Cricket

English cricketers in doubt for IPL

IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi has said England captain Kevin Pietersen and star all-rounder Andrew Flintoff need to play “substantial number of IPL games” to make it viable for them to play in the next season of the Indian Premier League.

In an interview to The Wisden Cricketer, Modi said that the players, who missed the first season of the IPL because of a clash with the English season, will not add value to their sides if they only turned up for a handful of matches.

“Are the franchise owners happy for Kevin Pietersen to play a handful of matches and then go away? I don’t think anybody would be happy with that,” Modi said. “He wouldn’t add any value and would be more of a disruption. It takes time to gel with team-mates and to become part of team strategy and implement that strategy.”

“They (Pietersen and Flintoff) need to be there for 15 or 16 matches, substantial numbers of games. If you ask, ‘Is that practical?’, I don’t think it is currently.”

Modi said the ECB will have to consider altering the start of the English season to reach a resolution. “The good thing is that we are moving closer to trying to resolve the issue. If we can’t agree for the next year, I hope we can agree something for the next Future Tours Programme, so we can move our tournament further forward and the ECB can move their season so they sit further apart.”

Tags: andrew flintoff, bcci, ECB, IPL, Kevin Pieterson, Lalit Modi