Cricket : Club, County, Country

First of the many victims of Club vs. Country?

Mahendra Singh Dhoni,Sachin Tendulkar,Virender Sehwag,Gautam Gambhir,Yuvraj Singh,Zaheer Khan…Oh this isn’t the squad for some series that India is playing. This is the list of the players who opted out of the Carribean Tour this season. Gayle is not part of the West Indian squad. Lasith Malinga retired from tests all of a sudden. Ten Doeschate plays more matches than all of his Dutch teammates put together. Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist, Sourav Ganguly and Muthiah Muralitharan are seen playing cricket even after retirement. All this due to the advent of Indian Premier League.

This isn’t yet another run of the mill article about the mega event. This article is out of the angst or simply put curiosity about how much such tournaments have affected cricketers from across the world. There was a time when domestic players would strive and fight for their place in the national squad. But in the current scenario, it is completely opposite, which is very clear from the fact that Shikhar Dhawan is the specialist opener for India and Kirk Edwards is for the Windies. What may have caused this bad state of affairs of sport in the nations? How are players able to play in the IPL immediately after a 6 week long World Cup but not for the series after that? Well the simple answer to all the questions posed above is money.

Cricketers of late make sure they are part of the money churning tournaments rather than the ones that actually help them play for their respective nation. Lasith Malinga when was called back from the IPL to prepare for the Sri Lanka tour of England,retired from test cricket and informed he would be available for the one day series (IPL would be over by then). Shahid Afridi retired from international cricket and chose to play for Somerset, an English county, which the Pakistan Board refused to allow. Such lucrative tournaments are beginning to become a bane for a traditional cricket match lover.

But on the other hand,if we look at the likes of Shakib-al-Hasan and Ryan Ten Doeschate, such tournaments prove to be a huge boon. Players from the minnow teams (though currently for no reason, Bangladesh isn’t a minnow) get to play more cricket and with and against other international players. This gives them an excellent opportunity to show and hone their skills in a global stage. So is the case with the local lads of India. Players like Paul Valthaty, Ravindra Jadeja and Sreenath Arvind winning the praises from cricket’s greatest players Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne and Daniel Vettori. Though the selectors this time around have not made the mistake of picking the squad based on just the IPL performance, which previously heavily backfired when Sudeep Tyagi, Manpreet Gony, Ravindra Jadeja and others made it to the national team.

So was the case of Chris Gayle. He, and obviously Royal Challengers Bangalore, were benefited with his stint in this IPL. His fallout with the West Indies Cricket Board made him available for the IPL, but in turn failed to make the West Indies squad for the series against India. Just after watching the only T20I between WI and India from the stands,he tweeted, “The atmosphere was great but the stands are not a great place to be. I want to be in the middle.”

The Indians opting out of this tour due to reasons like fatigue, spending time with the family,undergoing surgeries for injuries being carried over for more than 4 weeks clearly show their lack of commitment towards the nation and the fans. It was great to know Sachin Tendulkar chose not to play T20 cricket. But little did many realize that that was the case only for the country and not for his franchise where he was paid 1.8 million dollars for the first 3 seasons.

Lasith Malinga, IPL's highest wicket taker, retired from Test Cricket

I would consider a serious punishment from the Cricket Board to be the best way to stop such doings by the cricketers. Cricketers should start feeling the importance of playing for their nation. This is the right way for them to market the game for the game itself. It was highly embarrassing when Gautam Gambhir revealed he had been having his injury for quite sometime and deciding to look into it after playing 7 weeks of IPL and opting out of his national commitment. Harbhajan Singh also played the World Cup, the IPL 2011 and still managed to come for this tour. Though it is unclear if it was his commitment to do the national duty, or was it just to make sure his place in the team remains and does not get lost to Ravichandran Ashwin.

I am reminded of a conversation from the epic movie A Few Good Men. When Daniel Kaffe asks Harold Dawson, what was the code he respected, Dawson replies, “Unit. Corps. God. Country.”

I, on my part as a great fanatic of Indian cricket and a fan of World Cricket, would love a lot of such tournaments to happen and a lot of talent to be brought out. But would expect the players to follow this code. “Self.God.Country.Club”.Long live international cricket!!!