English Cricket – England Stars Receive The Go-ahead To Join IPL

I haven’t really been able to watch cricket live, but judging from the scenes broadcast on TV of cricket matches in English, it always has a party atmosphere, of people really enjoying the experience of watching a match live. The recent turmoil that the English cricket team underwent almost split the team apart and broke the hearts of avid English cricket fans.

I guess the England and Wales Cricket Board’s decision to allow England’s best cricketers to join the Indian Premier League and be off English soil for three weeks is good for the boys. Just as a footballer always likes to play football, especially if he makes a living playing it, so do cricketers. They really haven’t been able to focus that much on playing cricket with the internal issues and with the prospect of taking on the best players in the world in the IPL in a twenty 20 match, it can prove to be valuable experience. England recently lost 4-0 in their one-day series against the Indian national team last November.

The IPL or the Indian Premier League is a twenty-two cricket competition that started last year and was formed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India with Lalit Modi as its Chairman and IPL Commissioner. He is also the vice president of BCCI. Under his stewardship the IPL has become a very lucrative league and a huge success, which is why the Professional Cricketers Association has asked the ECB to find a compromise solution to allow English national players the opportunity to play in the league. Due to the ECB’s refusal to release players for the league last year due to a scheduling conflict as the inaugural IPL season coincided with the county championship season last year and the New Zealand tour for England.

With the go-ahead signal given, Indian IPL fans will now have the chance to see their favorite English players in action. Topping that list are former English cricket captain Kevin Pietersen and multi-talented Andrew Flintoff. Most of the members of the England squad have been offered contracts and are already included in the pool of players to be auctioned off to teams on February 6. As well as Pietersen and Flintoff, those centrally signed to play for England include James Anderson, Ian Bell, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Alastair Cook, Stephen Harmison, Monty Panesar, Ryan Sidebottom, Andrew Strauss and Michael Vaughan.

At least six of these men could join the IPL. They were given permission to leave for a period of three weeks. The IPL season begins on April 10, seven days after England complete their series against the West Indies. A second leg also against the same opponent will be played at Lords on May 6, bringing the IPL domestics back just five days before kick-off. It may be a narrow window, but the PCA couldn’t stop these folks from having the opportunity to win lucrative business while playing the sport they all love. And I agree with that.