England can’t allow the IPL to burst their bubble
Jos Buttler came of age as a Test wicketkeeper/ batsman in Sri Lanka. His glovework on a turning surface in the subcontinental heat was exceptional, his positive closing role alongside Dom Sibley just the job as England ticked off a fourth series win in a row.
Buttler will be a key man again against India in Chennai next week in the opening Test of a colossal series which offers England the chance to push on again towards a place in the inaugural World Test Championship final.
He is a player India will respect and perhaps fear, too. The pity is they won’t have to worry about him for long. After the first Test, Buttler will fly home and play no further part in the four-match series.
The explanation from the England hierarchy is, on the surface, thoughtful and wise.
Buttler, like the other multiformat players shuttled in and out of the squad this winter, is being managed carefully.This is a long, cluttered and unique year where players will spend very little time with their families.
Bubble fatigue is real and sportsman’s mental well-being is an important part of his overall health. These are human beings with feelings and a frailties like the rest of us. That being the case though, it begs one important question. Why are England players sitting out England games rather than the Indian Premier League?
India away is a standout assignment. No visiting side has won there in the last 12 series. It is arguably even more of a challenge than an Ashes in Australia at present.
As such it should be the pinnacle, yet England will voluntarily dispense with their wicketkeeper a quarter of the way
through the series and rest
Jonny Bairstow and Sam Curran for at least the first two Tests, in the expectation that both – like Buttler – will feature in the IPL in April.
All three, like Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes who both missed the Sri Lanka series, played in last autumn’s delayed IPL too.
The 2021 cricket calendar is as cramped as a pre-coronavirus Tokyo metro ride, with 17 Tests for England and a T20 World Cup. Something has to give but it should be franchise cricket, not the international game.
When Andrew Strauss initially made the decision to allow
England’s best white-ball cricketers to compete in the IPL after the calamitous 2015 World Cup there was a valid performance argument. It offered a chance to rub shoulders with, and learn from, the best players in a pressurised environment. But the strides made since by England in the shorter formats make that redundant now. The IPL is mainly a pension-pot exercise.
It is hard to blame a cricketer for chasing a rupee or two – these aren’t Premier League footballers set up for life by a single season – but Strauss’s successor Ashley Giles has been weak in signing these absences off.
Presumably the cut of between 10 and 20 per cent the ECB receive on each IPL contract has not clouded the organisation’s thinking.
It is increasingly clear who holds the whip hand in this relationship. England would traditionally have started their home Test season in May. Not any more.
New Zealand are now penned in for June – after the IPL.
It would ruffle a few feathers among the players affected if the ECB tried to row back on IPL release with the genie out of the bottle but as the governing body, the ECB are supposed to be the guardians of England’s best interests.
Taking a weakened Test squad to India is not in England’s best interests. Or that of cricket, come to that.