Joe Root: “The reason I wanted to go out there was to play more Twenty20 cricket”

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England Test captain Joe Root has admitted that he was gutted not to have been bought by any franchise at the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction in January.

Despite head coach Trevor Bayliss advising him not to, Root put his name forth for the IPL auction and set his base price at INR 1.5 crores.

However, despite being one of the most high-profile players in the auction, he failed to get any bidders and will subsequently not be participating in this year’s competition.

“I was disappointed,” Root was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz. “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.”

Root admitted that he wants to play more Twenty20 cricket in the lead-up to the 2020 World Twenty20. He had hoped to play alongside and against some of the top players in the format at the IPL, but his hopes of doing so were dashed when he went unsold at the auction.

“It’s completely out of my control,” the 27-year-old said. “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 [the IPL] would be a great opportunity to get some good experience in a fantastic tournament.”