Australia's white-ball skipper Aaron Finch may have said that it would be hard for the Aussie players to justify participating in the second phase of IPL 2021, but most of the cricketers are likely to feature in the remaining 31 games of the cash-rich event.
IPL 14 got underway in April in India but was postponed indefinitely on May 4 after the completion of 29 matches due to COVID-19 positive cases in bio-bubbles of multiple franchises.
The BCCI has decided to conduct the remainder of the tournament in UAE in September-October.
According to a Cricbuzz report, majority of the Australian players, except for Pat Cummins, who has declared his unavailability right after the suspension of the competition, should be taking part in the UAE-leg of IPL, including cricketers who have skipped the tour of West Indies and Bangladesh.
It is pertinent to note here that 20 Australian players were part of the first half of IPL 2021 and 9 of them have been selected for the team's tours of West Indies and Bangladesh.
Players such as Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Marcus Stoinis and Daniel Sams have opted out of the West Indies tour citing personal reasons. However, they are expected to be available for the IPL along with some others.
As per the report, the Australian cricket set-up is also endorsing players' participation in the IPL as major part of the T20 World Cup 2021 is set to be held in UAE just after the lucrative league.
While IPL franchises are sweating over the availability of foreign players, the BCCI officials have reportedly assured the team owners that the overseas stars will turn up for the IPL.
Earlier, ECB managing director Ashley Giles had said England's centrally-contracted players won’t be released for the second half of IPL 2021 but report claims that the BCCI is trying to persuade the ECB to let the English players take part in the league.
It is understood that the exact status on overseas cricketer’s availability will be conveyed to the franchises around July 15.
(Inputs from Cricbuzz)
