After watching Rising Pune Supergiant star Steve Smith’s fluent unbeaten 84 against Mumbai Indians in the second match of the Indian Premier League (IPL), and Glenn Maxwell’s breezy unbeaten 44 for Kings XI Punjab against Pune in the third match, it will need to be accepted that Australian batsmen find Indian wickets comfortable to play on.
Because of IPL, Indian wickets and conditions are no longer a mystery for foreign players. Some of them have been bowling and batting with so much ease, it is as if they were on home grounds. Also, four of the eight captains of the IPL teams are from Australia. So if the Australians are taking active part in the IPL, why is it that Indian players do not play Australia’s Big Bash league?
It’s time Indians too played in leagues similar to the IPL like Big Bash, West Indies’ Caribbean League and the Bangladesh Premier League. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) wants overseas players to play in IPL, but they do not permit their own players to play in foreign leagues. This is to ensure that IPL remains the most popular league and that Indian companies do not get tempted to advertise in foreign leagues.
This decision of the BCCI may continue to protect the IPL’s status as the richest Twenty20 tournament, but from a cricketing point of view this is preventing their players from getting more exposure to foreign conditions.
Australians are known for introducing innovations in cricket and have especially played a big role in making night cricket popular. It was television magnate Kerry Packer who transformed cricket by introducing coloured clothing. Similarly, it is the Big Bash league that introduced the LED stumps and bails, making dismissals exciting to watch. So does BCCI fear that Big Bash could get more attractive than IPL?
Foreign players have fine-tuned their techniques to adapt to Indian conditions, and Indian players too could similarly benefit from playing in foreign leagues. Though India’s star players may not gain monetarily as they do from the IPL, these foreign leagues are bound to raise their price tags. Players like Indian skipper Virat Kohli or Mahendra Singh Dhoni will be able to attract more advertisers to these leagues.
The BCCI must be sporting enough to let other countries too get richer through their players. If Pakistan players were allowed to play in the IPL, the contests could have been more attractive. Opening the doors for Afghanistan players has already benefitted Sunrisers Hyderabad through Rashid Khan.
Very soon South Africa will stage their own league and Indian players may well learn better techniques to adapt to foreign conditions by playing in it. Participation in Twenty20 leagues should not be dependent on popularity ratings or revenue generation alone.
