Cricbeat

Sanjay Manjrekar, who is doing commentary in IPL Matches, recently said in his one of articles that “IPL is a  retirement plan for players who struggle to make a living after their careers end” but he failed to mention that how many early retirements we have witnessed due to IPL. Early retirements are taking place only because some players foresee a better retirement plane in form of IPL.

Adam Glichrist, who is still fit enough to play IPL even after 4 years of his retirement from international duties, could have given more to International Cricket had there been no IPL or better policies of IPL. ICC should ask the BCCI-run-IPL to introduce policies where players don’t give preference to IPL by leaving their countries. One similar retirement we saw recently in form of Lasith Malinga, who is rocking in IPL but doesn’t consider himself suitable for Test Cricket, well yeah! who leaves 1 Million Dollars for Test Cricket?

Case of Andew Symonds can’t be ignored too. He didn’t announce retirement but he kept on trespassing which eventually forced Cricket Australia to terminate his national contract, and that termination helped Symonds to continue his career as Twenty20 Freelancer; he now just plays for Domestic teams of England, Australia, South Africa and India. The wonder is he breaches discipline when in Australian National squad but he suddenly becomes naive when he plays the IPL.

Srilankans have all-important tour of England ahead of them and cream of their players are busy playing in IPL. Players were asked, by their Cricket Board, to come back to join training camp for England but fraternity itself took the U-turn and allowed the players to keep playing IPL and let the England tour get affected.

The darkest aspect of IPL is players blatantly leaving their countries, denying to sign national contracts and then playing in IPL. We have seen it in case of Kieron Pollard, the West Indies all rounder, who denied to sign national contract and now he is busy in playing IPL while his national team is having ODI Series against Pakistan. Chris Gayle, who was deemed unfit, reaches in India to play IPL and hits century in his very first match.

Another West Indian player, Jerome Taylor, wasn’t selected due to fitness problems but he goes to IPL and takes 3 wickets. Michael Holding criticized, in Live commentary of 2nd ODI between Pakistan and West Indies, West Indian players for preferring IPL over West Indies. Moreover, He(Michael Holding) blamed ICC and BCCI for this situation. He raised point that you will never see Indian Series clashing with IPL and ICC always let India what they want to do.

As far as Indian players are concerned, there some reports that some senior Indian players -MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan – are likely to to skip West Indies tour to avoid burn-out, in reality its not scare of burn-out but an IPL-fatigue.

IPL shouldn’t allow players who leave national duties to join IPL riches and there should be some policy like “A player, aged less than 32, will not be considered for IPL selection for 2 years after his retirement from International Cricket”.