England players unhappy with IPL charges

The BBC has reported that the few England players in line to secure lucrative IPL contracts are very unhappy with having to pay 10% of their auction fee back to their counties.

Under the conditions imposed by the ECB, any player signing for one of the IPL franchises has to compensate his county for his time away by handing over the set amount.

In the case of Kevin Pietersen, whose base price has been set at $1,350,000, that would mean him having to pay Hampshire $67,500. But others will fetch far less. Owais Shah Will only have to pay $15,000 to Middlesex and Ravi Bopara $15,000 to Essex.

"Relations between the players and the ECB have rarely been as strained," Jonathan Agnew, the BBC's cricket correspondent, said. "Apart from the size of the levy, England's players are particularly upset that they have no say in how the money will be used."

Angus Fraser, Middlesex's director of cricket, told the BBC he felt the system was fair as counties needed compensating for the absence of key players. "We could be without Owais Shah and Tyron Henderson for two months of the season. We've got to try and find someone to fill that gap and I suppose this amount only contributes slightly to that."

Meanwhile, 12 English players have been cut from the IPL's revised list, leaving only seven on the 43-man list for this Friday's auction in Goa.

Steve Harmison and Monty Panesar were among those chopped, leaving only three centrally-contracted players - Andrew Flintoff, Pietersen and Paul Collingwood - in the reckoning.

Ian Bell and Matt Prior withdrew after deciding that they needed a break between the end of the West Indies series and the start of the English summer.

Essex's Graham Napier is close to finalising a contract with the Mumbai Indians but as an uncapped player is outside the auction process.

Pietersen is the highest valued of the seven, with Flintoff priced at US$950,000. Collingwood, by comparison, is a snip at US$250,000. The other four are Luke Wright (US$150,000), Owais Shah (US$150,000), Ravi Bopara (US$150,000) and Samit Patel (US$100,000).