If county cricket make players improve their skills, why English cricket still sucks !!!

[Mariyam]

@Gollum  Shall try and address your points piecemeal

 

-The comparison to a drug cartel is misleading. The IPL is a bonafide registered entity under Indian mercantile laws and proceeds of their earnings are paid as taxes. 

 

- IPL is corrupt, no doubt, but not any more corrupt than the BCCI. If anything, it is likely to be less corrupt than BCCI and more merit based when it comes to team selections (not that the BCCI set a high benchmark). If ethics are the your barometer of success, IPL or regular cricket are not too far. I'm sure you remember the match fixing saga of the early 2000s. All this was pre-IPL. 

-IPL as a tool for money laundering? You will have to explain that. Do you mean wrt betting leading to match fixing? No doubt people bet on IPL games, but people bet on elections, gamble on ODIs and a whole host of other things. In fact, GoI should just legalize sports betting. But thats a topic for another day.

- What you mean by red ball cricket?  But let us say there is a youngster from small town MP. He may still get a chance to shine on the big stage because of the IPL. Else he wouldn't have had a shot at the spotlight at all. Let us not define what is a small or big success for different people. Ambitions are different. And please do not cite Ranji as an alternative. A 25s advertisement pulse during the IPL costs 100x  more than that during the Ranji. 

- IPL makes the cricketers financially secure.

-IPL has given our cricketers more exposure without having to play county or big bash or whatever. Since the advent of the IPL we've won the WC11 and CT 13. And reached a couple of finals. In the decade prior to that we hadn't won much. If you are willing to attribute our T20 losses to IPL, in our ODI wins, the IPL should get due credit.

-In my opinion, our cricketers seem fitter/field better after the IPL.

 

Edited January 3, 2018 by Mariyam

[Gollum]

@Mariyam let us agree to disagree about IPL? I believe cons outweigh the pros, you obviously believe the converse holds true, to each his/her own.