IPL or country – Cricket world divided into two schools of thought – Part Two
Continued from part one …
A huge question arises here that is the standard of cricket in IPL higher than international cricket that a player should prefer his franchise over the country? Any average cricket can answer this question.
As a matter of fact, famous Indian cricket analyst Harsha Bhogle has raised his eye brows on the quality of cricket played in the current season and admitted that India does not have enough high class cricketers to feed 10 teams in IPL.
Harsha said, “A few young Indian players managed to drag attention towards them. But if you were a stock picker, if you were looking for flowers blushing unseen in the desert air, you would have been disappointed. One of the conclusions of this year’s IPL
is that there aren’t enough quality Indian players to fill ten teams.”
Former West Indies fast bowler Michael Holding is also of the opinion that IPL is not doing any good to international cricket. He feels that IPL is good for only Indian cricket and not for any other country or for the game itself.
Holding said that IPL never clashes with the schedule of Indian cricket team but it spoils everyone else’s party.
“IPL has created disquiet in the entire world, except in India because, as I have said before and I say again, the IPL will never clash with an Indian tour and with an Indian series. It will only clash with other people’s cricket and other people are facing
the problem of either playing in the IPL or representing their country,” he said.
Cricket is one of the most popular sports of the world and it is only because of international cricket and not franchise cricket. This is the reason why Fleming’s comments that cricket officials should reconsider their international schedule rather than
stopping their players from playing IPL do not make any sense.
Players all around the world start playing the game with a dream to represent their country one day. We are yet to come across a single cricketer who started playing cricket to represent a club or any franchise.
International cricket has to be the priority for players as well as the cricket officials all around the world if they do not want to damage the reputation of the game. Otherwise, ICC will find it extremely difficult to motivate young kids to play the game.
This is about time that ICC proves itself as an effective governing body of the game which cannot be influenced by the strength of any cricket board. Unfortunately this has not been the case for past few years as BCCI has had a huge influence on ICC because
of all the marketing and sponsorship generated by India.