Nasser Hussain is excited to see Mark Wood join up with the Chennai Super Kings but thinks the IPL franchises have "missed a trick" in not signing up Joe Root...
I'm a bit surprised that Joe Root didn't get picked up in the IPL auction. It's not the end of the world but he'll take a bit of a knock. Perhaps it is because he's not as eye-catching as some of the great Twenty20 players, when you look at people like AB de Villiers, but if you look at his T20 stats they are pretty good. I think someone has missed a trick there.
It's very good for players to go across to the IPL, play in a lot of the games and learn and improve. But if you're just going there as a bench-warmer, someone who is just going to sit there as part of a squad then we saw what happened to Jason Roy last year, he didn't play a lot and then he finds himself out of rhythm.
It is a long tournament and I always felt that if Joe wasn't snapped up by someone who really wanted him and would play him, bat him in the top three or even give him the captaincy then perhaps it wasn't worthwhile him going.
I was a bit worried when he didn't go yesterday that he would go and just be a bit of a squad member and that's no good. He's a rhythm player and if he isn't playing, he needs to be back in England getting used to the conditions. He's also England captain. His time is valuable and six weeks at the IPL would have been a long time away from home.
It's quite complicated because sometimes players are signed up for two years and it is all well and good a player saying he is available this year but will they be available next year? Will Joe Root be available next year?
The availability of the English players has always been a little bit of a concern for the franchises. If teams are paying that much money then they want players there all the time. It's a complicated bidding process, it's not as simple as 'this lad is brilliant, we'll have him.'
I think England are still improving and showing that they have got some very, very good white-ball players, some have been snapped up, some haven't.
Mark Wood going to the Chennai Super Kings is very exciting. He's got that bit of pace and that wicket-taking potential - you don't stop the scoring rate unless you're able to take wickets.
He's got to work on his variations but he has got that extra pace and when bowlers come away from the IPL you often see they end up with different types of deliveries: knuckleballs, balls out of the back of the hand, wide yorkers etcetera.
We've seen him play T20 in England and at times he has been the fastest bowler, alongside Tymal Mills and now Jofra Archer. The extra pace he has means every time Durham needed a wicket they would go to him, so on those Indian pitches, it could reverse reasonably even in a T20 game, his skiddy nature and the bumpers that he bowls, he's a great signing.
It's good for him as long as he is looked after physically. Obviously he only has to bowl four overs a game but the IPL is quite a physically demanding tournament, India is not a small country and there are a lot of flights, hotel rooms and the rest. As long as he looks after himself physically then I think it is great for English cricket.
What you don't want is for him to go to the IPL and come back with a lot of niggles but as CSK have spent the money on him, you'd expect them to look after him.
Now the auction has finished, I still think the best bargain was Jos Buttler. I'm still not sure what his best position is, at times in last year's IPL he opened the batting and then he went back to Lancashire and wanted to bat in the top three.
They had a theory up there that your best players should bat most of the overs but I still see him as that middle-order finisher. Yes, your best player should be batting 20 overs if possible but Buttler, as we've seen in 50-over cricket, is so dangerous in the last 10.
What role he plays for the Rajasthan Royals remains to be seen. I think they've signed well, it'll help Jos and Ben Stokes to be at the same place, they get on very well. What Ben has to be careful of is that in the IPL, in your second season people do figure you out a bit but he'll be raring to go after what's happened this winter. Buttler and Stokes are two good picks from the Royals.