Is the Indian Premier League ruining Indian cricket?

Ljp86

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Staff member
Is the Indian Premier League ruining Indian cricket?

With the ICC World Twenty20 competition entering the semi-final stage of the tournament we once again see another international meeting without India in the semi-finals.

By India's standards they had a shocking tournament, the group stage went well enough for them, beating a spirited Afghanistan fairly easily but probably by less than they should have. They then beat South Africa, the world's perennial global stage chokers by 14 runs. It was a reasonable enough group stage and one that set them up well for the Super Eights part of the tournament. From there everything went pear shaped. Their first match was against Australia and they were blown away by a side that has had its struggles with the Twenty20 concept since its inception. India's bowling attack was belted everywhere by David Warner and Shane Watson with the majority of its attack comprising of spin bowlers. With the pitch suiting the seamers, they played four spinners, three of whom were smashed to all parts of the ground, unable to bowl on a pitch not conducive to spin unlike the Indian Premier League (IPL). One of their pace bowlers, Zaheer Khan also suffered, getting plundered for 45 runs from four overs despite the pitch having bounce and some movement off the seam.

India's batting was worse. The fast Australian pace bowlers made India's line-up look minnowish as they were blasted out or got out to some quite ordinary shots. The pace and bounce of the pitch coupled with Australia's determination to bowl the ball short proved too much for India and if it weren't for Rohit Sharma's innings of 76, they would have been rolled for less than 80.

West Indies, one of the most inconsistent teams in world cricket then had their turn of beating up on India with Chris Gayle blasting 98 against an attack which had few answers to the big Jamaican. Again when it was their turn to bat, the short-pitched bowling from West Indian quicks Jerome Taylor and Kemar Roach proved their undoing once more and the Indian batters even struggled against the short balls from medium pacer Keiron Pollard and then fast-medium bowlers Darren Sammy and Dwayne Bravo.

The Indians then lost their final Super Eights match to Sri Lanka, a last-ball six sealing the Indians' fate and making sure they left the tournament without a win in the Super Eights stage and only two overall. Once again, some of Sri Lankan quick bowlers dominated the Indian batters, taking wickets and keeping the runs down to around a run-per-ball.

Keeping all that in mind, my question to you all is, is the IPL ruining Indian cricket? My answer would be yes. Whilst the IPL has been a great success for the BCCI administration and the world in general, I believe it has had little benefit for India with regards to its on-field performances. Since the IPL began in 2008, India has reached the semi-final stage of a major tournament only once, that being the final of the 2008 Asia Cup, which they lost to Sri Lanka. Since then they've played three major international tournaments, the 2009 and 2010 World T20 events where they were eliminated in the Super Eights stage and the 2009 Champions Trophy which they bundled out of in Round 1.

For a country that has the best domestic T20 competition in the world, their efforts have been lacklustre, in fact you could say they have been fairly poor. The generic and very boring conditions of the IPL which has involved countless flat dustbowls conducive to spin bowling has ruined the Indian players' ability to adjust to other conditions around the world due to the constant babying by the curators in the country and the BCCI's obsession with shortening boundaries in the IPL to ridiculous levels. The batters have become too used to the flat pitches in India where there is little movement, hardly any swing and conditions so favourable for batting that scores of 180 are needed to be considered competitive. The short-pitched bowling of the Australians and the West Indians sorely found out India's weak batting attack who just aren't used to seeing that sort of bowling as the IPL and even their other domestic comeptitions don't assist the seamers. The pace bowlers have forgotten how to use seam-friendly wickets to their advantage as evidenced by Zaheer Khan's slaughtering at the hands of the Australians and the spinners have been found out on tracks which don't turn 90 degrees.

Coupled with the vast amounts of money involved in the tournament, the players seem quite content to count their millions rather than winning actual cricket matches. The dollars earnt by these players is heavily lop-sided with the amounts not justified by the actual amount of work they do. The best players earn more than US$1 million for about six weeks of cricket, an amount which is really just quite ridiculous. With 14 games playable in the qualifying rounds, that equates to more than $71000 (USD) per game or about $1785 per over. Many citizens in developed countries would be doing quite well to earn that in a week let alone three and a half minutes. Compare that to the ODI playing fee which is about $8000 for the elite players. Hardly seems worth it, does it? The money involved in the tournament will surely see more and more international players retire early and become pure T20 specialists. Anil Kumble is one of them, the majority of his income for this year would be from captaining the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL. Six weeks work for $500,000 (USD), now he can relax for the next 46 weeks between then and the next tournament.

It is little wonder why the IPL is ruining Indian cricket. The spectacle may provide entertainment for the global auidence and be a major money winner for the BCCI but it is doing very little if anything at all for Indian cricket with regards to performances on the field. I have a feeling the underperformances of India will only continue with the IPL looking to expand in future seasons, starting with two new teams next year.

Do you think the IPL is bad or ruining Indian cricket? Post your thoughts here.
 
Re: Is the Indian Premier League ruining Indian cricket?

You beat me to this as I had a similar thought about the IPL. From the outside, the sides in the World T20 do seem to feature less players that played in the IPL, I generalized but it does feel like it.

There are some things that need to be mentioned with regards to India in this tournament and that is their batsman got found out on facing short pace bowling. This was the case in Barbados when Australia ripped them to shreds. This had always been the case and they have struggled when touring South Africa and Australia their record will back me on this.
The Indian Premier League is a commercial venture which only benefits the respective owners with media attention. In comparison to the Champions League it is nothing else than marketing buzz in my mind. I enjoy watching it but the cricket is pretty poor unfortunately.

Compare the franchises to any local First Class team and they fall short in performance and this was evident in the Champions League last year as they failed to win any matches to their amazement. The difference is the standard of player that is non international. I am very sure that most of them will struggle in grade cricket and even club cricket but they are in the position to soak up conversations and game time with highly skilled internationals and Indian stars, which must benefit Indian cricket. Think back to the first edition young Jadeja from Rajasthan performed well and then made himself a decent international one day player. The young players have come to the fore in the tournaments: Suresh Raina, Robin Uthappa and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala.

The truth is that the tournament is too long and that will increase in 2011 and the players are to a degree exhausted. But they are professionals and they want the money that is involved with the tournament.
It boils down to a “quantity vs quality” debate and there is too many players that are below standard which provides opposition’s the opportunity to capitalize on weaknesses. So to answer your question the IPL is hurting Indian cricket and they need to increase the strength of the various sides which is unlikely.
 
IPL is giving big loss to Indian Team.After starting of IPL Indian cricket team is loosing his grip from Test Cricket.Indian batsman are struggling to stay on pitch for a long time.You can see same result in current test series between Indian & West Indies.
 
IPL can be good for both players and audience if it is made of a reduced format..2 weeks should be good enough...but franchises want to make money on every match...so I don't think reduced format will ever be a reality...
 
I dont think that IPL is ruining Indian cricket.I think it has given a lots of opportunities for new talented players to come up. Players like Umesh yadav, dinda, S badrinath, R ashwin has got selected to the Indian ODI side as a result of their perfomance in IPL.
 
It was perfect that Kerry Packer started One Day Cricket, Internationals. It seems, that he wouldn't have, if people didn't care about it. It seems, the Australian public, also convinced Kerry Packer, that it was time to move on. He didn't keep it for the Australian public, because people didn't want internationals, where the people in West Indies, and England, were not involved. Internationals are supposed to be official, national affairs. Why would people want to see internationals, if the match was seen as purely a domestic contest? I am concerned, that I as a person, may think that the domestic competitions are not important. It seems, internationals all over the Cricket world, are more important to the public. World Series Cricket was formed, because people wanted to see Malcom Marshall, Imran Khan, and Miandad, if he played the format, as individual stars, according to Packer. How Australia, even then, did not have enough Cricket, is not known. The triangular tournament, is perhaps actually a showcase of two international teams, playing Australia, where all the nations are interested. I could be very wrong about Kerry Packer, and his thoughts.
 
Is the Indian Premier League ruining Indian cricket?


I am also agreed with the Head line.It is really true that IPL dominate the indian cricket.We see that most young players in the team is from IPL.it is clear that team selection board are selected young, talented cricketer from this tournament.
 
Not all youngsters, look at the IPL Auction Results - interesting though that Matt Prior and Ravi Bopara didnt sell! The problem with the IPL is that it is so money driven that players will disappear at the drop of a hat to play there.
 
It would appear that the IPL and Indian cricket is the cancer that will give world cricket a death sentence if not cut from the healthy body.

The problem I have always had with the IPL is that its not like a proper league in the sense of the teams being simply set up for the league, not county/state teams, not old school teams people have supported since young...simply teams made up of players bought for massive amounts of money. Granted it does mean seeing some great names play together, but to me it lacks that history and prestige, it just doesnt feel like Cricket should be. I love my county cricket in the UK, old school county teams battling it out...but the IPL is a gimic to me in some senses.

I openly said in another thread that I would love to watch it on youtube, but this is just to see the players, I couldnt sit and watch hours of it because to me there is no excitement (reasons mentioned above).
 
The problem I have always had with the IPL is that its not like a proper league in the sense of the teams being simply set up for the league, not county/state teams, not old school teams people have supported since young...simply teams made up of players bought for massive amounts of money. Granted it does mean seeing some great names play together, but to me it lacks that history and prestige, it just doesnt feel like Cricket should be. I love my county cricket in the UK, old school county teams battling it out...but the IPL is a gimic to me in some senses.

I openly said in another thread that I would love to watch it on youtube, but this is just to see the players, I couldnt sit and watch hours of it because to me there is no excitement (reasons mentioned above).

I feel exactly the same way. I only watch it to see the Kiwi players and the other international stars play and most of the time, I just can't be bothered. For someone who's obsessed with cricket...that says something!
 
WELL,IPL IS THE TRADEMARK FOR YOUNG PLAYERS TO SHOW UP THEIR TALENT.ITS FINDING A NEW PLAYER IN EVERY SEASON.
IPL is giving big loss to Indian Team.After starting of IPL Indian cricket team is loosing his grip from Test Cricket.Indian batsman are struggling to stay on pitch for a long time.You can see same result in current test series between Indian & West Indies.
YES UR RIGHT.WE NEED PATIENCE TO KEEP PLAYING SOME SHOTS IN TEST CRICKET
 
The latest match fixing scandals are only further proving my point.

I would love to say that i am shocked and disappointed about the spot fixing but some how it just feels like it was inevitable. But as we can see the power of money is over riding common sense and as Warner showed they will defend the indefensible for money.
 
The fixing scandles were a pure disapointment for IPL... added to it the DLF franchise scandle only proved salt to the wounded... Being an Indian I can only hope that this year's game is incident free and raises its bar to a new level :)
 
I bet Maxwell got fired up this year after reading your comments here.... :rolleyes:

Perhaps he did. His performances at international level have been mediocre for a while now and he needed to come out and score some runs. Although smashing sub-standard IPL attacks around on small grounds only goes so far though.
 
Perhaps he did. His performances at international level have been mediocre for a while now and he needed to come out and score some runs. Although smashing sub-standard IPL attacks around on small grounds only goes so far though.

Atleast he now has a sure shot in your playing XI...
 
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