Ben Stokes is set to participate in the 2023 Indian Premier League. Fresh off winning the T20 World Cup with England on Sunday, it is understood he will be entering the auction for next year’s franchise tournament.
All eyes will be on who will acquire the former Rajasthan Royals player’s services when the auction takes place on December 23. After the 2008 inaugural IPL champions released him from a £1.3m contract in 2021, the 31-year-old opted out of this year’s tournament after taking a break to focus on his mental health and wellbeing.
Should he feature in the next edition of the IPL, Stokes would be faced with a very demanding schedule. Before attempting to regain the Ashes next June, England will embark on winter Test tours to Pakistan and New Zealand. Then the IPL runs from March 25 until May 28, just four days before a one-off Test against Ireland at Lord’s.
This is the exact reason Stokes opted to retire from ODIs in July, but everyone affiliated with English cricket hopes he will reverse his decision and represent the Barmy Army at next year’s 50-over World Cup in India. "This has been an incredibly tough decision to make,” Stokes said when he announced his retirement. “I have loved every minute of playing with my mates for England.
“Hard as this decision was to come to, it’s not as hard as dealing with the fact I can’t give my teammates 100% of myself in this format any more. The England shirt deserves nothing less from anyone who wears it. Three formats are just unsustainable for me now.
“Not only do I feel that my body is letting me down because of the schedule and what is expected of us but I also feel that I am taking the place of another player who can give the team their all.” He added: "It is ridiculous the amount of cricket that is expected of people to play.
“It really needs looking at from a workload point of view. It is just so much. I don’t want to miss England matches.” England’s white-ball head coach Matthew Mott, has not given up on a rethink.
“He’s a three-dimensional player and he has so much to offer,” Mott said. “In this team he was the glue – I think we have a lot of guys who can do extraordinary things but he was the player you knew that if he was in you’d win the game.
“When he spoke to me about his ODI retirement one of the first things I said was that I’d back any decision he made, but I said to him he didn’t necessarily have to retire, he could just not play 50-overs for a while. And I said: ‘You could always unretire.’
“That’s his decision. It’s going to be a World Cup year and we don’t play much T20 cricket for a while, but it will be up to him. The more we can get him is great. He’s doing an amazing job with the Test captaincy but he is a very big cog in the wheel when he comes back to white-ball.”
