One of the most popular T20 leagues in the world is all set to start from March 9th, 2021 with the opening encounter taking place between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians.
The cash-rich league will take place across six venues of India which includes Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata.
Also, 13 English players will be participating this year and they are likely to face the dilemma as they will have to choose between playing in the IPL or representing England as their country cricket board has organized a two-match Test series against Kiwis just after the conclusion of IPL 2021.
The series will start from June 2nd, 2021 at the Lords in London and anyone arriving in the UK in these precedent times will have to suffer a mandatory quarantine period of 7 days.
Thus the English players who are part of the upcoming IPL if their team reaches the business end of the tournament in that case players will certainly give a miss. Speaking about the same, ECB director of cricket and former spinner Ashley Giles reckoned that the board will have to be careful in scheduling the games and will have to set the players free during the IPL.
He also fears that many players will stop playing for England if they will be denied to participate in IPL. He further stressed that the tour of New Zealand came at the last moment and the players have already committed to their respective franchises about their availability for IPL 2021.
“Right now I think our players love playing for England. I don’t want that to be a kiss of death. I think we have to understand that it could be a danger in the future. We don’t particularly want to go toe-to-toe with our players over IPL participation in the long run because we may face losing some of our best players,” said Giles while speaking on the Tuffers and Vaughan show.
