South African wanted Test players to leave IPL early to prepare for World Test Championship final against Australia

As players weigh up whether to return to India for the delayed IPL, South African cricket bosses lost their bid to make a demand on their Test players that Cricket Australia didn’t.

South African cricket bosses tried their best to put the World Test Championship final ahead of the delayed IPL but a desire to have Test players exit India on May 25 to prepare for the clash with Australia was overruled.

Australian Test captain Pat Cummins is among those headed back to India after the IPL was stalled due to the now de-escalated conflict between India and Pakistan that led to many international players fleeing both countries.

The final is now set for June 3, and Cummins’ Sunrisers Hyderabad can’t make the playoffs but others can, including Mitchell Starc and the Delhi Capitals as well as Josh Hazlewood’s Royal Challengers, although he’s unlikely to continue due to a shoulder issue.

While Cummins is going to play out as long as Sunrisers last, the Proteas had wanted any players needed for WTC final at Lord’s, which begins on June 11, to stick to their original departure timeline and exit by May 26.

“It is an individual decision, obviously, to return or to play or continue,” South Africa’s director of cricket Enoch Nkwe said.

Kagiso Rabada will have to leave the IPL early. Picture: AP Photo/Ajit Solanki

“But one thing we’ve made clear, and we are finalising that with IPL and BCCI, is sticking to our original plan when it comes to the WTC preparations, obviously with May 26 being the latest for the Test guys to come back.”

But in the hours after making that statement, Nkwe issued a “correction” pushing out the date when Proteas players were needed as a reult of talks betwene people “higher up”.

“The squad will resume training for the game on June 3rd,” he said. “

The matter is being discussed higher up than me. At ground level, we are focusing on preps for the WTC final.”

South Africa have eight players from the WTC final squad playing in the IPL, including Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Aiden Markram and Marco Jansen, and most of their players remain firmly in finals contention.

Cummins, Starc, Travis Head, Josh Inglis and Hazlewood are the five members of Australia’s Test squad featuring in the IPL and high performance boss Ben Oliver said this week that returning to India would not impact their WTC preparations.

“I think each player will have experienced it differently,” Oliver said.

“No doubt it was an extreme situation, and we feel it’s really appropriate to support their individual experience and their individual decision as they work through that over the coming days.

Josh Hazlewood is one of the Aussie players in the IPL. Picture: AFP

“We don’t expect any material impact on the preparation for the World Test Championship (final).

“We’ve got players obviously preparing here in Australia, we’ve got players preparing around the world before they then assemble in the UK. But we’ll work through that individually with players over the coming days.”

Batting dynamo Jake Fraser-McGurk has opted not to return for the rest of the tournament, citing “personal reasons”.