Money Land over Mother Land

IPL has seen some amazing performances so far, but as always there have been a few controversies also. The 1st being where the Sri Lankan Cricket Board has called its players to report back by 5th May so that they can prepare for the England tour. BCCI would do everything to influence their decision. I somehow have a feeling that national duty should be given preference over the IPL duties, but some players like Kieron Pollard, chris Gayle have a different point of view who refused to be part of the West Indies team for Pakistan series at home. They have chosen money land over mother land which I feel is poor decision by them. National duty should always be given priority over IPL commitment; nevertheless it’s their personal point of view.

Gayle had refused the WICB’s central contract to leave him free for the IPL but ironically was not bought at the player auction in January because the franchises feared he would be unavailable because of international
commitments. Then after the World Cup Gayle informed the board that he was recovering from injury following the World Cup and was undergoing rehabilitation work and about to resume training while he had been making arrangements to play cricket in IPL.

Then there are players in this IPL who are not ready to lead their National Team or who have given up National captaincy but are very happy to lead an IPL team. This seems to confuse me with no end. Like Kumar Sangakkara has given up Sri Lankan captaincy after the world cup loss due to some reasons but then he is very happy to lead the IPL side. I wonder why the reason for quitting national captaincy does not apply when you are leading an IPL side. Players like Kumar Sangakkara, and Daniel Vettori have all given up their national team’s captaincy but are happy leading an IPL side. The reason for Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene for quitting national captaincy was they didn’t see them self playing for long, but these reason don’t apply when captaining the IPL side The Sri Lankan players are going to go back to Sri Lanka by 5th of May, that would mean they won’t captain their respective sides during the most important leg of the tournament so since they won’t be there for the entire tournament why don’t they allow someone else to lead the side, who will be there for the entire tournament. When they leave for national duty then their respective teams would again have to start from scratch, they should actually help the young players to get into the role of a captain with help them gain captaincy experience. But in IPL all the reasons and problems go for a toss. Till now we had players who retired from international cricket but continued to play in the IPL; in this edition we even have the umpire doing the same. Rudi Koertzen has retired from International Cricket but is happy umpiring in IPL. I won’t be surprised to see in future if players decide only to play in the IPL.

Nevertheless this IPL has been brilliant so far. We have seen some very exciting matches. For me IPL is all about Divided by teams but United by Cricket.

Ricky Singh for DieHard Cricket Fans