IPL 2025: Key wishes for England’s players to prioritise playing for national team, says Knight

New Delhi, March 27 (IANS) Former England batter Nick Knight said the reason why many players from the country aren’t showing much interest in featuring in the Indian Premier League (IPL) is because the men’s team managing director Rob Key wishes for them to prioritise playing for the national team.

In IPL 2024, there were 18 players from England, though few of them withdrew later in the ten-team competition. In IPL 2025, Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer, Jacob Bethell, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Liam Livingstone, Jamie Overton, Phil Salt and Reece Topley are the England players in the tournament, while Harry Brook and Brydon Carse (injury) have pulled out.

"Rob Key, who is in charge back at the ECB, has basically tried to - and he's fairly right - encouraged his players to play as much for England (as possible). They've got a five-Test series against India. They've got an Ashes to follow. They've got multi-format players, like Harry Brook and Mark Wood - they're pretty well looked-after now. And they're going to have to be looked after.

"There's a bit of that influence. So they perhaps don't need to travel and play in all these leagues around the world. There are other leagues popping up as well. If you're not going to get the full price (at the IPL auctions) that perhaps you might want to get, you might want to play in another league. So there are a number of these sort of factors flying around for some of these players," said Knight on ESPNCricinfo.

Kevin Pietersen, currently the Delhi Capitals mentor, had paved the way for England’s players to play in the IPL. But with their participation dropping in the IPL, which has served as a medium for foreign players to understand Indian conditions better, Ambati Rayudu, the former India batter, feels England will be in a tricky situation in the future.

"A lot of people have benefitted from playing in the IPL, because a lot of them got better playing against spin, and also wickets that were slow. We have seen the England side in India (for a white-ball series in January and February this year).

“Somehow, they are just playing one-dimensional cricket, especially in the middle overs, and especially against spin. To go hard against spin, you also need skill. So where do you develop that? You develop that in the subcontinent, or on wickets such as these. So… it's quite a Catch-22 situation," he concluded.

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