Australia captain Ricky Ponting has announced he will not play in the Indian Premier League this year because of his international commitments.

The 34-year-old had been signed up for a short spell with the Kolkata Knight Riders, but will now miss the competition in order to concentrate on the upcoming Ashes series.

Australia are determined to retain the Ashes, which they won two summers ago after whitewashing England 5-0, but retirements of a host of senior players during the last two years has placed England as the contnenders to regain cricket’s oldest and most treasured silverware.

"I have made the decision. I will not play in the Indian Premier League Twenty-20 competition this year," Ponting wrote in his column in ‘The Australian’ newspaper. "My country comes first and there was no way I could give my all for Australia if I used the only two-week break we have to go and play in India."

Ponting, who is currently touring South Africa with the national team, was one of a number of Australians set to turn out in the IPL, which commences on April 10.

His decision comes after the Sri Lankan players, led by captain Mahela Jayawardene were engaged in an ugly campaign to skip a Test series in England to take part in the IPL.

Jayawardene has been criticized for seeking the intervention of politicians on the issue and early this month stated that he will relinquish the captaincy at the end of the two Test series Pakistan tour.

The local board, came up with a compromise, to the national players and asked them to play a portion of the IPL and return to national duty, but Jayawardene and Co. insisted on playing the full IPL season and with the help of politicians, successfully scrapped the country’s Test tour of England. Eventually, West Indies fitted into replace Sri Lanka.

Ponting, meanwhile, had been signed up to play for Kolkata during a two-week window in May between the conclusion of Australia’s five-match one-day series against Pakistan and the start of the World Twenty-20.

The Ashes series against England will then get underway soon after the World Twenty-20, and Ponting admits the IPL would have been too much of an interruption in a busy international programme.

"I could have played for two weeks in the IPL and in many ways that is not satisfactory, not for the Knight Riders and not for Australian cricket either," he continued.

"Our priorities are to be in the best physical and mental shape we can be for the Australian side and it doesn’t get any more important than the games we’ve got coming up.

"We have something to prove to the South Africans and the world. After that it is the ICC Twenty-20 championship and then we have the Ashes and nobody needs to be told how much that matters."