The Indian Premier League is supposed to be the holy grail for most of the T20 players in the world. For here are the riches: the most expensive IPL player alone makes more money than the winning prize in leagues such as PSL and BBL (even combining both of their winning prize money is less than what multiple Indian Premier League players individually make).
Anyway, getting into the biggest T20 league on the planet with the most eyeballs on you is a dream for most. Some, though, opt out of Indian Premier League still. And only those who can afford it.
A majority of them are fast bowlers from England and Australia – players from these two nations are paid handsomely by their cricket boards for international assignments so they can afford to skip the Indian Premier League – who opt out for workload management. Some pacers, even while doing well in international cricket, don’t get picked in the Indian Premier League auction.
Here are 2 fast bowlers who don’t play in the IPL but have been highly successful in T20 internationals:
Mitchell Starc
Mitchell Starc hasn’t played in the Indian league since 2015 for fitness and workload management reasons. However, Starc has not missed any important Test or ODI or T20I series/tournament for Australia.
Starc skipping the cash-rich league for the past 7-8 years have greatly helped him and Australia. Australia won the 2015 ODI WC at home and the 2021 T20 WC in the UAE, alongside hammering England in the Ashes. The left-arm pacer was brilliant in the 2021 T20 WC in the UAE: his 9 wickets were the joint third-most among pacers.
Overall, Starc has taken 73 wickets in 58 T20Is and he’s Australia’s all-time second-highest T20I wicket-taker, only behind Adam Zampa.
Mark Adair
Ireland’s Mark Adair has been one of the finest swing and seam bowlers going around in T20Is, but has failed to grab the attention of the Indian Premier League franchises as he’s never been picked in the auction. And it’s not just Adair, plenty of players from the Associate Nations don’t get picked in the Indian Premier League auctions despite being impressive in T20Is.
But Adair, at least statistically, has been a cut above most in the world. Among pacers, since the start of 2019, Adair has taken the most number of T20I wickets-80 wickets in 61 T20Is since 2019 at an average of 20. He’s left behind the likes of Southee, Shaheen, Rauf, Bhuvneshwar, Jordan, etc.
