IPL 2020: Mitchell Starc and Joe Root Opt Out of the Tournament

Australia pacer Mitchell Starc has opted out of the Indian Premier League for the second successive year whereas his teammates Glenn Maxwell and Chris Lynn are among seven players who have been listed their names in the player’s auction which is scheduled to be held on December 19 in Kolkata.

The 29-year-old, pace spearhead Mitchell Starc last took part in the IPL in 2015 when he played for Royal Challengers Bangalore. In the 2018 IPL auction, he had been bought by Kolkata Knight Riders for Rs 9.4 crore but he couldn’t play in the entire tournament because of an injury.

Earlier this year, Starc was recovering from injury prior to the IPL 2019 auction and had opted out to give more focus to Australia’s World Cup campaign. England’s Test captain Joe Root is another notable absence from the auction pool of 971 players.

Glenn Maxwell and Chris Lynn, however, have been added and have set their base price at the maximum of Rs 2 crore. Apart from Maxwell and Lynn, the other players who have been listed their base price at Rs 2 crore are Australia fast bowlers Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, Australia allrounder Mitchell Marsh, South Africa pacer Dale Steyn, and Sri Lanka batsman Angelo Mathews.

On the other hand, South Africa pacer Chris Morris became the only retained player in 2018 among other overseas big names in the auction list has released ahead of the upcoming auction. A total of 971 players have registered for the auction and the tournament is scheduled to be played in March 2020. Out of the 971 players, 713 players are Indian whereas 258 are overseas players. However, they will be contesting for only 73 spots in the auction.

On the other hand, BCCI is all set to consider one new franchise from IPL 2020 and it will last at least until 2022. One of the major reasons behind this could be time as according to the earlier plan being the ICC future tours programme that might not be able to host 90 matches in a limited duration as a ten-team tournament’s league stage will require.