Cricket-India may need to rest players from IPL says coach

NOTTINGHAM, England, June 15 (Reuters) - Indian administrators may need to rest their leading players from the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) in future, national coach Gary Kirsten said on Monday.

Defending champions India were eliminated from the Twenty20 World Cup by England on Sunday. Afterwards captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said fatigue was a factor while Kirsten went a step further saying players had carried injuries into the tournament.

"A lot of those niggles were picked up during the IPL," Kirsten told reporters at the team hotel. "We lose contact with our players during the IPL because they are connected and responsible to their franchises and the players take a lot of pride representing their franchises as well.

"The bottom line was the amount of cricket that was being played and the amount of niggles that came into this tournament. Maybe we need to consider pulling players out, but whether that is possible I don't know."

The international schedule around next year's IPL is likely to be even tighter with the International Cricket Council staging another Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies in April, the period when the IPL has been staged in the past two years.

India lost their explosive opening batsman Virender Sehwag without playing a match because of a shoulder injury while Zaheer Khan missed the start of the tournament after sustaining a shoulder injury in the IPL.

If fast bowler Ishant Sharma is rested from the IPL he could lose a large portion of his $900,000 contract. Dhoni, himself, is on $1.35 million and opener Gautam Gambhir is on $750,000.

Kirsten also said because of the amount of cricket being played teams now needed to use bigger squads.

(Editing by John Mehaffey; to query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)