Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell is set to miss the tour of Pakistan and the initial few games of Indian Premier League due to his wedding next month.
Maxwell told Fox Sports that the clash was unavoidable due to changes in the schedule. He is one of the retained players by Royal Challengers Bangalore alongside Virat Kohli and Mohammad Siraj.
"Originally when I organised the dates with CA there was a two-week gap where I could potentially have it," Maxwell said after the third T20 against Sri Lanka in Canberra.
"So when I sorted that out I was pretty happy that I wasn't going to be missing in any series. And then I came to the [CA] contract meeting midway through last year and they said well this is [when] the Pakistan series [is on] and I thought well obviously that's changed since the last conversation we had."
The IPL is expected to start in the last week of March and Pakistan limited overs tour is scheduled from March 29.
The Australian duo of pacer Kane Richardson and spinner Adam Zampa had left India due to the devastating COVID-19 wave before the IPL was eventually suspended last year.
Both bowlers had no takers in the IPL mega auctions held last week.
Richardson was more surprised about Zampa going unsold. "I was definitely more shocked for him. To be brutally honest, when we left last year, in the circumstances early, I remember having a conversation with him.
"I said to him, look, this may come back and bite us, and at that time it wasn't a priority for us to be there. We wanted to get back to Australia. So I think there'd be some kind of buyers that'd be pretty wary of picking us up thinking that we wouldn't come again. I definitely think that's a factor," Richardson said.
The right-arm pacer had missed the 2020 IPL due to the birth of his child. He said he understood why the IPL teams did not bid for him but he has not spoken to any of them.
"I'm just speaking on what I think would be a factor in it. I don't know. I've never had a dialogue with a franchise or a person that says that's what would be the case. But I think I didn't go the year before as well with the birth of my boy.
"So my reputation probably is that in the last couple of years I haven't gone so it's obviously not something that I am.
"I try and play as much cricket as I can. But I think the circumstances in the last couple of IPLs have made me not go. But it's not a reputation I want," he added.
