PCA Calls for England Players to Take Advantage of Ipl

The head of the Professional Cricket Association has warned the England and Wales Cricket Board not to prevent players joining the Indian Premier League, saying the governing body needs to confront the challenges posed to the domestic game by the Twenty20 tournament in India.

Sean Morris is concerned that the ECB is denying players the flexibility to take part in a "truly unique opportunity", adding: "If you are trying to prevent people from migrating for the money, that is not going to work because ultimately money talks - and there is an awful lot of it in the IPL.

"The players are very excited by it ... if you're going to restrict players contractually, the issue comes up because the opportunity is so great. Players will begin to look at their contracts and feel that they would want more flexibility. There is a wealth of talent out there and quite understandably the value of the cricketer has increased significantly through what is happening in the IPL. It is perfectly natural for any cricketer and for the PCA to want our members to take advantage of that - it is a truly unique opportunity."

The ECB's chairman, Giles Clarke, said the board was "not interested" in letting England stars such as Kevin Pietersen take part in the tournament. Pietersen last month claimed there was "no way in the world" he would jeopardize his England career for the lucrative Twenty20 competition, but the IPL chairman Lalit Modi has said England's top players are keen to play in the league in the future.

Hampshire's captain Dimitri Mascarenhas became the first Englishman to join the IPL earlier this month, meaning the PCA is in regular contact with the ECB. "We are in constant communication with the ECB and because of the scale of the change we are developing that daily," Morris added. "We want to create a proactive solution where there is a flexibility which allows players to take advantage of the IPL.

"The ECB needs to find a solution and come to a point where they can take advantage of the increase in income in the game, because you are a long time retired. There is much more opportunity to have successful and happy performing England players if we can create a window to let players perform in the IPL."

And Morris has pushed for the ECB to review the threat to the domestic game created by the temptations of the IPL. "The threat is from what IPL cricket could do to the England team by decimating it of its star players, and that would have a knock-on effect to the health of the game and the ECB are naturally guarding that," he said.

"They are looking to protect our domestic game and its revenues through the players and that is a major issue which needs to be addressed immediately. I would like to see a far bigger carrot where players can take advantage of the excitement that Twenty20 cricket has created and have a globally strong domestic event which we could export."