Aussie players likely to return for IPL resumption
Oliver Caffrey and Joel Gould |
Australian cricketers are likely to return for the resumption of the Indian Premier League, just a week after the tournament was dramatically postponed amid the backdrop of conflict.
After being suspended last Friday as military action between India and Pakistan ramped up, the IPL will restart on Saturday following the announcement of a ceasefire between the two countries.
Most Australians involved – players, coaching staff and commentators – left India and returned home over the weekend.
Cricket Australia is leaving the decision completely in the hands of players, and will support them whatever they choose to do.
“Each player will have experienced it differently,” CA’s national teams boss Ben Oliver said on Tuesday.
“No doubt it was an extreme situation, and we feel it’s really appropriate to support their individual experience and decision.”
The decision about whether players return or not won’t be straight-forward.
Players would be forgoing huge amounts of money should they not go back, and also risk hurting their chances of being selected by franchises in the future.
Australian bowlers Kane Richardson and Adam Zampa thought their decision to leave the IPL during a surge in COVID-19 cases in 2021 made future buyers “wary”.
But the general feeling is most players will finish the tournament, even having only got back to Australia in recent days.
Australia women’s captain Alyssa Healy was in India with husband Mitchell Starc, who plays for the Delhi Capitals.
Starc was involved in a dramatic game in Dharamshala, close to the India-Pakistan border, last Thursday when a power outage forced the match to be cancelled.
“There was a lot of anxiety around the Australian group because we didn’t have a whole heap of information as to what was going on,” Healy told the Willow Talk podcast.
“That’s probably been the really interesting and probably the scariest part of this whole situation, the misinformation.
“Quite close to what’s being fought over, but we were assured everything was fine, ‘everything is OK, it’s miles away, the game will go ahead and everything will be fine’.”
Because of the one-week pause, the IPL final has been pushed back to June 3, just eight days before Australia’s World Test Championship final against South Africa in London.
Besides Starc, four other Australian WTC players are mainstays in IPL teams: Pat Cummins, Travis Head, Josh Inglis and Josh Hazlewood.
Cummins and Head play for Sunrisers Hyderabad, who are out of playoff contention, but still have three matches remaining.
Inglis’s Punjab Kings, Starc’s Delhi and Hazlewood’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru remain in the frame for finals.
However, Hazlewood – who has enjoyed a prolific tournament with 18 wickets – has been nursing a shoulder injury and missed their most recent match.
The match that will resume the tournament will be played between RCB and Kolkata Knight Riders on May 17 in Bengaluru.
Other high-profile Australians involved include Justin Langer, coach at Lucknow, Punjab coach Ricky Ponting and assistant Brad Haddin, Chennai’s Mike Hussey, and commentators Matthew Hayden and Mel Jones.
Ponting and Haddin remained in India instead of flying home.
The Pakistan Super League, which includes David Warner, will also get under way again on Saturday.
Eight matches are due to be played ahead of the final on May 25.
Australian cricketers narrowly avoided a missile strike in Pakistan as they were fleeing the country on Saturday.
But AAP understands Warner and the other Australian players will also head back to Pakistan for the restart.
Conflict started after India struck multiple locations in Pakistan that it said were “terrorist camps”.
India says it was in retaliation for the deadly attack in its troubled region of Kashmir last month, in which it insists Pakistan was involved.
AAP
