Who is the greediest of them all?
In the country versus club debate, which is the inevitable consequence of the way IPL is structured, we fail to address one simple fact: Who is responsible for creating a situation where players get pitted against their respective boards which is
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
In the country versus club debate, which is the inevitable consequence of the way IPL is structured, we fail to address one simple fact: Who is responsible for creating a situation where players get pitted against their respective boards which is detrimental to international cricket? asks Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
Can one visualise a situation where a national team goes to play a series in another country with the core of their team missing for practice games? Imagine India embarking for the tour of England with their main players, including their captain, still playing in a league tournament in some other country? Will the Indian public and the hyper jingoistic media allow that to happen?
Aakash Chopra says the player must not be put in a position where they need to make a hard choice between playing for the country and a life-changing, lucrative IPL offer.
In the Indian Express, Aditya Iyer says, "In a system where business tycoons and Bollywood starlets with deep pockets are parading as team owners, the birth of Real Madrid equivalents in IPL's franchise structure was inevitable. But Dream Teams are not necessarily player friendly."
Plucking nervously at those bleached locks that came to the forefront only last season, Saurabh Tiwary tapped his feet restlessly in the Bangalore Royal Chal lengers's dug out. Seventeen overs had passed, and the boy who had made the headlines both for his formidable top-order batting, and for being state-mate MS Dhoni's lookalike, hadn't yet made his way out to the middle. Playing against his former team - the Mumbai Indians - at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Tiwary looked earnestly towards the men draped in the blue jerseys. He had taken the previous edition of the Indian Premier League by storm for them, smashing as many as 419 runs in his debut season while batting at No.3. Now, padding up in the lower middle order for his new franchise in red and gold, the grass seemed greener under the other fibre-glass shed. By the end of the evening though, Rohit Sharma would prove to him that it wasn't.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo