Matt Prior wants ECB to soften its stance towards IPL

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is not ready to give the players any freedom as far as Indian Premier League is concerned. The board has strict rules for the centrally-contracted players. The rule says that no English player can play the Twenty20 league
longer than half a season because of the Test commitments.

Things have been very tricky for the England players. Star batsman Kevin Pietersen decided to take retirement from One Day International (ODI) cricket in order to make himself available for the lucrative league.

Prior remained unsold last two seasons, and he has held the ECB rules responsible for this. The wicket-keeper batsman has warned of the prospects of the conflict between the players and the board, if the administration does not soften its stance towards
the Indian T20 league.

"I know for a fact that players want to play in the IPL — you can’t get away from the fact that there is an enormous amount of money at stake," the 30-year-old Prior told BBC Sport.

"I’m employed by the ECB, so I do what the ECB says right now. If that’s when the Test matches are, then that’s when the Test matches are. My priority is playing Test cricket for England and when I am needed to play Test cricket for England I will play," the
Sussex gloveman added.

"The one thing, however, is that the IPL and these Twenty20 competitions are not going away. People love them and the players enjoy playing in them, so there are going to be more and more people getting frustrated at the lack of opportunity to play in the IPL.
So things may have to change in time."

"If you ask any Englishman or Australian, ‘would you rather score a T20 hundred or an Ashes hundred?’ I know which one most people would go with, but guys are going to start looking at it," he also stated.

The veteran player is not playing any international T20 cricket these days. He played his last T20I in February 2010. On the other hand, the right-hander has played 62 Tests and 68 ODIs.

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Feb 15 2013. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry