IPL 2018: Trevor Bayliss Advises Joe Root to Skip the Lucrative League

While it is more or less clear that England Test captain Joe Root is keen on playing in the lucrative Indian Premier League, head coach Trevor Bayliss has advised him not to make himself available for the upcoming season.

England is currently recovering from the humiliating 4-0 defeat in the Ashes, and with the home summer set to give Joe Root & Co. an opportunity to revive themselves, Bayliss has urged Root to remain fresh. England is yet to play the One-Day Internationals in Australia and will tour New Zealand in March before they host Pakistan and India at home.

After the ODIs in Australia, England will play a T20 tri-series involving Australia and New Zealand. Root was expected to skip and refresh during the tri-series, but now he will be getting some T20 practice. His selection will show IPL franchises that he is serious about the shortest form of the game.

“We had that discussion a few days ago, I suggested to him that he shouldn’t play, that he should have a break,” Bayliss said.

“He feels that whenever he’s had a break in the last couple of years, it’s always been a T20 series. He wants to play in 50-over World Cups and T20 World Cups.

“He thinks if he keeps missing all the T20 cricket he’s just going to fall behind and not be up to speed when those come along. It’s just a Catch-22 situation. There are difficult decisions to make. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” he added.

But while Bayliss is desperate to see his Test captain keeping himself fresh ahead of a busy calendar, Root looks set to feature in the richest cricket league of the world. That Root is very interested in playing IPL was very much clear when last year he admitted the league would be a great opportunity.

“It would be a great opportunity,” Root had said in September last year. “Ultimately I’m an England player, and that comes first.

“If things fall into place, who knows, but for now my main focus is doing the best I can when I play for England,” he had added.

What makes Root’s case even more strong is that England does not have many assignments in April and May. In the past, England’s early-season home fixtures often prevented players from taking part in a whole tournament, but more England players are expected to take part in the upcoming season.

Root can be one of the biggest attractions if he decides to ignore Bayliss’ advise and put his name in the IPL draft scheduled to take place later this month. While the right-handed batsman is not the biggest-hitter of the cricket-ball, he is certainly an outstanding batsman even in the shortest format of the game. His 44-ball 83-run knock in 2016 World T20 to power England to a world-record run-chase against South Africa in Mumbai will be making his case stronger.

Root, who looks set to become the first serving England Test captain to play in the IPL, might not get as much Rs 14.50 crores that Rising Pune Giant paid to make Ben Stokes the most expensive overseas player in IPL history last year, but he looks more than likely to earn a big deal.

Meanwhile, Bayliss further admitted Root playing in the IPL is inevitable.

“It is just the way the world of cricket is going. If you don’t get involved in it, you run the risk of dropping behind the rest of the players in the world and the rest of the teams in the world. You’ve just got to go with the flow and see where it takes you,” the England coach said.

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