Is IPL hurting Indian cricket?

[Sachin=GOD]

That is shocking and true. O well most of the test die hards here were jumping up and down defending Dhoni when he missed test series in SL to rest for IPL, so no wonder things have arrived at this point when hardcore test fans set the rot. If we lose the England test series I will be fuming. God knows, without the greatest test opening partnership in cricket history being at the windies , we may even blow that series.

How can players while injured play in IPL. Sonething is wrong here. OK if they pick up randomn injury can just about being tolerated. But when players are playing with injuries for their franchises' date=' knowing that basically it may mean them having to miss India tests, then things are messed up.[/quote'] But....but....but don't you know, we became the Test no 1 because we have the most popular T20 league in the world. We also became World Champions in ODIs because we have the most popular T20 league in the world - that is what the IPL lovers would have you believe

[Karan114]

Also Tendulkar looks seriously tired. I hope mumbai lose' date= he needs rest. This is serious. We simply have to win test series in England. Yet IPL is killing our players. Bhaji must immediatley pull out of odi series against windies. He is gonna be a physical wreck by time england tests come

Tendulkar has a shoulder problem, its unclear how serious it is at this stage :(( He will be heading to Germany after the IPL to get an expert opinion on it.

[Cricket Tragic]

Tendulkar has a shoulder problem' date=' its unclear how serious it is at this stage :(( He will be heading to Germany after the IPL to get an expert opinion on it.[/quote'] Is this confirmed or just a rumour?

[King Tendulkar]

Tendulkar has a shoulder problem' date=' its unclear how serious it is at this stage :(( He will be heading to Germany after the IPL to get an expert opinion on it.[/quote'] This is getting stupid. Sachin start the trend. Pull out of IPL and devout yourself to India!

[Cricket Tragic]

Just read that the test team will be picked tomorrow. Everything should be clear.

[Karan114]

Is this confirmed or just a rumour?

Might be a rumour, not 100% confirmed.

[saneindian]

I know I will get a lot of brickbats for saying this but will say it anyways IMO, had IPL not been there, Sachin, Dravid and VVS would not have continued to play international cricket for this long. Not because of the monetary aspect but because of challenge of doing well in a format they were initially not too familiar with. Sachin did not do as well in IPL 1 and wanted to comeback in the suequent editions and show that he could master t20s as well. Ditto with Dravid and VVS too. How many of us believed that these three would be going on another tour of England after the 2007 tour or to Australia after the 2008 tour. IPL has put Ashwin in the limelight. If Mishra and Ishant indeed do comeback, part of the reason will be IPL. Previously when we were struggling in ODI bowling in 2009, (even Zaheer was out of form), Nehra stepped up and led the attack with reasonable success on pata wickets. His comeback was due to the IPL. The likes of Raina have made a strong comeback to the national side after strong IPl performances. Obviously, it has also resulted in injuries to key players, fatigued the national side before important tournaments. But is the problem with the IPL itself or is it due to the scheduling? WI and England tours in the same season do not happen often. With intelligent scheduling, cutting down on tri series which are not scheduled in advance and then limiting IPL to not more 4-5 weeks (and no CL t20), I am sure things can be managed well. IPL helps lost of domestic players earn money which they would normally make after 5-6 seasons of domestic cricket. And none of these players play only in the IPL without playing domestic season.So the argument that IPL will kill our FC structure is not true either. Instead I would say it's a motivator for younger players in remote areas to look at a secure future if they coud do reasonably well in domestic cricket. All we need is for the BCCI to think logically, be intelligent with scheduling (of IPL and international tours/series) and work closely with the franchise to ensure our star cricketers are taken care of properly and not forced to play with an injury.

[Sachin=GOD]

I know I will get a lot of brickbats for saying this but will say it anyways IMO, had IPL not been there, Sachin, Dravid and VVS would not have continued to play international cricket for this long. Not because of the monetary aspect but because of challenge of doing well in a format they were initially not too familiar with. Sachin did not do as well in IPL 1 and wanted to comeback in the suequent editions and show that he could master t20s as well. Ditto with Dravid and VVS too.

if they were playing t20 internationals for India till now then you might have a point here but they're not playing (and never have played) International t20 for India so how is playing in the IPL helping them in playing Test cricket?? both of them haven't done that well in the IPL so far IMHO.

[Sooda]

Indian Premier League 2011 The IPL needs independent watchdogs What makes the IPL v country debate more confusing in the case of Indian players is that both are managed by the same entity: the BCCI Sharda Ugra http://www.espncricinfo.com/indian-premier-league-2011/content/story/516834.html May 27, 2011 Comments: 2 | Login via | Text size: A | A India's premier opening pair is in danger of missing two upcoming Test series © AFP Enlarge Related LinksWhat They Said About : 'Hard for players to say no' Players/Officials: Gautam Gambhir | Virender Sehwag Series/Tournaments: Indian Premier League Teams: India On Thursday morning, Cricket Australia sent out a media advisory: it was an injury update on seven Australian cricketers, in alphabetical order, beginning with Brad Haddin and concluding with Steven Smith. The email wouldn't have been noticed had it not happened amid the tumult of the Gautam Gambhir IPL saga, a Twitter version of which would read: GG aggravates injrd shoulder in IPL, 4-6 wks rest reqd, Windies tour in doubt; GG didn't know injury that serious, KKR hassld, BCCI angry. Australia's next tour is in August but clearly someone in CA is keeping an eye on its contracted lot. India set off for the West Indies on the night of May 31 and they play their first match on June 4. Their stand-in captain's injury has come as a shock to the BCCI. Or perhaps it hasn't. Did the BCCI not know how all its players were doing before it selected the team for the one-dayers in the West Indies? Even if there was no post-World Cup check-up, was there no pre-event fitness report citing every cricketer's every niggle? Or did no one read it? The injury report of Andrew Leipus, Kolkata Knight Riders' physiotherapist, states that Gambhir had taken cortisone injections in his shoulder for the past few years, so it's not as if the shoulder tore itself during the World Cup final. Was no one paying attention? Had the IPL distracted them all? Through the saga of Gambhir - and, before him, the similar case of Virender Sehwag - the simplest question is this: which of the three parties in this case could have made the most-objective decision? The player, for whom the financial benefit - his contract with Kolkata Knight Riders was worth $2.4 million a season - of playing 64 hours of cricket over six weeks is far too lucrative to ignore? The franchise, whose most expensive auction pick was turning out to be its most valuable one? Or the BCCI, the IPL's owners, whose essential job is to ensure the health and welfare of that entity called "Indian cricket?" On paper, the BCCI surely should have been the ones on top of the situation. In reality? Never mind. When formulating its framework, the IPL has not only chosen to ignore precedents from other sport, but in the Gambhir case, its own paperwork too. In football, where the club v country debate is much older and deeper, there is a clear understanding that players must be freed for international duty during major events - even if it is mid-season and for up to a month, as with the biennial African Cup of Nations. For less important events like friendlies, club and national coaches engage in constant discussion about how to use the stars wisely. In the IPL, every overseas player's contract contains an indemnification clause covering injury: should a franchise or a player fail to disclose an injury that affects a player's participation in national colours, the franchise can financially be penalised by the player's home board. For Indian players this happens to be the BCCI, the owner of the IPL. No one is clear whether it exists or not on the Indian player contracts. The IPL's enormous economic success has ensured that neither the event nor its contradiction are going to vanish; what the IPL will continue to do is to churn up issues like the one involving Gambhir. Until now, the matter of players compromising national duty for IPL riches have mostly centred around those from other nations, with the varied case studies of Chris Gayle, Jerome Taylor, Ravi Bopara and Eoin Morgan. With Sehwag and Gambhir, the questions are at India's door. And they will keep coming. The BCCI's answer in the club v country debate is well-known. It revealed its stand by resting three senior players - MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan - for the limited-overs part of the West Indies tour. Every IPL v India episode proves why the BCCI actually needs to be overseeing the event, not participating in it. The West Indies saga - the players rested and injured - also indicates why "conflict of interest" is not just a collection of words. Consider this: were the Gambhir matter to be brought to a meeting between a single representative each from the BCCI, the IPL governing council and the franchises, N Srinivasan could possibly sit alone in a room and talk to himself. He is the BCCI secretary and its president-elect, a member of the IPL Governing Council and the owner of Chennai Super Kings. The BCCI secretary would have known that Dhoni could do with a break after the World Cup but the franchise owner and IPL governor in him would have wanted his Chennai captain up and running. When a solution was found for Dhoni, why should Tendulkar or Zaheer be denied? Were India to tour England ahead of the West Indies would Dhoni, Tendulkar and Zaheer still have been rested? Who was sitting in during the Indian team selection for the limited overs section of the West Indies tour? Chairman of selectors K Srikkanth or Chennai Super Kings brand ambassador K Srikkanth? In professional sport, most athletes will make careful financial choices and push their bodies as far as they possibly can, which is what Gambhir was doing. It is time to really worry when the players' own governors, its Board, believes it is no big deal if India go to England without their best opening combination of the decade. The BCCI may be celebrating the conclusion of another financially successful IPL season but the time for chest-thumping is over. As other boards juggle FTP plans with the terms of player associations, the BCCI needs to visualise what is the best IPL window for Indian cricket in 2015, when the next World Cup comes around. The event has enough cheerleaders; the IPL now needs detached minders and independent watchdogs to ensure that its own appetite doesn't cannibalise Indian cricket

[Sooda]

Alot of write up on cricinfo on IPL vs Country in the wake of Gambhirs injury..some of it quite interesting...

[saneindian]

Whie some pertinent points have been raised by the writer, I don;t quite agree with the bit about Srikanth, the chairman of selectors and CSK's brand ambassador. First of all Srikanth is no longer CSK's brand ambassador. And next, even when he was associated with CSK, did he push any CSK player who did not deserve the national cap/ a place in the national side? Gony was the most impressive Indian player in IPL1, got his chance but was not picked again, Ashwin came to the team after being the best spinner in the league and doing well in domestic cricket, same with Badri, Vijay was Gauti's replacement for a test vs Australia immediately after he had scored a 200 in domestic cricket in 2008. I don't see any of these selections having a bias for CSK players.

[rkt.india]

Whie some pertinent points have been raised by the writer, I don;t quite agree with the bit about Srikanth, the chairman of selectors and CSK's brand ambassador. First of all Srikanth is no longer CSK's brand ambassador. And next, even when he was associated with CSK, did he push any CSK player who did not deserve the national cap/ a place in the national side? Gony was the most impressive Indian player in IPL1, got his chance but was not picked again, Ashwin came to the team after being the best spinner in the league and doing well in domestic cricket, same with Badri, Vijay was Gauti's replacement for a test vs Australia immediately after he had scored a 200 in domestic cricket in 2008. I don't see any of these selections having a bias for CSK players.

Gony was selected when Vengserkar was the chairman, i think, if anyone can confirm.

[ravishingravi]

What will happen now is that Indian cricket team will begin to lose. It is inevitable. We are not that great a team that we can afford 2-3 quality players out against top sides. This might be a blessing in disguise imo. After acting like headless chicken and blaming everyone from Dhoni to new coach Fletcher finally the sword will come down on IPL

[ravishingravi]

Country vs Club And so the IPL is finally finished. Who would have thought at the start of the tournament that Chennai Super Kings would win it. I certainly didn’t. Not when the auction rules were changed “suddenly” at the last minute with only one team owner being given notice, not when the “home” pitch for Rajasthan was changed at the last minute while playing against ahem…Chennai Super Kings. The final result was thus very surprising, something as unexpected as, let’s see, the geography teacher’s son getting highest marks in geography on the class test. I might deny saying this later but I actually felt bad for Shahrukh Khan and his team. They did a lot of things right but when you have your star bowler painting balls on woman’s hands, the star maverick going “Brrrrr” (if Lalit Modi was in charge, it would have been “Burrr”), Sanjay Kapoor rubbing off his charisma on the team as a celebrity supporter, their dud buy for three seasons going on to become pure platinum and a Trojan horse in the team, there is not much you can do. That they got to the fourth position was creditable. Though what many have forgotten is that this time they won just one more match from what they did last disaster season. Food for thought. But this post is not about the IPL. It is about this so-called club versus country battle that is raging on in the media space, now that some of our great stars have discovered the worth of spending time with the family or came to know of the brittle condition of their body-parts just after IPL. Not that this is the first time this has happened, our loaded superstars frequently find the need for down-time after the IPL showing the middle-finger to the so-called “official” engagements that follow. First of all let us couch the problem properly. It is not a question of club versus country. It is club versus club. Yes BCCI is a club, a private registered society. To be honest, it is as representative of the “country” as a franchise with the name of a city is representative of the city. Yes we associate patriotism, pride and honor in playing for the “country” (i.e. for BCCI) but that association is something we are encouraged to make, thanks to the “Hoo Haah India” advertising bubble that is created precisely for that reason—-to make an emotional connect between us, the viewers, and the BCCI club. The players are not obligated to buy into this spin and should have every moral right to choose the tangible corporeal delights of IPL over the intangibles of “glory” in the same way that people choose the increased pecuniary benefits of industry over the supposed prestige of academia. Sunil Gavaskar has said that while the players are free to choose club over “country” (let us use apostrophes here for country), the “country” should also have the freedom not to select them should they opt out of an ICC-event after playing the IPL. Very true, they have the right not to. But the thing is the BCCI actually does want their main stars to play the IPL because the BCCI head-honchos are personally invested in the tournament and are making money off the big-ticket players. The international fixtures (Test and One Days) are principally the ICC’s concern and the BCCI is absolutely fine if the West Indies board or the ICC loses money on a West Indies vs, what if effectively now, India A series. With the proliferation of new leagues like IPL, Big Bash, the one that Sri Lanka has got going, there will be a few players who will become guns-for-hire like the Gayles and the Pollards and the Tens. These players will typically belong to countries with financially not-so-well-off boards. But most of the big Indian superstars will still stick to the “national” club because I doubt there will be people bleeding green in order to make them endorse colas, mobile phones and motor oils if they do not play for the “country”, since the emotional catchment area of city-based franchises is still too small to justify signing the heavy-hitters on. The BCCI might make some noise in public, because it does not want to be perceived as being “unpatriotic”, but as long as the Indian players play IPL and generate revenue for their franchises, they really could not care less if they drop out of the odd ICC event or two. Sure the ICC loses, the other board loses, the guys who bought TV rights loses but the BCCI officials do not. And that my friends is cricket. http://greatbong.net/2011/05/29/country-vs-club/

[someone]

What will happen now is that Indian cricket team will begin to lose. It is inevitable. We are not that great a team that we can afford 2-3 quality players out against top sides. This might be a blessing in disguise imo. After acting like headless chicken and blaming everyone from Dhoni to new coach Fletcher finally the sword will come down on IPL

Again why stop there, blame BCCI first not IPL. They have arranged many pointless series even after IPL was already confirmed. Sri Lankan overdose, even this WI series. Inevitable like you said itself is the problem. Nothing so far seems to suggest that and haven't IPL already given us good players like Ashwin, Pathan, Jadeja who have increased our bench strength very well

[ravishingravi]

Again why stop there, blame BCCI first not IPL. They have arranged many pointless series even after IPL was already confirmed. Sri Lankan overdose, even this WI series. Inevitable like you said itself is the problem. Nothing so far seems to suggest that and haven't IPL already given us good players like Ashwin, Pathan, Jadeja who have increased our bench strength very well

BCCI is IPL and vice versa. Hence i don't expect them to take a moral stand. What I was hoping is that the senior players of Indian cricket will take stand. How stupid of me ? Let's be clear first that likes dhony,tendukar,sehwag,gambler,yuvraj,Zaheer,bhajji etc CANNOT be forced to play IPL. They cannot be threatened for their spots. So players are playing by their free will and jeopardising not only WI tour but also ENG one. As I said this is the beginning of the end. Why am i so negative ? Because I can see a whole machinery behind this tamasha not just player. There is the selectors, board, media, corporates,owners and their cumulative interest and ego. Sunil Gavaskar who also a hypocrite par excellence said something good. If players choose IPL over International matches they should be overlooked for India games. I quite agree with this except that in this dystopian framework it is irrelevant.

[jf1gp_1]

India is No 1 test side, World CHamps in ODI and all happened since IPL started , so how it IPL bad for Indian cricket ?

[yoda]

Sunil Gavaskar who also a hypocrite par excellence said something good. If players choose IPL over International matches they should be overlooked for India games. I quite agree with this except that in this dystopian framework it is irrelevant.

So Sunny is saying Sachin should be dropped for India-Eng series? :giggle:

[Sachin=GOD]

BTW if the BCCI really still thinks that country>club for cricketers then why did they force Lankan cricketers to stay back despite the fact that they had to go for National duty for the England tour :hmmm:

[Sir_Afridi]

So Sunny is saying Sachin should be dropped for India-Eng series? :giggle:

Not only Sachin, all seniors who are skipping WI series. WI & NZ have done it before, BCCI should set the precedent by sacking big players that country is more important that any domestic tamasha league.