Joe Root reveals he wanted IPL contract for exposure, not money

Reuters

England Test captain Joe Root has revealed he was disappointed by the snub from the Indian Premier League (IPL) in January earlier this year. 

At a two-day auction in Bengaluru, Root, considered one of the best batsmen across all formats right now, went, to the surprise of many, unsold.

And on Monday the 30-year-old expressed his disappointment at being ignored by all eight franchises.  

“I was disappointed,” the Guardian reported Root as saying. “The reason I wanted to go out there was to play more Twenty20 cricket; it wasn’t to go and earn as much money as possible. I’m not in that position.

“For me, I wasn’t going to fit into any one of those [IPL] teams. There’s not really much you can do. It was disappointing but it’s also very understandable. Sides have a clear idea of what they want their makeup of their team to look like and they build around that.

“You’ve just got to get on with the rest of the cricket I can play. It gives me a really good period to make sure everything is set for the start of the Test season back at home but it would have been really nice to have had the experience and everything that the IPL brings to the table,” he added. 

When asked how he was planning to make himself appealing to the franchises, Root said: “It’s hard to do that without playing.

“It’s completely out of my control. The amount of Twenty20 cricket I’m available to play at the moment is minimal and there’s a World T20 in a couple of years’ time. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get some good experience in a fantastic tournament.”

While Root went unsold, his team-mate Ben Stokes fetched a whopping Rs 12.5 crore from Rajasthan Royals.

Not just Stokes, other England players Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Jason Roy, Mark Wood, Sam Billings and Chris Jordan also managed to find a buyer.

The eleventh edition of the high-profile T20 league starts from April 7.