IPL 2016: What happened to the supply line of young talent?

About a quarter of the 60 scheduled games of IPL 2016 have just been concluded and there are a good four and a half weeks of the cash-rich league still to go. But if early indicators are anything to go by, it is becoming increasingly clear that the worst fears of cricket purists in India are coming true.

Young exciting talent, the kind that gives you a school-boy like adrenalin rush all over again while you were almost in the process of being sucked into your favourite TV room couch, is fast drying up in Indian cricket. Would you believe it? And they used to say talent was never going to be a problem in this country.

To understand the gravity of the situation, we need to go back to the original arguments floated in support of the league during its inception nine years back.

It was said that the league would not only ensure a secure professional career for our tireless first class cricketers who never made it to international fame, but also, through free interaction with established international stars, ensure a steady supply line of young talent. This young talent would not only challenge the incumbent Indian players for their places but also look the part by the time they made it to the senior India side.

The compulsory inclusion of one U23 player in every squad was touted as a move initiated with this purpose in mind.

All noble thoughts indeed. However, everyone in the know was aware that the real reason for the birth of the IPL was the entrepreneurial brainwave conceived with the aim of cashing in on the euphoria generated in the world’s most lucrative cricket market by India’s T20 World Cup win in 2007.

Be that as it may, faithfuls and purists went along with the noble arguments dished out with scepticism-filled hearts. The first part of the argument relating to career security seems to have been achieved to some extent. Regarding the second part, purists must have been overjoyed when Manish Pandey became the first Indian to score a commanding century in the IPL as a 19-year old, albeit in its second edition and after 115 matches.

In fact, many would have also gotten excited even before that, in the inaugural edition itself, when they saw a 19-year-old Ravindra Jadeja put in an admirable all-round performance for the Rajasthan Royals. Playing under spin legend Shane Warne’s captaincy, Jadeja helped his team win that first edition and caught the eye of national selectors for the first time.

For the record, Jadeja had scored 135 runs from 14 matches at a strike rate of 131.06 in the tournament. He has since secured an Indian career for himself.

And it is not as if only batting talent was coming through. The third edition, in 2010, gave India its best bowler in all forms of the game today. Ravichandran Ashwin had a dream season with the Chennai Super Kings that year, where he impressed both in the IPL and carried the good work through to become the Player of the Tournament of the Champions League T20 as well.

Ashwin’s performances for CSK got him a chance in the Indian team

This led to his selection to the Indian team for the Zimbabwe tour, and Ashwin has not looked back since. Axar Patel was another young talent that made it to the Indian squad on the back of a good IPL performance.

However, observing the present ninth edition of the IPL, one gets the feeling that the pool of young talented players who were available and were expected to develop themselves even more due to the IPL experience, seems to have hit a roadblock. New exciting talent seems to be as scarce as water in drought-hit Latur at the moment.

Take the example of a Sanju Samson. Adjudged the Best Young Player of the Season as a 19-year-old after an eye-catching 2013 season when he became the youngest Indian to score a 50 in the IPL, Sanju today appears to be a shadow of his old dynamic self.

I concede that he is still very young and has time on his hands, but one would expect a better return from an international-cricket-hungry cricketer than his current 57 runs in 3 innings at an average of 19 with only a single score above 30.

Kuldeep Yadav, the young Chinaman exponent of KKR, also caught the selectors’ eye for the first time in the previous edition of the IPL. That even led to an India call-up, but unfortunately due to the pullout of the West Indian team, he could not debut for India and has since gone off the radar.

This would have been the IPL where he would have been the hungriest for success. But instead he has played just one match out of the four KKR have played thus far, and has not been too impressive.

No confidence in youngsters

That is the other concern actually. Captains either don't have any confidence in these youngsters during the practice sessions or have too many established stars to accommodate, which are denying these players even an opportunity to do well.

If it is the latter, the senior Indian players past and present in these squads should give the issue a serious thought in the larger interests of Indian cricket. If it’s the former, however, it is a cause for grave concern.

Maybe the youngsters have not helped themselves either by failing to come up with standout performances in the domestic first-class season in the intervening period.

Unmukt Chand of the Mumbai Indians for example, after showing such promise as a youngster a couple of IPL seasons ago, has not got a game till now. Sarfaraz Khan, the swashbuckling 18-year-old from RCB, has just had one decent outing in the three matches he has played. There is a case to play him higher up the order so that he gets the right opportunities; after all, it’s a domestic T20 tournament. But with RCB's lineup being stacked with the likes of Gayle, De Villiers, Kohli and Watson, the chance of that happening is slim.

Why this trend is inimical to the cause of Indian cricket is that it does not push the established Indian stars enough to perform consistently and hold on to their places. Shikhar Dhawan, for all his recent inconsistencies as an opener, is at the moment being pushed by Gautam Gambhir, who is going to be 35 in a few months.

Now that’s going backward and not forward, as we should be with our cricket. The need of the hour is for someone fresh, raw and young to put up his hand and be counted. But so far this season there haven't been too many signs of players like that making themselves known.