Mark Butcher has questioned the authority of England central contracts after it was announced that Jofra Archer would miss the first Test match of the summer against New Zealand to manage his workload following the IPL.
England announced their squad for the opening match of the series this week, with pacers Ollie Robinson and Sonny Baker earning call-ups. The bowling group will be without Archer, however, who is playing for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL. The group stage of the tournament is set to end on May 24, with the final taking place on May 31 – four days before England begin their first Test match against New Zealand.
Speaking on Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast, Butcher labelled the decision for Archer to miss the Test match in favour of the IPL as "absolutely ridiculous".
Butcher: There is absolutely no reason Archer shouldn't be playing
"It baffles me, it really does," said Butcher. "The central contracts are worth an enormous amount of money on their own, before you add in match fees, let alone someone who plays in all three formats and the rest of it. I just think there is absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t be playing.
"For managing his workload, it should be the other way around. He should be being pulled out of the IPL games, or games representing people who are not contracting him, by the people who are contracting him, rather than resting him from his main employer to go and play in a tournament overseas. I don’t get it and I don’t think I ever will... He should be in the squad and he should be playing."
Archer holds a two-year central contract from the ECB, which will run until September 2027. Last year, Archer's name wasn't initially on the player list for the IPL mega-auction, as England looked to manage his workload in the build-up to the Ashes. However, after the league implemented a new rule which would ban foreign players who did not enter the mega-auction pool for the following two years, Archer put his name into the auction. He was bought by Rajasthan Royals for INR 12.5 crore.
Several England players have since incurred IPL bans for pulling out of their contracts. Harry Brook withdrew from his stint with Delhi Capitals last year, after he was named England white-ball captain. Ben Duckett pulled out of his IPL deal, also with Delhi Capitals, earlier this year, in order to play for Nottinghamshire in the early rounds of the County Championship in a bid to cement his Test match position.
'What’s the point of giving somebody a two-year contract?'
"If you put yourself in to go in the IPL and you pull out then you get a two-year ban from the IPL, that’s only a problem for Jofra Archer, that’s not a problem for England," said Butcher. "What’s the point of giving somebody a two-year contract and then allowing them to not honour that contract and play for somebody else?
"If your basic [salary], as an England contracted player before you step on the park, is upwards of half a million quid, and your selection in IPLs or whatever it might be can be extremely fickle, wouldn’t you have thought that you were better off honouring the larger chunk that you would be getting from playing for your country? Not all other countries are like this, the reason why people like Heinrich Klaasen and countless other players ditched their international sides is because they don’t get paid very well to do it, and it takes them away from home forever. But for England players, that is patently not the case.
"I find it absolutely ridiculous that you can be rested from an England Test match because you’ve been playing in the IPL. I’m sure I’m not on my own."
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