Dhumal revealed that the ECB earlier gave a commitment to BCCI that the English players would be available for the entire tournament.
IPL chairman Arun Dhumal shared details on why England players had to leave the tournament before the fag end of the season. The England and Wales Cricket Board recalled their players for national commitments as they will host Pakistan for a four-match T20I series. The star England players, including Jos Buttler, Will Jacks, Phil Salt and Reece Topley, will miss the playoffs stage for their respective franchises. They faced backlash for leaving the tournament early as former cricketers Sunil Gavaskar and Irfan Pathan slammed them.
IPL chairman Arun Dhumal opens up on England players leaving IPL 2024 early(IPL Image)
England take on Pakistan in the first of the four T20I on Wednesday at Headingley, Leeds. The English players returned home even before the completion of the league stage.
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Dhumal revealed that the ECB gave a commitment to BCCI that the English players would be available for the entire tournament, but the change in management changed the plans at the last moment.
“It was given as a commitment that they will be available for the entire tournament. It was indeed very unfortunate with the way things happened this time around. We have had good discussions with the ECB and hopefully, it won’t happen again in the future. A few people who had earlier committed to this aren’t with the ECB now, but ideally, even if there was a change of guard, things should have happened the way it was planned,” Dhumal told Sportstar.
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He stated that the change in guard created confusion between the two boards as new members of the ECB were not clear about the earlier plans.
“Unfortunately, there was some change of guard at the ECB and so, the new people who took over did not know about the bilateral series they had planned, and they wanted to put their best team there. Due to that, the confusion arose,” he added.
Dhumar further added that BCCI always had discussions with the other cricket boards about the players’ availability and thanked them for their support throughout and being the equal partners in the tournament.
“We have always discussed with all the boards regarding the player availability and in case a player needs to go back due to genuine reasons, we definitely allow that. They have been quite cooperative so far, so all the players and the Board are aligned with the success of this tournament and love being part of the IPL. We are also very thankful to the other Boards who have been equal partners in this IPL. Everyone understands their responsibilities. I don’t think apart from minor hiccups, there’s anything to worry about,” concluded Dhumal.
