Foreign players will benefit Indian game: Gavaskar

Dubai: Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar is the chairman of the technical committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which recently decided to permit one foreign player to be included in state teams for domestic competitions in India.

Gavaskar spoke to Gulf News about the decision, and the impact that it will have on the standard of cricket in India.

Gulf News: What was the main factor behind deciding to open the doors to foreign players?

Sunil Gavaskar: Whenever a player is selected to play for India his state used to miss the contributions from him and no replacements would immediately be available. All the states already had the right to include three guest players. The technical committee increased it to four by permitting one foreign player.

Why was it decided that a foreign player should have played in ten Tests to qualify to be invited?

We did not want people to come in and use our domestic tournaments as a learning ground, so we decided that the foreign player should have played in 10 Tests or 20 one-dayers. We felt that there was no point in permitting someone who has played in only one Test match. He will not make any contribution to the domestic competition. If the foreign player is an experienced player then our young Ranji Trophy players can look up to him and can learn something from him.

Are you confident that a foreign player, who could be busy with his own domestic cricket, will come and play in India?

A foreign player, who is not playing for his national team or is just out of the national reckoning, may be ready to play. For such a player it might make sense financially too. Take for example Mark Waugh. He played first-class cricket for nearly three years even after having finishing playing Test cricket.

Do you think this would lift the standard of Indian domestic cricket competitions?

Some of the former players in India, who have moved from one state to the other like Chandrakant Pandit, Sandeep Patil, WV Raman and Arun Lal, made significant contributions to the application levels and attitudes of those teams. So we are hoping that it will happen when foreign players start playing for different states.