Arjun
Cricketer Of The Year
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.
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.