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Is the IPL destabilising national teams?

The drawing power of the Indian Premier League is destabilising national teams.

In two months retired Australian batsman Michael Hussey will be playing cricket in India, but it will not be against India, but he will be representing his Indian Premier League team.

Two weeks from this Friday, on the very ground where Hussey will be plying his trade, Michael Clarke will begin his first Test series without his versatile left-hander.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, only Hussey will know what drove his decision.

With the exception of the Doug Bollinger situation a few years ago, when the left-arm paceman broke down after arriving at the eleventh hour for a Test match, Australian cricket has been relatively unscathed by its players' involvement in the IPL in the past, the report said.

Both players are lucky to make it through a training session these days, and in April they're planning to be there when the fireworks announce the beginning of IPL chapter 6.

Pietersen had bemoaned missing the IPL because of English season

Just a month before Australia's most important tour to England in years, Clarke will be taxing his hamstring and Watson will be justifying his price tag to Rajasthan by bowling.

Yet the entire Australian summer has been compromised by both players' injury predicaments.

English cricket was thrown into turmoil last year by Kevin Pietersen.

According to the report, England's best player had long bemoaned his unavailability for the IPL because of its clash with the English domestic season, but he managed to squeeze in a stunning IPL cameo last year before announcing his retirement from One-Day Internationals.

Starc wants to keep himself fit for Australia's gruelling season

It has been rumoured that Mitchell Starc announced that he will bypass this year's IPL auction to save himself for future Australian commitments, and after the way he bowled in the Twenty20 against Sri Lanka in Melbourne recently that might be a good idea.

But Starc is one of Australia's most valuable young properties and it was refreshing to hear his explanation.

He has had a well-planned build-up since the middle of last year at Yorkshire and wants to rest after the Indian series before Australia begins its tour of England in June.

Meanwhile, Michael Hussey has been lost to Australian cricket when they needed him most.

Rumours persist that he and Clarke were not seeing eye to eye, but if that was the case it certainly didn't show.

The indisputable fact is that while Hussey is running around for Chennai, Clarke will be wishing he was doing the same thing for Australia, both before and after it, the report added.