Ben Duckett withdraws from IPL to focus on England Test career

Ben Duckett has pulled out of the Indian Premier League to protect his England Test career and is now at risk of being banned from the lucrative franchise tournament for the next two years.

The Nottinghamshire opening batsman had secured his first IPL contract, having been bought by Delhi Capitals at the player auction for £200,000, but has withdrawn on the eve of the tournament in a bid to secure his place in the Test team and rediscover some red-ball form. He scored only 202 runs at an average of 20.2 during the winter Ashes series defeat, failing to register a score higher than 42.

He was part of the England squad that reached the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup this month but did not play a match, with Jos Buttler and Phil Salt preferred to open the batting.

Duckett, 31, will now play a number of games for Nottinghamshire at the start of the County Championship season in the hope of cementing his place in the squad for England’s Test series against New Zealand in June.

Rob Key, England’s managing director of cricket, hinted that early season county performances would matter, and, as part of the review of the disastrous 4-1 Ashes loss, the 46-year-old acknowledged he and the other selectors had gone “too far” in trying to ensure the Test team had a settled side, which has led to criticism that there are little consequences for underperforming players.

“I don’t know if I am potentially saying goodbye to the IPL, having never played in it,” Duckett told The Telegraph. “With the age I am now it might be tough for me, but I hope one day I’m able to represent Delhi. I’ve thought a lot about this and know it’s the right decision for my career.”

Harry Brook has already risked a two-year ban from the IPL after he pulled out last year to focus on his England career. The IPL franchises brought in bans for players who withdraw at the last minute for any reason other than injury after several incidents in the past couple of years of players removing themselves from the tournament because of international commitments or to manage their workloads.

Duckett said a difficult winter played a part in his decision not to go to the IPL, which runs from March 28 to May 31 and clashes with the first eight rounds of the County Championship season.

“Everything I had done for four years was building to that moment [the Ashes] and this could have been the best 12 months of my life,” he said. “I got married in October, then hoped to win the Ashes down under, then play a World Cup and win that. That was my vision at the start of the winter. The getting married bit is there, and I’m so happy about that, but after that? It couldn’t really have gone much worse.

“Not playing in the World Cup and being on the sidelines in India after such a tough Ashes series was a massive struggle for me. But it’s lit a massive fire in my belly moving forwards, I don’t know where I stand or what is to come.

“I’ve learnt a lot in the last year. Going from how I was being spoken about during the India series last summer to how I am spoken about now, that’s a ridiculously big dip. It’s not just what I’ve learnt from my failures this winter, but what I’ve learnt if and when I’m playing my best again, all that noise and how to manage it.”

He also apologised for the “not professional” incident during the Ashes series, when he was filmed by England fans in what appeared to be a drunken state in Noosa, the Australian resort town, during a four-day break for the players after the second Test.

Duckett says he intends to spend the next couple of months getting fitter, spending time with his wife and daughter and “going back to the drawing board”, working closely with Nottinghamshire’s head coach, Peter Moores.

“I want to work with people like Peter Moores, who knows my game inside out. It’ll be so refreshing and good for my game to go back to him,” Duckett said. “He’s a big part of where I am today. He saw my journey coming from Northants, struggling at Notts, getting me through that period and then into an England dressing room.

“We all have different journeys, but my journey into the Test team has come from county cricket. I know how valuable that is for me, scoring runs in the championship and the confidence that gives me going into the rest of the summer.”

The majority of England’s Test squad from the winter will now feature in at least some of the early rounds of the County Championship — only Jofra Archer, Jacob Bethell, Will Jacks and Jamie Overton from the Test team will play in the IPL.

With a new selection structure in place as part of the Ashes review and a new national selector being appointed, plus acknowledgement from the ECB that county performances have to matter towards England selection, the first couple of months of the season have an added interest.

Bairstow criticises England regime’s level of ‘care’ for discarded players

Jonny Bairstow has criticised the level of support shown by the England management to discarded players (Elizabeth Ammon writes).

Bairstow has not played international cricket since he was dropped by England in 2024, despite having been given a multi-year contract which only expired last October.

“It is OK saying people care about things — no they don’t,” the wicketkeeper-batsman said at Yorkshire’s pre-season media day on Tuesday. “If you are in the system, you are in the system. As soon as you are out of the system, you are out of the system.”

Bairstow indicated that he believed that some players had become too “comfortable” as a result of England’s selection policy.

“When you become too comfortable, you become complacent and when someone questions you directly you are not used to it because you are in an environment that is potentially not questioning you in a different way,” he said.

Bairstow, 36, was a key part of the early success of the Brendon McCullum/Ben Stokes era, scoring four centuries across the first four matches under their leadership in 2022, but he then suffered a serious, freak leg injury when he slipped while walking to a tee box on a golf course. He returned for the 2023 Ashes before playing his 100th and most recent Test against India in March 2024.

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