 Former Indian great, Sunil Gavaskar has exhorted the Indian youngsters
to place more importance to the Indian cap than the lucrative tournaments like
the Indian Premier League. Gavaskar has not been the only known face to have spoken
about this issue, with former cricketers like Gary Kirstein and Dilip Vengsarkar having expressed their concerns as well.
Gavaskar said that the parents in this day and age encourage their children
to take up cricket because the IPL has ensured that the sport has become a viable
career option for many. According to Gavaskar, the amount of money that the
IPL has provided has ensured that more youngsters are taking up the game, but
the worrying sign is when these youngsters consider the game to be the 'be all
and end all'.
He also said that he had seen another worrying trend amongst the domestic cricketers
to withdraw from the first class games to be able to remain injury-free for
the Indian Premier League, which does not augur too well. Talking at the Dilip Sardesai memorial, Gavaskar said, "A lot of players miss out on domestic
cricket before the IPL to avoid injuries. That is what we have to be very very
careful about, the IPL being seen as the be all and end all, not the India cap."
He added that the cricket authorities needed to worry about the youngsters
getting carried away by the amount of money that the sport had to offer at a
very young age. There was a good chance, according to him, that these young
guys get wrongly influenced and distracted by the fame, publicity and the success.
Gavaskar, however, said that one cannot blame the IPL for India's defeat in
the ICC World T20. The IPL, according to him, had to be in a home and away format,
and hence had had to have the number of games that were played. He also disagreed
that the short ball was the Indian batsmen's perennial problem and suggested
that it had occurred because not too many short balls had been bowled earlier.
This meant that when England and West Indies tried out that tactic,
it would have been a surprise for the Indian batsmen.
Gavaskar defended the scrapping of the Deodhar trophy and said that it was
not due to the IPL, but because of the crammed international schedule, that
included a host of games against Australia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh apart from
the Champions Trophy and Champions League.
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