason Roy (both have white-ball contracts with ECB) have placed their names in the auction list. Jos Buttler and Sam Billings were retained by Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils respectively.

Sportskeeda’s Take

Interestingly, players such as Stokes and Buttler could be allowed to skip the 2-match ODI series against Ireland in favour of the IPL. Even though it may seem like ECB are sending out conflicting signals regarding their players’ participation in the cash-rich T20 tournament, the affected Counties certainly deserve compensation for the unavailability of those key cricketers.