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As the emotions settle down and tears fade away after a disappointing show at the WTC final this year, both cricket experts and us fans have to come to terms with certain realities of cricket today. The most important reason for defeat that everyone has clung on to is the IPL and its scheduling.
Why did the Indian players play in the IPL knowing the final was ahead of them, and that too in conditions that were not straight-forward? Why did the BCCI, with so much influence, not ask the ICC for better scheduling of such an important final? This is very important to understand because it gives us answers to many of our questions. Yes, the ICC trophy is the ultimate; we have not had one in the last 10 years, and players know it better than us.
Coming back to the IPL, the marquee event of T20 cricket around the world and the richest league in terms of money and the following, how did this league grow so much to become the most lucrative league in the world? Yes, foreign players have come, created moments, and created a fan following, but it is the Dhoni’s, Rohit Sharma’s, and Virat Kohli’s who have made it this big. It is the big Indian players who are the backbone of this league.
The fans follow them and fight among them, and fans from across the world tune in in millions during match time. It is also the league that gave platforms to players like Rinku Singh and Yashaswi Jaiswal and made them superstars, giving them lifelines in the form of big money. These kids, selling panipuri’s, playing tennis ball cricket, living in extreme poverty, and then playing on the biggest stage in the IPL and creating a name for themselves, are a story of pure emotions.
These new-age players look up to legends like Dhoni, Rohit, Kohli, and Jadeja to learn more. So when the senior Indian players take so much pride in playing and contributing to the IPL, it’s not an easy call to not play a season or couple of matches unless injuries demand it. Add to it the branding, marketing, and performance pressures. T20 cricket tournaments will continue to grow in this era, and Test cricket has to coexist with this format as it has for the last decade.
We see players from South Africa and New Zealand prioritise these leagues ahead of national contracts. So what we can ask for is better scheduling of Test cricket so that national teams can prepare themselves better. With the IPL being played in the same two-month window for the last 16 years and each and every cricket-playing country sending their players to participate in the IPL, it should not be a tough ask for the BCCI to start a conversation on better scheduling. Test cricket, the oldest format, should survive, and it’s up to the world’s richest cricket board, the BCCI and the ICC, to sit together and have the players’ concerns sorted out instead of squarely asking the players to pick and choose. This is the reality that we are talking about, and as we finish this, let us congratulate Australia, the deserving champions of the WTC.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.