England cricketers likely to be unavailable for the final stages of IPL 2022

The 2022 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will be a 10-team contest, and the tournament is likely to run from 27th March 2022 till the end of May for a period of over 2 months.

And, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) might ask the Test players of the England side to withdraw from the later stages of the tournament, as England are slated to take on New Zealand in a three-match Test series that will commence on 2nd June 2022. Also, many IPL franchises are aware of the fact that they might not be able to avail the services of the England cricketers towards the final stages of the IPL.

Over 20 England cricketers have registered for the 2022 IPL mega auctions

The 2022 IPL mega auctions will take place on 12th and 13th February 2022 in Bangalore. And, 22 players from England have given their names for the IPL auctions ahead of the 15th season of the tournament. Several Test mainstays including Jonny Bairstow, Ollie Pope, Mark Wood, and Dawid Malan will go under the hammer. Also, Jos Buttler has already been retained by the Rajasthan Royals (RR) franchise for a sum of INR 10 Crores.

England produced an abysmal performance in the recently concluded Ashes series against Australia. Joe Root and his men were drubbed by a margin of 0-4 by the Australian cricket team in the land of the kangaroos as England put up a shoddy performance in the five-Test series. England Test skipper Joe Root has already confirmed that he will not take part in the IPL auctions this year and will instead focus on red-ball cricket, while Ben Stokes too, has pulled out of the auctions as well. The England cricket team is currently involved in a five-match T20I series against the West Indies side.

After 3 completed matches, the scoreline reads 2-1 in favour of the ‘Men in Maroon’. The final 2 T20I matches will be played on 29th and 30th January 2022 respectively.