South Africa, England players could leave the IPL early

What’s the story?

Owing to the packed International schedule the South African players could leave the Indian Premier League after May 7 while the English players could depart in two different batches – a few after May 1 and the rest after May 14.

South Africa are scheduled to tour England in mid-May/ Also, the Champions Trophy, which starts from June 1 in England, and both the International teams have cited these reasons as to why they are calling back their players.

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The Details:

According to reports, the IPL had already informed the franchises about this in an email this week. Along with the information, they also included a list with the final player roster for the auction on February 20.

Also, the BCCI has been in discussion with Cricket South Africa and have tried to convince them to keep their players for a longer duration of time. Whether or not the respective boards release their players if their franchisees reach the finals is still unknown.

EspnCricinfo reports that CSA is interested specifically in the release of Kagiso Rabada, Imran Tahir, Farhaan Behardien, Wayne Parnell, Lungi Ngidi, Andile Phehlukwayo and Dwaine Pretorius for their International assignments. The aforementioned players minus Ngidi are all part of the squad which would take on New Zealand.

The CSA wants all the players to be ready for the Champions Trophy and thus it would be difficult for the BCCI to convince them for allowing their players to stay back for a longer time.

In case you didn’t know...

South Africans form a major part of the different teams and England players would be joining the league in full force for the first time. Faf du Plessis (Rising Pune Supergiants), AB de Villiers (Royal Challengers Bangalore), JP Duminy, Quinton de Kock and Chris Morris (Delhi Daredevils), David Miller and Hashim Amla (Kings XI Punjab) have been retained by their respective franchises.

Jos Buttler (Mumbai Indians) and Sam Billings (Delhi Daredevils) have also been retained.

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A total of 351 players, including 122 capped internationals, will feature in the auction, which will be held in Bangalore on February 20.

What's next?

There has always been a tussle between league and country duties and once again it has come to the fore this season with the boards wanting to pull out their players from the business end of the tournament.

With South Africa's tour of England scheduled to between May 24 and 29, it is hard to see how a middle ground could be reached and as of now the BCCI is on slippery ground.

Sportskeeda’s Take

The availablity of the players are keenly observed by the franchises before they bid for him and owing to the slightly iffy scenario, the prices of these pkayers could take a beating.

However, it would be interesting to see if the franchises and the BCCI manage to convice the two boards to leave their players for a longer duration of time.