England players will not be released to play in rearranged IPL, says Ashley Giles

England players will not be released from international duty to play in a rearranged IPL later this year as the management takes a harder line on the tournament.

Ashley Giles, the England team director, confirmed his players will not be allowed to miss tours and put their IPL deals first if the suspended competition is rearranged later to clash with series in Bangladesh and Pakistan in September.

The IPL is expected to resume in the second half of September, probably in the UAE, which would coincide with England’s white ball tour to Bangladesh and Pakistan that are crucial preparation for the Twenty20 World Cup in mid-October.

The majority of England’s Twenty20 team have IPL deals, including captain Eoin Morgan and senior players Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes.

They were given permission to miss the forthcoming Test series with New Zealand in order to play a full IPL because the New Zealand series was only added to the schedule in January, after they had signed deals with their franchises. But Giles hinted that special dispensation to play in the IPL will not come before England duty in the future.

“We've got a full FTP [future tours programme] and if those tours [Bangladesh and Pakistan] are going ahead I'd expect them to be there,” he said.

“A rearranged IPL ... none of us knows what that looks like at the moment, where it's going to be, or when or if, but from when we start this summer against New Zealand our programme is incredibly busy. Within that we're going to have to look after our players. We've got a lot of important high profile cricket including a T20 World Cup and Ashes so we're planning on the involvement of England players in England matches.”

The England series against India ends on September 14 and the squad are expected to fly to Bangladesh six days later for three one-dayers and three T20s. They then go straight to Pakistan for two T20s which will be the first England have played there for 21 years.

The crowded schedule has left India with only a short period at the end of September and before the start of the Twenty20 World Cup on October 18 to play the remaining 41 matches in the IPL, which Sourav Ganguly, the BCCI president, has confirmed will take place outside India.

Giles was speaking for the first time since the sacking of Ed Smith as chief selector and the disbandment of selection by committee after 120 years, arguably the most radical decision of his tenure as director of cricket. Smith had not always been the most popular figure among some of the England senior players but Giles insisted the decision had nothing to do with personality.

Chris Silverwood now combines head coach with chief selector giving a clearer line of responsibility over team performance. “It's a change I've been looking at for some time,” said Giles. “For me, it's more modern and it's cleaner. Let the coach pick the team. His head's on the block. I don't want that to be the headline but it's a conversation I've had with Chris. If we lose in Australia the pressure is on all of us. You might as well have a free run at it, it's your team.”

Silverwood will pick his first Test squad early next week after the round of championship matches starting on Wednesday and is likely to rest some of those returning from the IPL. Buttler and Chris Woakes will only leave isolation later this week and to go straight into another bubble would be hard. Woakes will need bowling for Warwickshire to be fit for a Test match while Buttler has been on the road for several months..

Giles will meet the England players and management online on Monday evening to outline the level of Covid protocols for the first half of the summer. The ECB risks a stand-off with the players if the bubble is as strict as last summer when they were locked away for eight weeks without being able to go home and see family. There will be push-back from some players if they are unable to go home between matches when Covid restrictions are being relaxed around the country. The England squadsare likekly to remain in bubbles for the New Zealand series and one-day matches against Sri Lanka and Pakistan with the protocols reviewed again before the India Test in August.

“There’s keeping our people safe, protecting the series, and we can’t ignore the revenues that come with that, versus giving our people a bit more freedom, a bit more normality, access to families. That’s the balance we are trying to strike,” said Giles.

“We are hopeful this year that as we see society move a certain way, that we can move with it. We think it’s probably unreasonable to expect that our players could be in bubbles all summer. We want to keep them in safe environments, obviously. But it’s too early to predict where any of us will be in July, August, September when India are here. It could be the case that we may start tighter, as society is right now, and look to release, as everything else does.

"We are really aware of the importance for these guys, their time with loved ones, families in particular. And of them looking out of their bedroom windows in hotels and seeing relative normality in London, Birmingham, Manchester, and them being stuck in hotels. We want to do everything we can to keep them as fresh mentally and physically as we can do.”