Jonny Bairstow, Mark Wood are among 22 English players to register for the IPL mega auction © BCCI/IPL
The ECB are expected to pull England's Test players out of the latter stages of the IPL so they can prepare for the three-match series against New Zealand which kicks off the home summer.

The opening Test against New Zealand begins on June 2 at Lord's and although the dates for the IPL have yet to be officially confirmed, it is likely that the tournament will run from March 27 until late May, just a few days before the first Test begins. If England players remained at the IPL for the duration of the tournament, it would call into question their availability for that Lord's match and would almost certainly mean they had no red-ball preparation prior to taking on the world Test champions.

While no formal communication has yet been given to England's players or the IPL teams about their availability, Cricbuzz understands that several franchises have been given an indication that they should plan to lose England players likely to be involved against the Blackcaps before the conclusion of the IPL. Sources close to a number of current England Test players also expect them to be withdrawn early. The ECB have been asked for comment.

It remains to be seen how many players might be impacted - depending on who gets picked up at next month's auction - and how early they will be asked to leave. If England's management wanted players to play at least one Championship match before the New Zealand series, for example, they would need to be home in time for the round of matches beginning on May 19. The Championship round before that begins on May 12.

Twenty-two English players have registered for the mega IPL auction, including several who have been in England's recent Test plans. Jonny Bairstow, Mark Wood, Dawid Malan, Ollie Pope, Craig Overton, Sam Billings and Dan Lawrence were all part of the Ashes squad and are currently on the auction list. Jos Buttler, who was also in Australia, has already been retained by Rajasthan Royals although Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes have already ruled themselves out.

During the disastrous Ashes tour, Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, said English cricket needed to go through a red-ball "re-set" in order to try and improve the fortunes of the faltering Test team. Ensuring England's players are better prepared for Test series is one part of that re-set and to that end, pulling players out of the IPL early so they get some red-ball action prior to the New Zealand series would appear to be a sensible idea.

It would be a change of policy from the ECB who were widely criticised for resting players for the Test series in Sri Lanka and India last winter but allowing those same players to play a full part in last year's IPL. A number of those same players then missed the two Test series against New Zealand in the summer, which England lost 1-0, because they were not back from India in time to quarantine and then play.

The ECB's said they had promised their contracted players that they could play a full part in last year's IPL and Ashley Giles, the director of cricket, believed it would be wrong to go back on that agreement even when matches against Sri Lanka and New Zealand were subsequently added into the schedule. The decision meant that England played their first-choice team in just one of their first eight Tests of 2021.