Where's the Indian in the IPL?

[Arjun]

The IPL, the way the teams are run, and India's dire performances in T20Is raise this question- are there too many overseas players in the IPL? Just where are India's top T20 players? The T20 specialists? The room for any to grow?

The batting top four (and sometimes both opening slots) is largely composed of overseas players. The strike bowlers are overseas players- while we can understand Dale Steyn or Shaun Tait being opening bowlers, not so Albie Morkel and Shane Watson. Indians (including top internationals) are expected to play a supporting act- like Yuvraj to Shaun Marsh. You can't breed good T20 players this way.

If you need so many overseas players to improve or boost quality, how do England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Sri Lanka do so much with just a fraction? England have twice as many teams in their T20 league, and each has just two overseas, and have a strong, large T20 base. Australia have ten teams, as much as in the 2011 IPL, with no more than two overseas in a squad, and have an explosive T20 roster. New Zealand make do with one a team, so do South Africa, and both are strong in T20.

Are Indians supposed to be so inferior in T20 that they can't be represented more? That franchise owners scout overseas T20 leagues but ignore Indian domestic events? Do they lose net worth by promoting domestic cricketers? The BCCI needs to step in and curb this instinct of the franchises, if they are concerned about developing domestic cricket.

They should consider pulling out IPL teams from the CLT20, which is used as a platform for landing IPL contracts, and send in SMAT teams instead. They should also allow Indian players to play in overseas T20 leagues, as there is more to learn there than facing sub-standard opposition in the domestic scene.

And the fans should do a Blackburn Rovers on their owners to get the Indian back in the Premier League.

[Daemon]

it's not the bcci's fault we're producing shunty t20 cricketers. they don't get an opportunity to bat in the top order or bowl as strike bowlers because they simply aren't good enough. the good ones always get to play these roles once they start showing signs of their capabilities. rayudu, tiwary, balaji, rahul sharma etc all started off as 'support' acts (don't like the term tbf).

if i got you right, what you're essentially proposing is smat with ~2 overseas players, which sounds about as exciting as reading this post i've just typed out.

[smalishah84]

daemon WAG

Ftr both arguments have some merit

[stumpski]

Pulling the IPL teams out of the Champions League would be counter-productive wouldn't it? Since the CL only appears to exist to promote the IPL - inviting four teams, all of which have four foreign players, while the other sides are only allowed two. I imagine it's always the aim of the promoters to have two IPL sides contesting the final. English counties will be giving it a miss from next year it seems; can't say I'm too devastated, at least we won't have to shift the whole season two weeks to allow them to take part.

[Dan]

The Champions League has always been a joke of a tournament because of the overseas player rule. Not to mention IPL sides getting first crack at those qualified twice (and not playing them half the time).

[VCC44]

Firstly, I'll admit to being no expert on the IPL, my dealings with it being little more than the odd match watched on the station picking it up in the UK (and even then I'm watching it more for the girl who's presenting) and some reading from a couple of cricket writers on the subject. My 1st thought on reading Arjun's post though was does this show the extent to which T20 is taking over, that he some followers of the game are now that concerned about developing players in this format? Certainly a far cry from the 'silly shots' game that it was initailly derided as.

My second thought was along the lines of , was the IPL created to nurture Indian talent? It doesn't strike me that it was. It was started to make money, to make strengthen India's stranglehold on world cricket and to provide 'cricketainment' Surely the foreign players coming in are a massive part of this? Lalit Modi didn't dream of an Indian League, his vision was of a league of the top stars from around the world providing cricket and razzamataz for the Inidan market. The IPL is 'Indian' in name only, surely it's supranational organisation?

And finally, if a Blackburn Rovers fan heard you comparing his club, a century plus year old institution of the town and country, to a recently created francise. he'd have a fit.

[Arjun]

Does promoting the IPL have to be the only excuse for the Champions' League to exist? Don't other leagues merit promotion as well? Don't they do well without ten overseas players a squad? We don't see them fight tooth and nail to get an overseas player to feature in the CLT20.

The IPL may have become a money-making venture at the cost of nurturing Indian talent, but that is a problem. Worse, it acts against those events in India (Ranji, Hazare, SMA, Duleep/Deodhar) that actually breed a domestic supply line, rendering them irrelevant. Other countries' leagues are not so misguided, so you know the IPL and the CLT20 are in the wrong hands.

I am sure many longtime Mumbai fans, who turned up at Brabourne and the Heyday all these years to watch Mumbai stalwarts in action, are irked that their prestigious association has been rendered irrelevant by an unholy franchise that does little to promote domestic cricket. IPL teams, and the Indian domestic scene in general, are not in good hands, largely because of the suspect intentions of the owners and the ignorance of the BCCI- and their fans should learn from their counterparts at Blackburn Rovers.