Former England Captain and Surrey director of cricket Alec Stewart wants a cut-off date for county players to join the Indian Premier League (IPL) after losing seamer Tom Curran just days before the start of their championship campaign. Curran went unsold in February’s IPL auction but Kolkata Knight Riders recruited him for around $247,000 earlier this month to replace injured Mitchell Starc.
“It’s far from ideal losing Tom so late. I hope in time this will be looked at. The IPL is not going anywhere — I fully understand players wanting to be part of it because, one, it’s a good competition and, second, it helps your bank balance” he said.
“The problem is when you get the phone calls I got for Tom, and Martyn Moxon (Yorkshire’s director of cricket) got for Willey and Plunkett, your planning goes out of the window.”
Yorkshire suffered a double blow with the similar late departures of David Willey and Liam Plunkett, leading county coaches to discuss the issue at Edgbaston last week.
“All I think needs to be looked at is a cut-off, ideally a month before the championship starts,” he said.
“If you get picked up in the auction, that’s fine — it’s at the end of February, so that’s six or seven weeks before the start of the season.
