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indiantelevision.com Team
MUMBAI: To ensure that English cricket players are not forced to give the Indian Premier League (IPL) a miss, the England Cricket Board CEO David Collier has asked the BCCI to re-schedule IPL.
English players like Matt Prior are unhappy about not being able to participate in the event. IPL franchises are reluctant to buy England players during player auctions as they are often unavailable for the entire length of the event.
The IPL clashes with the opening weeks of the County season as well as the start of the English international summer. As a result, very few English players take part in the IPL. This season Luke Wright, Eoin Morgan, Owais Shah and Dimitri Mascarenhas are the only England cricketers to be playing in the cash rich IPL.
Collier has said that ideally, the IPL should get over by 30 April. "It would make things a lot easier for us. We still have to get the workload balance right, but it would make it a lot easier for our players to be available for that period and certainly the BCCI are fully aware of that. There is a willingness on the part of both Boards to see if we can make any progress" he has said in media reports.
But it seems difficult that BCCI will accommodate Collier?s request in the near future. The World Twenty20 in Bangladesh is scheduled to run from 16 March to 6 April next year. The World Cup in Australia and New Zealand will probably take place in February- March 2015.
