[Richard]

Put it in the tour thread IMO, TBH.

Yeah, we knew this was going to happen - it's not absolutely ideal, but I don't really know what else anyone was thinking was going to happen. You can't have players being signed for multiple thousands of dollars then not being available because of some (in the scheme of that) meaningless tour-game.

In future, we're just going to have to try our best to schedule tours to the maximum extent possible around the IPL, as has been said many times. If that reduces the absurdly over-crowded international calender in favour of some easy-aess, working-holiday Twenty20 games, excellent.