Overseas star Mustafizur Rahman is set to delay his arrival at Hove due to homesickness.

Rahman is likely to miss the opening three games of Sussex’s NatWest T20 Blast campaign to return home following the conclusion of the IPL.

Sussex have agreed to give the 20-year-old extra time off following speculation he was considering pulling out of coming to England altogether once his stint with Sunrisers Hyderabad is over.

Sunrisers play their last group game on Sunday – two days after Sussex take on Gloucestershire at Bristol – but are on course to qualify for the knockout stages with the final scheduled for May 29.

That would make it possible for Rahman to feature in Sussex’s second game against Somerset at Hove on June 1 but he is almost certain to miss that and the home game against Surrey two days later, with his debut likely to be the visit of Kent on June 10.

Skipper Luke Wright said: “Fizz is definitely coming but we are just clarifying the number of games he is going to play.

“We have to understand he is a young lad who has been away from home for a long time in an environment where he doesn’t speak the language. He’s also played a lot of games so we want to give him enough time to rest so that when he does come over we get the best out of him.

“We always knew he was likely to miss the first two games so it is a case of whether he misses an extra game or not. Obviously we’d like him for as many games as possible as he is in such great form but either way he’ll still be available for a large chunk of the matches.”

Rahman has taken the IPL by storm with 14 wickets and a superb economy rate of 6.66 to help Sunrisers to the top of the table with two group games remaining.

His extended absence is a further blow for Sussex who will also be missing Wright and England all-rounder Chris Jordan for the opening clash with Gloucestershire tomorrow but the Sussex skipper believes Rahman will be worth the wait.

He added: “When we did our research on him people told us what a big player he was going to be. When someone like Kumar Sangakkara says he is a special talent then you sit up and take notice.

“He’s proving how good he is out in India at the moment so we’ve done very well to get him on the deal we have as I don’t think he’ll be quite so cheap in the future.”