Cricket News: Alex Hales and Pat Cummins are retiring from the IPL

Alex Hales was signed for his base price in the 2022 mega auction but pulled out last minute, citing bio bubble fatigue. He was replaced by Aaron Finch, who had a mediocre season.

However, auction rules allow the franchise to choose who they want to keep, release, or trade. In theory, the team could have retained Alex Hales and released Aaron Finch.

Given that the team has two sure-shot foreign starters in Andre Russell and Sunil Narine, the prospect of Alex Hales and Australia's Test captain Pat Cummins filling in the other two slots seemed mouthwatering.

In reality, the franchise traded in Lockie Ferguson and Rahmanullah Gurbaz from the Gujarat Titans – because both Alex Hales and Pat Cummins are pulling out of the IPL this year.

The real question, however, is why? There's money to be made in the league – Pat Cummins was on a contract of around Rs. seven crores, while Alex Hales could have been in massive demand if he chose to go to the auction pool.

The answer given by both players is rest and prioritization of international commitments. Cummins explained his reasons on Twitter, adding he hoped to be back 'ASAP'.

"I've made the difficult decision to miss next years IPL," Pat Cummins tweeted. "The international schedule is packed with Tests and ODI's for the next 12 months, so will take some rest ahead of an Ashes series and World Cup."

Alex Hales didn't publicly confirm his decision, but KKR tweeted saying they respected the decisions made by him, Pat Cummins and Sam Billings to focus on their national team.

Sam Billings would also confirm his decision on his account, saying he wanted to focus on the longer game format.

"Have taken the tough decision that I won't be taking part in the next IPL," Sam Billings said in a tweet on Monday.

"Looking to focus on longer format cricket at the start of the English summer with @kentcricket."

In a way, it makes plenty of sense. The coming year of 2023 sees the start of the new Future Tours Programme (FTP), which is more packed than the previous one.

Plus, the coming year is the year of both the ODI World Cup and the Ashes, meaning someone like Pat Cummins – a regular across formats besides being both the Test and ODI captain – would want to be available for national duty more often than not.

Of course, this raises the rather uncomfortable question of why an Indian player could or would not do the same thing.

Yes, the IPL is a money-spinner for the BCCI, but their priority should be an international success, which has recently been largely elusive.

And in choosing to skip the IPL, players from Australia and England have perhaps shown why both sides have tasted success in recent times – the priority was the national team.