ECB Hints English Players Will Be Available For IPL

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is hoping talks with Cricket Australia (CA) over permission for cricketers' families to tour Down Under during Ashes will materialise. It is also expecting that English players will be available for the Indian Premier League (IPL) due to the postponement of limited-overs series in Bangladesh.

"With respect to the IPL, we are going to have discussions with all our players. The postponement of the Bangladesh tour provides an opportunity for the players to present themselves for the IPL," ECB chief executive Tom Harrison said to media during an interaction on Thursday.

"Players are going to have to manage their schedules because we have a busy winter and that comes on the end of a busy summer. Those discussions are underway. But obviously, on a case-by-case basis, those decisions will be made with the players," he added.

England's three-ODI and three-T20I tour of Bangladesh, scheduled for September and October, has been moved to March 2023. It opens up opportunity for England's limited-overs cricketers like Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow and Sam Curran to play the Indian Premier League.

Harrison also confirmed that the ECB is in talks with Cricket Australia. "Managing player welfare, keeping players safe and with their families near and around, has been a real key theme through this pandemic," he said.

"We have taken the view that people come first, and we will continue to take that approach as we continue to navigate this crisis for as long as it takes," added Harrison. "We are working very closely with Cricket Australia, and I had my latest conversation with my counterpart at CA yesterday.

"We are speaking every few days on this matter. All the right conversations are happening at government level in Australia, and we will be using our own diplomatic channels in the UK to ensure that the view of the players and the ECB [is conveyed]."