When the Indian Premier League begins on Saturday, the competition will lack a hallmark of recent years: a conspicuous English flavour. While 10 England players will still feature in the competition, this is the smallest number for eight years. For various reasons, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Mark Wood and Ben Duckett are all absent from this year’s IPL.
Harry Brook will be missing too, and not only this year. Earlier this month, Brook withdrew from his £590,000-a-year contract with Delhi Capitals. He has been met with a two-year ban from the IPL for the withdrawal, meaning that Brook cannot play in the competition until 2028.
The Brook affair embodies how English cricket’s dealings with the IPL are now in a new era. This relationship has now entered a distinct third phase – each doubling as a snapshot of English cricket’s wider priorities and attitudes to India at the time.
2008-2014: English exceptionalism
When it was launched in 2008, the IPL instantly destroyed English cricket’s traditional dominance of the northern hemisphere summer months. England’s first Tests of the summer now routinely clashed with the IPL. International players who had once considered county cricket could now earn far more money for far less work in the IPL instead.
While other Test nations allowed their players to enjoy the financial and sporting benefits of appearing in the IPL, England took a more draconian approach. In 2008, the the England & Wales Cricket Board did not permit centrally contracted players to appear in the IPL. Only one Englishman, limited-overs specialist Dimitri Mascarenhas, appeared in the first season; even then, his county only allowed him to go for two weeks.
Distrust for the IPL also led to one of English cricket’s most humiliating affairs. Less than two months after the IPL began, Giles Clarke welcomed Allen Stanford and his helicopter – stuffed with counterfeit dollar bills – onto the Lord’s outfield.
Stanford promised an annual $20 million winner-takes-all match against England. The ECB saw this offer as a way to allow centrally contracted cricketers to enjoy IPL-level riches without actually playing in the tournament. Instead, England were thrashed by 10 wickets in the 20/20 for 20 match at Stanford’s private ground in Antigua in November 2008. Three months later, Stanford was sentenced to 110 years imprisonment for fraud in the US.
The Stanford affair intensified English debates about the IPL. In 2009, the ECB allowed centrally contracted players to appear in the first three weeks of the tournament. Kevin Pietersen was injured midway through the 2009 Ashes summer; his achilles problem was in part blamed on his IPL involvement.
In 2010, England briefly changed their approach to the IPL, viewing it as preparation for the T20 World Cup. Captain Paul Collingwood, one of eight Englishmen in that season’s tournament, credited the IPL as vital to England winning the T20 World Cup.
Yet England’s haughty attitude to the IPL swiftly returned. When he tried to convince Test captain Andrew Strauss of the merits of playing in the IPL, Pietersen likened the experience to “speaking to the vicar about gangster rap”.
England’s refusal to allow Pietersen to play a full part in the IPL led to the internecine conflict between cricketer and country. The upshot was first Pietersen’s estrangement from the side, then his sacking in 2014. Eoin Morgan, one of England’s few IPL regulars, observed a “taboo” around playing in the tournament. Pietersen was the lone Englishman to play in the 2014 IPL.
England didn’t merely discourage players from appearing in the IPL. They were also contemptuous about performances in the competition, seeing no relevance for international selection, ignoring how the IPL was the highest-standard domestic league in the world. Owais Shah enjoyed a fine 2012 season for Delhi, scoring 340 runs – the most by any Englishmen in the IPL’s first five seasons – at an average of 37.8. Even with a T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka later that year, Shah was still not recalled by England.
2015-23: The warm embrace
When England played their first game after the 2015 World Cup, in Dublin, their captain, Morgan, was 5,000 miles away. Morgan was playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad instead. Strauss, now England’s director of cricket, gave Morgan permission to miss the game to play in the IPL, recognising the value of the competition. In the 2015 ODI World Cup, 38 out of the 44 players to appear in the semi-finals had IPL experience. England’s squad during that abject campaign had just two.
As England targeted the 2019 ODI World Cup, the IPL moved from inconvenience to indispensable. Where once the ECB had dissuaded players from appearing in the competition, now England actively paid players to do so. In 2016, Sam Billings was signed by Delhi, but, when taking into account the payments he made Kent for missing county cricket, Billings was losing money. Strauss decided to use the ECB’s cash to reimburse Billings.
After England’s surprise run to the 2016 T20 World Cup final, franchises courted Englishmen. From just four English players appearing in the 2015 IPL, eight were signed in 2017, and 13 in 2018. Jofra Archer’s IPL pedigree led England to fast-track him into the side for the 2019 World Cup. The triumph vindicated England’s warm IPL embrace.
England even changed their schedule to be more welcoming to the IPL, shifting the first Test of the summer from May to June. Freeing players to play most, or all, of an IPL season – the same request that had led to Pietersen being ostracised – ensured that English players were as attractive as possible to franchises. The ECB’s attitude contrasted with that of individual counties, who often attempted to stop players from signing late IPL deals and missing domestic games. Financial realities meant that such resistance had little effect.
In 2023, a record 17 Englishmen played in the IPL, with the competition doubling as Ashes preparation. The ECB even spoke of working with Mumbai Indians’ sports science team to help Archer make a full return to fitness. After running the drinks for Rajasthan Royals, rather than playing in the County Championship, Root scored a sparkling hundred on the first day of the Ashes series.
2024 – present: A new cooling
Brook’s withdrawal, to Delhi’s great chagrin, leaves the English contingent in this season’s IPL as the smallest since 2017. This new phase in England’s relationship with the IPL is not a return to the early years of distrust, but it is also distinct from the 2015-23 embrace. England’s new attitude falls roughly between these positions.
Where the ECB once encouraged players to appear in the IPL, now they are more agnostic. Under Stokes and Brendon McCullum, the Test side has emphatically regained its position of primacy within English cricket. There is also a sense that the IPL’s relevance to ODI cricket has diminished. Changes since the 2019 World Cup – the new white balls swinging more, and the increase in run rates in Test cricket – mean that ODIs now resemble Test matches more closely than T20s.
The introduction of multi-year central contracts, beginning in 2023, has given English stars greater financial security and encouraged more long-term thinking. The three major leagues that launched in 2023 – in South Africa, the UAE and the USA – give players alternatives to the IPL that, while not quite as lucrative, entail spending less time away from home. The Hundred now pays more too: Brook will earn £207,000 for captaining Northern Superchargers this summer. And, while they would be loath to admit it publicly, some players have tired of India, after three England visits to the country in 18 months.
The recent convergence between England’s red and white-ball sides has rendered the international schedule even more relentless for leading players. The chance to recuperate, rather than play in the IPL, is increasingly attractive. Of the 10 Englishmen in this year’s IPL, only two – Jacob Bethell and Archer – are strong candidates to play Test cricket in the coming year. England players who still crave IPL contracts are victims of the national team’s dwindling white-ball performances, rendering them less attractive to franchises.
And so, for now, England’s approach to the IPL has rebalanced. While most fans will welcome the change, which reflects how international cricket has been re-prioritised, this new equilibrium might not endure.
IPL salaries are certain to hike in time, with players still earning a far lower percentage of revenue than in other major sports leagues. Indian investors in Hundred teams might pressurise English players to be available for the IPL. If the national team flounder in next year’s T20 World Cup, in India and Sri Lanka, then an old argument will also return: that England need more exposure to the world’s best domestic league.
