sport news Captain Buttler will not exile players for opting out of England duty to earn ... trends now
Jos Buttler has refused to condemn players for opting out of England’s upcoming limited-overs tour of Bangladesh, accepting that the financial clout of franchise cricket has made decisions tougher.
As first reported by Sportsmail, David Willey asked to be excused from the twin one-day and Twenty20 series - spanning a fortnight from March 1 - to spend time with his young family between SA20 commitments and next month’s Indian Premier League.
Alex Hales is also understood to have made himself unavailable both for a 50-over recall here in South Africa and a place on the Bangladesh trip, despite successfully returning from three years in the international wilderness by becoming a Twenty20 world champion last November.
The 34-year-old will honour the lucrative contract he signed with Islamabad United in the Pakistan Super League instead.
‘It’s quite a unique situation. It’s the times we are in. The way the games are scheduled, I can sort of understand it both ways,’ Buttler said.
Jos Buttler can understand why players have opted out of England’s tour of Bangladesh
‘As an England captain, on one side you wish that everyone would see playing for England as the main thing and grab any opportunity available but there are bigger things in play as well and the discrepancy between what people can earn playing for England and not playing for England is quite large, so that’s a factor that must be considered, and for each individual that will be a different decision made at different times of their careers.
‘In this day and age, you’ve got to to try to work with it as best you can and if people make that choice to make themselves unavailable they know they’re giving someone else a chance as well.
‘I certainly don’t want to be in a position where you rule people out and say they’ll never play for England again or anything like that.
‘Wherever people are playing, we want to pick our best available team, especially for World Cups and big ICC events, so we are open-minded. It’s quite complicated, for sure, and of course there are some frustrations at certain points but I completely understand people’s
