Is IPL hurting Indian cricket?

[CSK Fan]

somebody must tell mr. shekhar gupta we have lost t20 matches and we are not no8 in tests and no 9 in odis ' date='the main problem with our side is only poor bowling ,if we get two world class bowlers,then we will be hard to beat[/quote'] yes, completely ignore the fact that it was out batting which sucked more not the bowling, ignore that the test team is different from our T20 team, that we havent won an ICC torunament for generations and keep your head buried under the sand, ignoring all short comings till we are actually no 8 and no 9 in both tests and ODIs. That would be the right approach

[Chandan]

Another terrific article by Rahul Bhattacharya! T20 cricket: a poor proxy for excellence The IPL relies not on excellence, but entertainment and equality Rahul Bhattacharya Indian Premier League (IPL) had almost faded away...but the IPL, whether or not it will burn out, doesn’t fade away. No sooner did India crash out of the Cup than the nation’s most famous abbreviation reoccupied centre stage. Specifically, it was blamed for the World T20 defeats. It was acquitted with equal ferocity by others, who blamed the cricketers instead, as though these points were in conflict. Now it is not my case that the IPL suction-ed general mobility out of our young stalwarts or deprogrammed their skills against the short ball. Nor that it accounts for Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s puzzling tendency to take Ravindra Jadeja for Garfield Sobers. Yet, even donning my glitziest, IPL-loving robe, I cannot honestly see the case of the defence. The defence posits that players from other countries too participated in the IPL. Factually this is a weak argument because only some did, and of those who did, barely a handful rode the treadmill the entire time like the Indians. That is one part of it. The other is this. There were 12 teams at the World T20. Eleven of them reached the West Indies in advance. They attempted to acclimatize to the time zone, the pitches, the light—the Caribbean morning glare so different from floodlit Indian nights. They played two warm-up games, tested combinations, and did whatever it is that teams do to gee themselves up before a big event. Do guess the missing side. The Indians were unavailable for this most elementary of pre-tournament disciplines because their entire team, as opposed to a few players, was in the IPL. It is one thing for Australia or England to absorb Cameron White or Kevin Pietersen into their set-ups, which work on in their absence, quite another for India, which cannot run at all. There was nothing unforeseen about this situation. Gary Kirsten, a good and sensible coach, raised these issues after the debacle of the last World T20. He was told to shut up. Nor were the World T20 dates a surprise. They were announced last July. The Indian board, learning from the last time, ought to have done everything in its power to free its cricketers a fortnight ahead. Four days they granted. It takes 24 hours to reach the West Indies. Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri claim that their remit on the IPL governing council is over cricketing matters, and yet they ratified a schedule like this. Shameless. No less hypocritical are the reactions of the commentators who are besides themselves when India fits in just the one first-class game on a tour to Australia. I worry for the longer run. It is not helpful to skirt the elephant. The administrators must understand what it does when it positions the IPL as the centrepiece of the calendar. The IPL relies not on excellence, but entertainment and equality. Equality it tries to ensure via salary caps for a level playing field, and the equalizing 20-over format. The equality is a frequent boast. When Lalit Modi tweets after a low-quality, tied game between Punjab and Chennai, “the most competitive cricket in the world without a doubt”, he understands this in a different way than proper cricket lovers do. He doesn’t mean calibre. Equality may make for a few nail-biting finishes but it cannot, ever, substitute excellence. And excellence, I’m afraid, is not going to be created by the IPL. It may only occasionally showcase it. The nursery is the first-class game, from where Rahul Dravid or Virender Sehwag have emerged. Yet the Indian board has now created a system that incentivizes Twenty20 cricket out of proportion. Ranji cricketers since 2005, and especially since 2007, when the threat of the rebel Indian Cricket League drove up match fees, have been earning a good living, between Rs15-20 lakh in the six months of the domestic season. This, however, seems like too much work when an IPL contract can fetch the same amount or in some instances far more for six weeks. In the Australian system, governed by annual contracts that include all formats, there isn’t such a skewed inducement. They are likely to produce the more robust cricketers. To young Indian players, previously committed to building a game that could survive the scrutiny of long-form cricket, and so, one day, international cricket, the message is clear. The IPL money is fab, the parties are swell, the work is easier. Mediocre attacks on flat Indian pitches! Bye-bye all-round game, we don’t need you! Hello IPL, bring it on! Fat contracts can reward quality, not produce it. The job of administrators is to recognize this. They would do well to listen to Tiger Pataudi, the only member of the governing council with integrity enough to acknowledge dereliction of duty, and condense the tournament. From a cricket point of view, it’s a no-brainer: Teams play each other once rather than twice. This will cut the number of matches to a still huge 49 (the World T20 was 27 matches; Australia’s Big Bash, played arguably at a higher standard than the IPL, currently 17). But no, we’re going to have 94 matches. Ninety-four! They’ll tell you the name of the game. They call it riding the gravy train. So Rahul Bhattachaya says the same things which many of us have saisd in this thread and exchoes the same fears which so many of us have here!!

[bhajji]

mastana dont you think that dying and being a hardcore fan of modi may lead you with empty hands/And such a man should be put behind the bars, still you support hima

[ravishingravi]

Is IPL a bane or a boon for Indian Cricket? I think it is a huge curse and in time after our great cricketers have left the arena we will be pondering over it when our team starts losing more consistently. Akram is spot on about our young cricketers especially our peperment bowling attack. P.S. Being my first thread here I was hoping to start on a positive note, but I am genuinely pissed off with Indian cricket at the moment.

[ravishingravi]

Well, I think the process of screwing up Indian cricket has more or less started. Again thanks to Modi and BCCI. Let us first try and understand what is the future of Indian cricket. Post Dravid, Tendulkar, and Laxman. We can now also say post Zaheer since he is not going to play half the matches. Are there any Batsmen or Bowlers of calibre coming out of the system? Do we even understand the term "fast" bowler? Fast=130km/hr or less. Do we have a quality spinner in the ranks? Our bowling is mediocre if I am being generous. Yeah sure we have a cash rich board. But what good is that money when we can't be a world class team. People will talk about ICC test cricket rankings. It is the same ranking which had Sri Lanka which is an even worse test side at No.2 at one point. Ofcourse all of this goes out of the window when we tour SA later this year when the techniques will yet again be exposed, bowling will again look shoddy and the so called ignorant Indian fans will start gunning for the same players. The questions should have been asked when Dhoni decided to skip SL test series which we lost but agreed to play IPL? The questions should have been asked when Sehwag and Zaheer go injured in the meaningless IPL matches and did not play for India. The questions should be asked when the young brats i.e. Yuvraj, Kohli, harma and too an extent Raina look like cats on hot tin roof on relatively bowling friendly conditions. Questions should be asked when our "young" batsmen can't play the short ball to save their lives. Questions should have been asked when the greatest bowling finds of this decade for India "Irfan Pathan" and "Ishant Sharma" look like they will be lost in the oblivion of unfulfilled potential of Indian cricket. Fact reamains these spolied brats were better of honing their talents in the grill of county cicket. Look what wonders it did to Zaheer Khan. Mark my words people, we will go down and it will not be pretty. BCCI is ruling the roost right now at the cost of resentment of a lot of people. Everyone will get back at us. The system will collpase. Sounding apocalyptic? Not nearly compared to watching Mithun ( the self proclaimed 140 km/hr) bowler in Sri Lanka.

[Zap_Brannigan]

Well, I think the process of screwing up Indian cricket has more or less started. Again thanks to Modi and BCCI. Let us first try and understand what is the future of Indian cricket. Post Dravid, Tendulkar, and Laxman. We can now also say post Zaheer since he is not going to play half the matches. Are there any Batsmen or Bowlers of calibre coming out of the system? Do we even understand the term "fast" bowler? Fast=130km/hr or less. Do we have a quality spinner in the ranks? Our bowling is mediocre if I am being generous. Yeah sure we have a cash rich board. But what good is that money when we can't be a world class team. People will talk about ICC test cricket rankings. It is the same ranking which had Sri Lanka which is an even worse test side at No.2 at one point. Ofcourse all of this goes out of the window when we tour SA later this year when the techniques will yet again be exposed, bowling will again look shoddy and the so called ignorant Indian fans will start gunning for the same players. The questions should have been asked when Dhoni decided to skip SL test series which we lost but agreed to play IPL? The questions should have been asked when Sehwag and Zaheer go injured in the meaningless IPL matches and did not play for India. The questions should be asked when the young brats i.e. Yuvraj, Kohli, harma and too an extent Raina look like cats on hot tin roof on relatively bowling friendly conditions. Questions should be asked when our "young" batsmen can't play the short ball to save their lives. Questions should have been asked when the greatest bowling finds of this decade for India "Irfan Pathan" and "Ishant Sharma" look like they will be lost in the oblivion of unfulfilled potential of Indian cricket. Fact reamains these spolied brats were better of honing their talents in the grill of county cicket. Look what wonders it did to Zaheer Khan. Mark my words people, we will go down and it will not be pretty. BCCI is ruling the roost right now at the cost of resentment of a lot of people. Everyone will get back at us. The system will collpase. Sounding apocalyptic? Not nearly compared to watching Mithun ( the self proclaimed 140 km/hr) bowler in Sri Lanka.

First, all the young guns you are talking about came into the side or were knocking on the doors because of their performance in the domestic leagues even before the IPL started, the same domestic leagues that were also instrumental in bringing in Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag et al. IPL is very young and as such hasn't made a star out of anyone just yet, although it has highlighted few players. Are you forgetting the pre-96? When we had stalwarts like Amre, kambli, Vikram rathore who couldn't play short balls just as much as todays Nohit Sharma and Karthik. Fortunately for us, we have had a great few years with Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag and Ghambir, but you are kidding if you thought this was a new phenomenon. Second, if Zaheer couldn't bowl 4 overs without getting injured, do you think he could have played an entire test match without one? Its easy to blame IPL but look at other injury prone players like Oram who gets injured outside of IPL just as much. Again, before our pace bowling unit consisted of Venkatesh prasad, david jhonson, dodda ganesh,kulkarni etc and apart from Srinath we never really had a very high speed bowler. Even Kapil dev wasnt that fast. Although our spin quality has stooped to an incredible low, our pace bowling has improved a lot. India has had a very good last 15 years but remember before that we were much worse.

[ravishingravi]

First, all the young guns you are talking about came into the side or were knocking on the doors because of their performance in the domestic leagues even before the IPL started, the same domestic leagues that were also instrumental in bringing in Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag et al. IPL is very young and as such hasn't made a star out of anyone just yet, although it has highlighted few players. Are you forgetting the pre-96? When we had stalwarts like Amre, kambli, Vikram rathore who couldn't play short balls just as much as todays Nohit Sharma and Karthik. Fortunately for us, we have had a great few years with Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag and Ghambir, but you are kidding if you thought this was a new phenomenon. Second, if Zaheer couldn't bowl 4 overs without getting injured, do you think he could have played an entire test match without one? Its easy to blame IPL but look at other injury prone players like Oram who gets injured outside of IPL just as much. Again, before our pace bowling unit consisted of Venkatesh prasad, david jhonson, dodda ganesh,kulkarni etc and apart from Srinath we never really had a very high speed bowler. Even Kapil dev wasnt that fast. Although our spin quality has stooped to an incredible low, our pace bowling has improved a lot. India has had a very good last 15 years but remember before that we were much worse.

One or two points. By constantly refering to the 90s you cannot validate the actions going wrong right now. Why 90s, go back to 50s? There is no denying that this has been the best decade of for Indian cricket compared to the mediocre past. But when you are by far the richest board in the world and you cannot have the best stadiums or provide the best facilities for the audience or the players, when you can't provide competitive pitches to groom the young batsmen and to develop their overal play, when you can't have decent amount of test matches for the national side, then I am sorry I don't want to go into the 90s and feel good about myself. It is the Now that matter and the future after the great players leave. We have enjoyed the decade on the back of their perfomances, who is coming up. The point is not whether the spoiled brats started playing before or after the IPL. Point is do they have the desire to play for India at test level for 15 years? Point is do they have the technique to sustain India's growth in times to come. Your argument about 90s in wrong since Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman were never considered suspect against short balling. My ambition is not just be better than we were 90s. My ambition is to have the best team in the world, best infrastructure and sytem to tap the huge population that plays the game. Lets accept it, it is the only thing we are good at i.e. cricket. IPL is a step in the wrong direction and it is going to hurt us badly not just in cricketing terms. I am not interested in Oram. My interest is simply in what would I prefer the players in Indian cricket to play, when they are not playing for the country. Playing in IPL is no value addition for the cricketer, he does not hone his skills other than on the dance floor, it is merely a financial venture. Fair enough. But if he gets injured in this venture and does not represent my country or says he is tired, then that is simply not acceptable for me. If it is county or domestic cricket, I can still accept "injuries do happen" argument. When Dhoni's team does not perform in a tournament saying they were tired because of IPL I want to smack all of them. I am old fashioned. I still get turned on by India winning than the IPL cheerleaders.

[Gunner_Mania]

One or two points. By constantly refering to the 90s you cannot validate the actions going wrong right now. Why 90s' date=' go back to 50s? There is no denying that this has been the best decade of for Indian cricket compared to the mediocre past. But when you are by far the richest board in the world and you cannot have the best stadiums or provide the best facilities for the audience or the players, when you can't provide competitive pitches to groom the young batsmen and to develop their overal play, [b']when you can't have decent amount of test matches for the national side, then I am sorry I don't want to go into the 90s and feel good about myself. It is Now and what now ? after the great players leave. We have enjoyed the decade on the back of their perfomances, who is coming up. The point is not whether the spoiled brats started playing before or after the IPL. Point is do they have the desire t play for India at test level for 15 years? Point is do they have the technique to sustain India's growth in times to come. Your argument about 90s in wrong since Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman were never considered suspect against short balling. My ambition is not just be better than we were 90s. My ambition is to have the best team in the world, best infrastructure and sytem to tap the huge population that plays the game. Lets accept it, it is the only thing we are good at. IPL is a step in the wrong direction and it is going to hurt us badly not just in cricketing terms. I am not interested in Oram. My interest is simply in what would I prefer the players in Indian cricket to play, when they are not playing for the country. Playing in IPL is no value addition for the cricketer, he does not hone his skills other than on the dance floor, it is merely a financial venture. Fair enough. But if he gets injured in this venture and does not represent my country or says he is tired, then that is simply not acceptable for me. If it is county or domestic cricket, I can still accept "injuries do happen" argument. When Dhoni's team does not perform in a tournament saying they were tired because of IPL I want to smack all of them. I am old fashioned. I still get turned on by India winning than the IPL cheerleaders.

We are playing something like 11 tests this year between July 2010 to Feb 2011 - 12 tests in about 7 months. How do you know these new players are not good enough to play for 15 years - because they can't play short ball? What makes you think that we are only good at Cricket? What about people like Vishy Anand. IPL is the domestic T20 tournament for India.

[ravishingravi]

We are playing something like 11 tests this year between July 2010 to Feb 2011 - 12 tests in about 7 months. How do you know these new players are not good enough to play for 15 years - because they can't play short ball? What makes you think that we are only good at Cricket? What about people like Vishy Anand. IPL is the domestic T20 tournament for India.

Yeah great strategy. Play more tests in the year prior to WC. How many did we play in last one year? In almost a panic like situation to keep our test ranking we had to arrange couple of tests with SA and our favourites Bang. Forget about being good enough, I am not sure whether they want to. Zaheer Khan is a great egs. Lost his rhythm, lost his place, goes to county cricket for a season and is changed bowler. What did Ishant do? What did Irfan or Sreesanth do? Nehra for that matter. Almost all bowlers are going from 140km/hr to 125km/hr. When batters are being exposed in slightest of bowling friendly conditions, what did they do for it. Ofcourse in SA this year, we will be knowing all of it. Ofcourse there is Vishy, Saina and few others. But we as a country are not embracing chess or badminton or shooting. Our system isn't cut out for it, they are not products of a great system but just an abberation. We have a degree of structure for cricket and we have more people playing cricket in India than any other country. Have we tapped the talent. IPL is Indian Paisa League, Indian Pyjama League, Indian Phattu League, but it is not cricket to my understanding.

[Gunner_Mania]

Yeah great strategy. Play more tests in the year prior to WC. How many did we play in last one year? In almost a panic like situation to keep our test ranking we had to arrange couple of tests with SA and our favourites Bang. .

Last 10 Years Australia - 117 England - 131 India - 107 South Africa - 108 Last 5 years Australia - 54 England - 65 India - 55 SA - 50 Last 1 Year Australia - 10 England - 12 India - 10 South Africa - 9 We have been consistenlt playing just as many as the other 3 giver or take a few. So stop this nonsense of our board does not organise enough tests.

[Chandan]

Thanks but no thanks for splitting the thread. The crux of the original post was not India's No.1 ranking which is of no consequence to me. It was one statement. If India do have man to man the best team in the world that can challenge and win in all condiions' date=' I wouldn't care for rankings. [/quote'] Yes. It was here that you were digressing from the original theme of the thread because of which it was split because few others wanted to debate that point separately.

The original point was about BCCI and IPL and whether it is hurting Indian cricket. Are we producing good enough cricketer from the younger lot? Is our cricket in the right direction? Is BCCI providing good enough infrastructure with all its resources ? I wanted your views. Instead, the No.1 ranking statement hit a nerve and everyone got personal.

You are new to this forum. If you had explored it, you'd have found numerous threads where we've discussed all these topics at length and with great details, our cricket structure, how effective is it, should we have another format for FC cricket which will be more competitive, how can it be made more professional, cricket at junior level and everything. While reading those threads, you could have bumped them if you had some new views. But it seems you are not interested in digging up at depth to increase your knowledge too.

There are two kinds of a crowd that you can get at Wankhede. One that ""rowdy" crowd devoid of basic understanding of the game shouting " Ae O Ae O Mcgrath is a basterd!!" or making monkey faces and the other appreciating the great talents on display and intricacies of the game. Seems like majority fit in former category from some of the reactions. Except Chanden and few others I haven't seen an opinion or an argument. Deeply disappointed in Indian cricket fans. If not being delusional and stupid is self loathing, then I am guilty as charged.

There are every kinds of fans. Some watch cricket just for rntertainment and some are really passionate about it. But none of those can be barred from giving opinions, no?

[ravishingravi]

Yes. It was here that you were digressing from the original theme of the thread because of which it was split because few others wanted to debate that point separately.

I understand your position on the IPL from the thread. So, I wouldn't go there. I disagree that I had digressed enough to warrant a new thread. I was making a comment on BCCI's misplaced priorities along with IPL, in which I happened make a remark "dubious test ranking". But as I said, if I had known that it would stick out like a sore thumb I wouldn't have mentioned it. Either way ranking is BS for me and not really relevant. Just to close this issue Steven Waugh's side:- Think it is an inappropriate comparison for couple of reasons. Aus. side under him was generally acknowledged as a great side that had whitewashed quite a few sides at the time. Man to man it was the best team in the world leaving the matter of ranking as a mere statistic. Unfortunately, Dhoni's side is mediocre to be in that league. Two, as great as Waugh's side was, at the time, its greatness was qualified with loss in the Indian series which Waugh himself called the final frontier. I know Ian Chappell and Benaud questioned Aus. side's greatness since it lost 7 wickets 3 times in that match. If that side can questioned on basis one series, I think my judgement is relatively more appropriate based on my cricketing understanding for relatively mediocre Indian side. Ultimately, it boils down to what you believe you want for your team or cricket in general. Btw, I would say the same for current English side which british media is going nuts over. It might get nailed in this Ashes in Aus. since there are severe question marks over its actual credentials abroad. As I said, moment we have an all round strong Indian team, I would be the first wave the flag, but that still woulldn't stop me from saying what is apparently wrong.

[renjith12]

No it is not. many players are come to good touch in ipl. raina, rohith sharma, rp singh, karthik muraly vijay,......etc are come to good form in ipl.:two_thumbs_up:

[Sachinism]

No it is not. many players are come to good touch in ipl. raina' date=' rohith sharma, rp singh, karthik muraly vijay,......etc are come to good form in ipl.:two_thumbs_up:[/quote'] What happened to that form once they put on an India shirt? Raina would have been playing for India even if the IPL hadn't happened and Karthik was in and around the setup for a while too.

[Karan114]

No it is not. many players are come to good touch in ipl. raina' date=' rohith sharma, rp singh, karthik [b']muraly vijay,......etc are come to good form in ipl.:two_thumbs_up:

Lol. You do realize this dude was utterly hopeless in T20 international cricket after setting the IPL world alight? Probably the worst example to give.

[Tendulkar_Bhai]

No it isnt a bane it shows the world we are the most powerful cricking nations and can produce an exciting spectacle. However what is the problem is that from IPL performances we make out that the players will be the next tendulkar, i.e. Ojha, Raina, Power, Ashwin etc when in fact it doesnt test so many qualities required to succeed at test level. IPL performances should be taken with a pinch of salt when selecting squads for odi, obv it gets you in the limelight but you shouldnt be guaranteed a place in the test team like ojha was

[yoda]

I love the IPL. Yes it is too much cricket for some players and does affect their international performance and does sway some of our international selection, yada yada yada, still it is entertaining cricket and hopefully is here to stay. Given how our BCCI babus have mis-managed it recently, I wouldn't be surprised if they manage to kill it, that might be the only hope for those wishing it goes away. It will not go away for lack of interest.

[Nova]

I voted yes as I am not a big fan of IPL. The first IPL got me interested but the shenanigans took it away. I still think it affects some of our younger players negatively to some extent. Not everyone can be disciplined and focused like the seniors. The main reason is the duration. The talk of increasing the matches to like 90+ was insane, good it's not happening. On the plus side there is a positive effect as the younger generation can blend with the international players and learn a few things but how much of this is translated to the international arena? One can say that this is not the point of IPL but I am still in the mode of country vs country matches, rather than club level. Not saying my thinking is right, but that's what it is at the moment.

[Chandan]

IPL once again is hurting Indian cricket terribly as its main players, Sachin and Zaheer are forced to play the garbage leage even through pain which is bound to hurt their their test performance in the coming as they'll hardly any rest from the hectic inyernational schedule.

[ravishingravi]

IPL once again is hurting Indian cricket terribly as its main players' date=' Sachin and Zaheer are forced to play the garbage leage even through pain which is bound to hurt their their test performance in the coming as they'll hardly any rest from the hectic inyernational schedule[/quote'] Forced To ? Are you sure ? Oh yes, if they choose not to play BCCI will not pick them for the Indian team, right. Things they have to do their country.