Tuesday, May 11, 2010

How the IPL ia destroying Team India.

I am not the first person writing on this and certainly wont be the last person. And after yet another embarassing exit from a 'world-cup' , it would be obvious to most that the IPL is infact affecting team India's performance in the international arena.
Some reasons are obvious, player fatigue , exposure to only batsman friendly pitches, ability to target the weaker domestic bolwers in every team.
Some reasons are not so obvious. The rules put in place by the IPL to ensure that Indian domestic criketers would not lose an opportunity to play have inadvertently caused a lot of damage.
There is a restriction on the number of international cricketers allowed in every game(4 per side). There was also a fixed salary for India's domestic cricketers( a pathetic $30K , when you compare that to the 1million that the likes of Dhoni makes).
These restrictions meant that those Indian cricketers who have played international cricket are the highest paid in the league(barring the odd Andrew Symonds and Kevin Pietersen).
The lower salaries for international players makes it easier for some to totally skip the IPL (like Mitchell Jonhson and Micahel Clarke), Indian internationals on the other hand find it a lot harder to turn down the money.
The 4 man restriction also means that players of the caliber of Paul Collingwood have spent a good portion of the IPL season on the bench.
All this means that every team other than India post IPL is well rested and have had time to prepare , while the Indian's were busy walloping Indian domestic bowlers around while playing out the few good bowlers every side had.
How can things change?
Firstly IPL will have to have a window where no other ICC events are hosted a month before and after.
There has to be serious consideration given to removing all restrictions on player salaries, thereby abolishing the caste system that exists currently. This will bring down the artificially inflated salaries of Indian internationals and bring some semblance of balance to their priorities.
Teams should be able to cut players and not be stuck with non performing ones.
Teams must follow the rest and rotation policy for Indian internationals handed down by team India management.