Ben Stokes looks set to be given approval to put his name into next month’s Indian Premier League auction while he remains unavailable for England duty.
Stokes was the tournament’s highest paid overseas player when securing a £1.7m deal at Pune in 2017 and having gone on to win the season’s most valuable player award could fetch an even more attention-grabbing price on 27 and 28 January.
Though the all-rounder is out of the international frame while waiting to discover whether he will be charged for the incident in Bristol on 25 September, the England and Wales Cricket Board signed off on a recent deal for him to play for Canterbury in New Zealand, which ended on Saturday when Stokes opted to return to England for Christmas. Stokes is now likely to see the ECB grant the necessary no-objection certificate (NOC) for the IPL, as things stand.
Asked if Stokes entering such a lucrative auction next month while suspended from international duty would be awkward for the sport, the ECB chief executive, Tom Harrison, replied: “That is for Ben to decide. Having given an NOC for New Zealand, it will be difficult for us to say on balance we would not apply the same thinking to other parts of the world.”
England themselves will be in New Zealand from mid-February to the end of March, for a series of limited-over games followed by a two-Test series. The last game is scheduled to finish on 2 April, by which time Stokes will be in India preparing for the start of the IPL season, two days later. The final is on 31 May, a week after England’s international summer starts with the Lord’s Test against Pakistan
Meanwhile, with the current 3-0 Ashes scoreline and the prospect of Joe Root’s side being whitewashed, Harrison has insisted Trevor Bayliss, the head coach, will be judged across the three formats – he has been hired to win the World Cup in 2019 – and that no hasty decisions would be made. “They are making huge strides across the white-ball game, up to a place where we’re winning 70% or so of our white-ball matches [the number is 63% since Bayliss took charge in 2015],” Harrison said. “The ODI side, in particular, is making good progress. But, in Tests, we’re finding it very difficult to win overseas.
“We did win a series in South Africa [in 2015-16], which was a significant achievement, but we’ve found it difficult in the UAE, India and here. We’ve got to take a look at that. These are the moments where you understand the progress that’s been made and it’s very difficult to look at it through the mirror of three matches over the course of a difficult Ashes series.”
Harrison conceded more may need to be done with domestic pitches to encourage fast bowlers, but noted that away tours are chiefly being hampered by a congested international schedule, which reduces the amount of preparation time.
To that end, the future tours programme that is being discussed at ICC level should result in a cut. England’s home summers will move to six Tests, six one-day internationals and six T20s from 2020 onwards — domestic Twenty20 will no doubt fill the gaps — while away Test series will probably be capped at three matches outside those in Australia and India.
The World Cup for which Bayliss is preparing is on home soil and plans are already under way for the London Stadium to become viable for cricket, with Harrison confirming that a test event to prove the suitability of West Ham United’s home for the 2019 tournament, most likely a charity match, is on the cards. “The drop-in wickets are being grown,” Harrison said. “But what we are at pains to ensure is, because cricket has never been played there and these are World Cup fixtures, the cricket element is nailed.
“So we will run a proper test event this [coming] year, some time after the end of the football season. What we need is a specific amount of time to run a test event. It won’t be a full test event but it will allow us to mitigate some of the risk around things like laying turf, the drop-in wickets, floodlights and where the sun goes down.
“At some point [in 2018] we will then make a final decision on the Olympic Stadium being a venue for 2019 World Cup matches. We would very much like it to be but the cricket has to be right and that is the fundamental point.”
England’s immediate challenge, however, is saving face in the final two Ashes Tests, starting on Boxing Day, when the MCG crowd is being tipped to break the record of 91,092, set four years ago.
Jonny Bairstow said on Saturday that the mentality of the England team, now that the Ashes have been lost, is of a fresh two-match series and that the players owed Root and themselves a performance.
It appears to be between the uncapped Tom Curran and Mark Wood, hoping to play his first Test since the summer, to replace the injured Craig Overton in the side, while for Australia Mitchell Starc is ruled out because of the left-armer’s bruised heel. Tim Paine, the wicketkeeper, will rejoin the home squad after a serious family illness.
