Vaughan urges careful IPL scheduling

Justin Vaughan, the New Zealand Cricket chief executive, has said the IPL should be careful about the amount of calendar space it consumes in a year since a majority of players are willing to miss international matches to play in the league.

"IPL has come a long way and benefited cricketers worldwide," Vaughan was quoted as saying to PTI. "But in the process, a lot of players tend to play in all the matches due to obvious reasons."

Last week former Australian opener Matthew Hayden, who plays for the Chennai Super Kings, suggested a three-month window for the IPL where no international cricket would be played. In May last year Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, had proposed the tournament be spread over two seasons from 2011. But the idea did not receive widespread support.

With the permanent addition of the IPL to the calendar, and the compulsory Twenty20 fixture per tour, there have been calls to cut down on or even eliminate ODIs. But Vaughan, who was in Chennai with the New Zealand A squad, said the solution to a jam-packed calendar lay in maintaining balance and not in discarding ODIs. "Cricket is lucky to have these many formats. Each and every formula has an essence of its own. Taking out ODI's altogether is not a solution."

Vaughan was also against tinkering with the Test format. "Why would anybody want it to be a four-day affair? There would be more drawn matches than results. After all, it's Test cricket we are talking about where a player's endurance is pushed to the limits in the course of five days."