Australian cricketers offered contracts to forego IPL

The Sydney Morning Herald quoted a report saying Pat Howard, Cricket Australia’s newly re-signed executive general manager of team performance, had individually approached Test skipper Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and fast bowlers Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins in recent weeks with verbal offers of three-year deals rather than standard one-year central contracts on the condition that they skip the IPL. 

If the governing body had to change the minds of the top-brass players, it would have to come out with a big incentive as players like Smith and Warner, who captain their IPL franchises, collect more than USD 1 million a year for the T20 tournament. 

The earning capacity of these two players is set to rise sharply with a new IPL broadcast deal tipped to see the event’s player payment pool double.