IPL: A boon to Indian cricket, not a bane

Celebrate it for it's boons, don't crucify it

India’s recent test series debacle followed by the ODI series loss in England has seen a lot written in the media bashing the IPL as the main culprit responsible for the downfall of the country’s cricket. In the past year before all this bashing began, the IPL was in the news for Lalit Modi and the corruption scandals linked with him.

Post the World Cup victory though, after India reached the promised land, another story emerged bashing the IPL: that of exhausted players and too much of cricket. It started from right after the World Cup and has culminated in the English debacle. Now that India are struggling to win even one international in England, take a look at the IPL bashing that is dominating the news.

1. Gautam Gambhir was injured because of the IPL
2. Virender Sehwag was injured because of the IPL
3. Everyone and anyone injured was because of the IPL
4. The sun didn’t rise because of the IPL
5. Anna Hazare won’t break the fast because of the IPL

Before the IPL, Greg Chappell was the villain the media crucified for everything that was wrong with Indian cricket, and before that it was Sourav Ganguly. Now it’s the IPL’s turn to be burned to the ground by the media day in day out. The truth of the matter is that no one seems to analyse the root cause of the problem, and we hope that the BCCI does it (I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. After all, we did win the World Cup).

The truth is that India reached its peak at the World cup, a peak that it has unfortunately not been able to sustain because of aging of the experienced guns in the team. Australia was lucky to peak for a long time, but the team is struggling now to get youngsters to be moulded to become the next generation of world beaters. Every team peaks for some time; the West Indies did, Australia did, India did and now it’s England’s turn.

The big story is that it is amazing how quickly India has been able to replace the aging veterans with, though not the best, but neither the worst generation of youngsters. Rahne, Patel, Kohli, Raina, Rohit Sharma are the new generation of players who will lead Indian cricket into the new era, and are all excellent players in their own rights.

To gain perspective on this, take a look at how much Australia have been struggling to replace Shane Warne. They have tried so many spinners in the last few years, dropped all of them at some point of time, because none of them is performing and living up to the expectations. But Team India has not one, but a number of replacements for every position. It is from the IPL that these replacements have come from, it is from the T20 league’s limelight that they became national players.

The monetary gain is there for sure, which puts off the purists, but there is no better platform that the IPL for youngsters to express themselves, capture the limelight and earn their ticket to fame. So instead of bashing it, we should thank the IPL for the plethora of positives it has given us and work objectively to weed out the negatives.

Edited by Zico