Australian speedster Kane Richardson was expected to play for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in IPL 2020. However, as the tournament got postponed because of COVID-19, the new dates of the T20 league clashed with his wife's pregnancy.

Richardson is expecting the birth of his first child anytime soon and didn't want to miss the birth for anything else. He would have regretted it if he had been playing the IPL when his wife delivered a baby.

Richardson told PTI, "It’s always difficult to withdraw from a competition like the IPL, it’s the pinnacle domestic competition in the world so it wasn’t an easy decision, but when I sat down and thought about it, it was definitely the right one."

"With all that’s going on in the world at the moment and the challenge of getting home on time for something as unpredictable as the birth of a child, I couldn’t risk missing that," he added.

IPL 2020: RCB announces Adam Zampa as replacement after Kane Richardson pulls out of IPL 13

The 29-year-old performed exceptionally well for Australia in the last 12 months whenever he played and is happy with the results. He had also earned an INR 4 crores contract with RCB and would've been one of the players to look out for had the T20 World Cup 2020 happened.

He is obviously disappointed about not being able to come back to cricket at the moment but is sure that the opportunities will come in the near future.

"I’m disappointed to miss the IPL but hopefully there are opportunities ahead for that. I don’t think I’d be able to live with missing the birth of my first child. I can be home and support my wife as best I can, and hopefully, those (cricket) opportunities come around again," he said.

RCB replaced Richardson with his national teammate spinner Adam Zampa.

(With inputs from PTI)