Daniel Vettori asks for IPL window in FTP

With the IPL once again putting to test - and with largely one-sided results - the debate of club versus country, Daniel Vettori believes that an official window for the IPL in the sport's annual calendar could settle the argument. One alternative for smaller boards would be to then go down the path that Vettori hopes New Zealand cricket will take when signing in on the Future Tours Programme for the next few years.

Speaking to ESPNcricinfo in Delhi, Vettori said the controversies such as Chris Gayle's spat with the West Indies board, and the discussions between the Indian and Sri Lankan boards over the early release of Lankans from the IPL for the England tour, would not arise if the IPL found its way into the international calendar as well.

"For me, there's a simple solution - you create a window for the IPL and all these probems go away, all the discourse and the conversations about it stops instantly," Vettori said. "A number of people have been talking about it for a long, long time. That would be great, otherwise people will continually be put into these situations and it's a tough decision."

A long-standing captain of New Zealand until he stepped down following the World Cup, Vettori leads the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL. He pointed out the dilemma faced by international cricketers when having to choose between country and the IPL. "Everyone wants to play for their country," he said. "But if you understand the amount of money that's involved and its pressures, and sometimes the lack of certainty around your place in the team, it can make it [the decision] difficult. Like I said you can take all those things away by creating a small window around the IPL."

Vettori said New Zealanders had "missed big chunks" of the IPL in the first three seasons, because the team at the time was involved in New Zealand Cricket's (NZC) previous FTP commitments, though they had largely been supportive of their players. He said NZC were looking to accommodate the IPL in their plans when the new cycle of the FTP comes around.

"I think New Zealand is going to try in earnest to make sure that it [players missing out on IPL] doesn't happen in the future and we hope so," Vettori said. "We hope that that window is cleared out because the guys enjoy playing here and there's financial security as well, which helps a lot."

West Indies and England have their international calendars directly overlapping with the IPL's March-April schedule, but it is not yet certain whether the other ICC member boards would want to create their own tacit 'windows' when formulating their FTP arrangements in the coming months.

Vettori's position in the IPL is a unique one: he has stepped down from the New Zealand captaincy and retired from Twenty20 Internationals, but in the IPL he is leading a T20 outfit. His decision to quit Twenty20 internationals came from his desire to focus on his Test cricket. "It [retirement from T20Is] may not be a permanent thing," he said. "At this point in time I would prefer to concentrate on Test cricket and be ready for it, we don't actually play a lot of international Twenty20s so I'm not missing out on too much.

"After captaining the team for such a long time, in some ways it is better to let the new captain find his feet without having the ex-captain in his face the whole time," he said. "I think it will be a little bit easier for him coming in." New Zealand are yet to name his successor with the two candidates for the job being Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor. Vettori, however, refrained from naming his choice.

"My opinion is irrelvant because I don't have any say; I'm good friends with both the guys and enjoy their captaincy styles. They're both quite aggressive captains," he said before correcting himself, "Well they've been aggressive vice-captains and I think they'll do a really good job on the field.

"The amount of time that is taken up outside of cricket and the pressures that come from there," Vettori said, would be an "eye-opener" for the new captain. "That is always going to be the hardest thing to deal with, but they are both mature young men. So I think they will be good for New Zealand whoever they choose Ross or Brendon."

Bangalore have won two of their first six matches and Vettori has found the job of leading a team made up of a diverse group of players "probably more of a challenge" than captaining an international team. "In your national team you know everyone well, you know what to expect pretty much in a given situation," he said. "In IPL, you are getting to know the guys all the time, you are learning all the time, as you have never seen some guys play before. You have to find out different things, so it's probably more of a challenge captaining an IPL team than captaining an international team."

On Tuesday, Vettori will lead Bangalore against his old team the Delhi Daredevils, with both teams trying to climb up the points table. Vettori said the IPL remained "fluid" in the sense that "one man on his day" could decide games. "Your whole concept of where you are as a team changes so quickly," Vettori said, referring to the impact of Chris Gayle's century against Kolkata that took Bangalore up from second-last to fifth. "So if we win this next one, I think we are up to second or something like that."

Barring table-toppers like Mumbai Indians, Vettori said it still remained difficult for sides "to get a real grasp of where you are as a team, because the competition is so close". He predicted that as the IPL drew closer to the semi-finals, there was a good chance that there would be "close to seven eight teams with something like seven wins and seven losses, or eight wins and six losses. It's really hard to know where you are." For the next eight hours or so, Vettori and Bangalore would just like to be on top of their game.