Workload doubts for key Australians

Ricky Ponting has raised questions over whether Australia's main players will decide against going to the Indian Premier League and rest instead ahead of the four-month England tour. As more of the country's major performers, including Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Shaun Tait and Stuart Clark, nominated for the Twenty20 auction on February 6, Ponting wondered how the two-week break between a one-day series against Pakistan and the start of the Twenty20 World Cup would be spent.

"It's a fair way away. We're all going to have to make a judgment call closer to the time the IPL comes around," Ponting said in the Australian.

"We might only be able to play the last two weeks and a lot of the franchises we play for might have no chance of making the finals. There's all those sorts of things that need to be taken into consideration and worked out between the player and the franchises."

Ponting, who is signed by the Kolkata Knight Riders, has not had a break since the Test tour of India, which began in September. The IPL is due to start in April and Australia's Twenty20 players need to be in England at the end of May. By then many of them will have appeared in a one-day series against Pakistan, probably at a neutral venue.

Those in all three formats will stay in England until the end of September before preparing for the Champions Trophy and the home summer. Player workload has become a key issue in the Australian Cricketers' Association's memorandum of understanding negotiations with Cricket Australia, with the players pushing for fewer promotional appearances as part of their contracts.