England players available to play the IPL 2022 season till the end

Contrary to the previous reports, the England Cricket Board has allowed all the England players to be a part of the IPL season till the end. Earlier, it was reported that England players might won’t be able to play the latter part of the league due to the commencement of the Test series against New Zealand which is set to begin from 2nd June, 2022.

As the IPL mega auction is around the corner, The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has informed the franchises about this development saying “After the IPL, the ECB is committed to starting the 1st WTC Test Match v New Zealand on 2 June, 2022. The player availability for all the ECB players will be through to Sunday, 29 May, 2022 (sic)”, as reported by Cricbuzz.

Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes ruled themselves out for this year’s IPL auction due to their own reasons. Other than them, 22 England players have entered their names for the auction including England test players Jonny Bairstow, Mark Wood, Dawid Malan, Ollie Pope, Craig Overton, Sam Billings and Dan Lawrence.

The IPL mega auction is scheduled to take place on February 12-13, starting from 11:00 AM IST.

As far as the Australian players are concerned, the board has informed that some players will join from the start of the league while some others will be able to join after 11th April due to the Pakistan tour in March-April. They have also stated that those players who do not qualify for the Sheffield Shield Final would be able to join IPL from March 27. 

IPL is expected to commence from March 27 and final to take place on 29 May. These are tentative dates as the official schedule is yet to be released.

Some Sri Lankan players are also scheduled to play the 2 match Test series against Bangladesh, therefore, they will be unavailable from 11th May to 23rd May. The same condition goes for the Bangladeshi players as well like Shakib Al Hasan. The Test series is of high importance for both the teams as it will be a part of the World Test Championship 2021-2023.