YORK star Jonny Bairstow could miss the start of the new county season with Yorkshire after putting his name forward for next week's Indian Premier League auction.

Bairstow is one of a handful of English players who will go under the hammer in Bangalore on Monday and is the only White Rose player involved.

Yorkshire director of cricket Martyn Moxon says the powerful wicketkeeper-batsman wants to progress his Twenty20 skills in the tournament through April and May.

Bairstow, 27, has only played five T20 internationals for England since the start of 2013, with the last of those coming in July.

He has been a more regular feature in one-day international cricket, playing 11 matches since the start of last year. Yet even so, he has not been an automatic selection.

Moxon said: "It's Jonny's decision to want to go. Obviously, he's a centrally contracted England player and he's spoken to their management, who are happy for him to go.

"From our point of view, we'd prefer him to be playing for us early season. But as a centrally contracted player, there's not much we can do about that.

"I fully understand Jonny's reasons for wanting to try and play in the IPL – and they are not financial. It's about him wanting to put his name forward for that format of the game.

"He's not played a lot of that recently. He's not played a lot for us or for England. I can understand why he wants to do it, although we'd prefer it if he was playing for us. But there you go."

It is by no means a certainty that Bairstow will be sold, given Monday's auction is only there to help the eight franchises put the finishing touches to their squads.

His base price for the auction is approximately £175,000, which places him in the second-highest bracket behind the likes of Eoin Morgan, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes and Mitchell Johnson.

The England management have yet to decide how long their players will be available to IPL teams and that will be revealed at some point next week.

They could be called back for two one-day internationals against Ireland on May 5 and 7 or allowed to stay until the middle of the month, when all players must be back for a pre-Champions Trophy training camp.

The IPL starts on April 5 and runs through until May 21. Yorkshire's first County Championship match is against Hampshire at Headingley on April 7.

If Bairstow does win an IPL contract, he would miss the first three rounds of Championship cricket, plus the start of the one-day Royal London Cup.

Moxon said: "Jonny's not asked to be included previously, so this is new to us. But we've got the cover in Andrew Hodd, so in that respect it's not a problem."

Sam Billings (Dehli Daredevils) and Jos Buttler (Mumbai Indians) are the only two England players who hold IPL contracts at present.

Morgan, Stokes, Woakes, Alex Hales, Jason Roy, Chris Jordan and Tymal Mills are also hoping to win deals alongside Bairstow.