Kevin Pietersen decides to skip IPL 2017

England cricketer Kevin Pietersen today clarified his intentions of not being a part of the Indian Premier League (IPL) season 10. KP who played the previous edition of the league which was also his debut season featured only in four matches before being injured and thus being ruled out of the rest of the tournament was a key cog in the Melbourne Stars team in the recently concluded Big Bash League (BBL) 2016-17.

He cited a busy winter schedule as the reason for his decision. He has been away from England and his family for the entire winter and playing the 45-day long IPL means he would be spending the months of April and May in India which doesn’t seem to be his priority at the moment.

Pietersen made his intentions pretty clear with a tweet- “FYI – I won’t be going into the IPL auction. My winter has been too busy with all my travel & I don’t want to spend April/May away too!”

FYI – I won't be going into the IPL auction. My winter has been too busy with all my travel & I don't want to spend April/May away too!

— KP (@KP24) February 3, 2017

Also read- I would not try and fire up Virat Kohli; he thrives on that: Mike Hussey

Earlier there were speculations about the various franchises who would target to bid for KP in the IPL 2017 players auction. He was with IPL debutants Rising Pune Supergiants in the previous season and scored 73 runs in 4 matches. The team led by former Indian captain MS Dhoni ended second from the bottom on the points table and the management thus decided to release a list of players for the upcoming season.

KP was also released and that might have also prompted the English star from giving the IPL a miss since he has never quite been a huge fan of playing the league in India having appeared just in five seasons in all these years. He had displayed decent form in the BBL scoring 268 runs in eight outings.

Along with the BBL Pietersen also plays for: Dolphins, Hampshire, Quetta Gladiators and St Lucia Zouks across various domestic leagues.