The South African and English players will not be available to play complete Indian Premier League season in this edition. The Proteas team will leave the league by May 7 while, the England players will quit the tournament in two batches. One batch will depart by May 1 while the rest by May 14.
South Africa’s tour of England begins in mid-May and the Champions Trophy, which starts from June 1 in England, is the chief reason why both boards want to pull out their players early.
The Indian Premier League will begin in early April and will stretch till late May while the Champions Trophy is set to start from June 1.
AB de Villiers (Royal Challengers Bangalore), Faf du Plessis (Rising Pune Supergiants), JP Duminy, Quinton de Kock and Chris Morris (Delhi Daredevils), David Miller and Hashim Amla (Kings XI Punjab) have been retained by their respective franchises, along with England’s Jos Buttler (Mumbai Indians) and Sam Billings (Daredevils).
The IPL auctions will take place in Bengaluru on February 20 where 351 players would be up for the bid. With some English players in the auction, it would be interesting to see how the auctions go. Defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad would on the other side look to begin their campaign on high.
