For a very long time, Cricket trampled over other sports in India pushing them away to the brink of extinction. The sorry state of affair could be gauged from the fact that legendary Footballer and Indian Skipper Sunil Chettri had to beg audiences to come and watch them play, even abuse them on their bad performances. Now, ironically, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has done the same with mainstream Indian cricket.
Prioritising IPL is killing India’s chances of lifting international trophies
Usually, the schedule of IPL is packed for two straight months, no less. During that period, the players are engaged in back-to-back intense matches. Due to sustained pressure imposed by their respective franchises, the IPL has a bad toll on the physical and mental fitness of the players. Evidently, this has been reflected in back-to-back injuries to key players right before the T20 World Cup.
Earlier, In September 2022, India got an unceremonial exit from the Asia Cup. It lost back-to-back matches at the hands of eventual finalists, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Since then, the Indian Cricket team has been getting regular setbacks. Firstly, all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja was ruled out from the T20 world cup squad due to a knee injury. Later, the ace Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah too was ruled out of the mega tournament because of a back injury.
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The exit of Jasprit Bumrah from the world cup squad is a huge setback. He is not only India’s strike bowler but also has been the mentor of the pace battery. In crucial situations of the match, the experience and guidance of a skillful bowler like Bumrah plays handy to other bowlers as well. This has brought back the debate around match load on cricketers and the down side of IPL on the performance of the Indian team in the mega cricketing tournaments.
Plus, a contrast between Indian and foreign players have been observed right before crucial tournaments. For example, key players of England and Australian Cricket team in 2020, 2021 and 2022, skipped IPL matches to practice or re-energise right before their crucial matches in knockout tournaments or famed bilateral series like Ashes Test series.
In February 2022, Former Cricketer and renounced Coach Mickey Arthur asked England players to skip IPL in order to improve its Test Side.
In 2021, England players Woakes, Malan and Bairstow preferred playing for the national squad rather than participating in IPL..
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Australian Cricketer and ace pacer Pat Cummins skipped IPL to maintain work life balance.
The same has been echoed by Indian Cricketing legend Kapil Dev. On questions of extra pressure of IPL on players, he categorically advised players to stop whining and skip IPL instead.
He said, “I hear a lot of times on TV that there’s a lot of pressure on players to play in the IPL. Then I only say one thing, don’t play”.
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Further, he lambasted players for repeatedly raking up issues of pressure whenever they are held accountable for their poor performances in mega tournaments like Asia Cup or Champions Trophy or several failures in getting through to the semi-finals in several world cups.
He added, “If a player has passion, there will be no pressure. I can’t understand these American terms, like depression. I’m a farmer and we play because we enjoy the game, and there can’t be any pressure while enjoying the game”.
The team management has not properly managed the workload of players. Even when the players have been off the field it has been done during international series rather than during hectic IPL schedules. Indian Cricket team has played 30 T20 matches this year, out of which Jasprit Bumrah could manage to play only 5 International matches as compared to 14 matches for Mumbai Indians in the IPL. The same goes for other players like KL Rahul, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
The bad tool of hectic and lengthy IPL on physical as well as mental fitness of players are glaringly obvious. So, it is time for both the team management, BCCI and players themselves to show a spine and take a stand against this. Established players like Kohli, Rohit and Bumrah should lead the way and skip the glare and shine of IPL as has been done by foreign cricketers.
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