IPL chairman Arun Dhumal called England players leaving early before the IPL 2024 playoffs as unfortunate and mentioned that he hopes this won’t happen again. 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. This led to several former India cricketers including Sunil Gavaskar and Irfan Pathan criticizing them for this.
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 IPL 2024 league stage.
Arun Dhumal has not revealed that BCCI was given assurance by the ECB 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.
Dhumal added that the change in management created a misunderstanding between BCCI and ECB, as new members of the England board were unaware of the earlier arrangement between the two parties.
"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.
Dhumal went on to say that the BCCI had regular communication with the other cricket boards concerning the players' availability and thanked them for their ongoing support and for being equal partners in the competition.
"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 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.
IPL 2024 has entered its fag end with KKR reaching the finals after defeating SRH in the Qualifier 1 on Tuesday, May 21.
(Sportstar inputs)
