Five high-profile New Zealand players will miss the start of the country's tour to England due to their Indian Premier League (IPL) commitments.

Captain Brendon McCullum, Kane Williamson, Trent Boult, Tim Southee and Corey Anderson were among the New Zealanders snapped up at last week's IPL auction.

The players are now scheduled to arrive in England just two days before the start of the first Test on May 21, meaning they could miss any potential involvement in the IPL play-offs.

Those affected would miss two warm-up matches against Somerset and Worcestershire.

New Zealand Cricket's head of operations Lindsay Crocker concedes the situation is not best, but is reported to have failed in a bid to get the tour schedule revised.

"Clearly it is not ideal preparation for us," he told The Dominion Post. "But the bottom line is some of our players have the chance to participate in the IPL and, in order to be picked up, we had to allow them a playing window.

"If we had truncated that it would have reduced their marketability.

"They can earn money in the IPL that we can't contemplate paying them.

"But it was important to us, and important to them, that they don't miss any internationals, so we came up with an arrangement that they were all back in time to play in the first test."