Sunil Gavaskar added fuel to the row over the Indian Premier League in view of the dismal performance in the just concluded second match with South Africa, saying the Test squad was distracted by the upcoming extravaganza.
Gavaskar questioned the players’ commitment after India crashed by an innings and 90 runs in the second Test against South Africa in Ahmedabad on Saturday, their worst defeat at home in almost 50 years.
“The question that is being asked is whether the Indian team was sufficiently prepared for the Test match,” Gavaskar wrote in his syndicated column in the Hindustan Times.
“The absence of some players for two whole days out of the three days between the first two Tests was strange to say the least.
“They could have done with an extra session at the nets rather than dancing at the launch of their (IPL) franchise.”
Gavaskar, who heads the International Cricket Council’s rule-making cricket committee, is himself a member of the IPL’s governing council.
He also urged newly-appointed coach Gary Kirsten to rein in his players ahead of the third and final Test starting in Kanpur on Friday.
“Gary Kirsten better crack the whip, else some of the guys will ride roughshod over him,” wrote Gavaskar.
“They should have been hard at the nets trying to get their wrist position and footwork right rather than practising their dancing steps.
“It’s about time they realised that they are what they are, because of cricket.”
Gavaskar’s comments come a day after local media lashed out at the IPL, the multi-million dollar Twenty20 event starting on April 18, which has signed on the world’s top players for the 44-day competition between eight city teams.
The mass circulation Hindustan Times had written on Sunday that, ”since so much money is riding on the IPL, the investors are bound to project this as the greatest show on earth so that they can lure people to watch it.
“But one is disappointed with the attitude of the Indian cricket board, which does not seem to care that the players have to focus on the Test series right now and not on the IPL.”
SRK came up woith strong support for Shoiab yesterday saying that the charges against Shoiab is not so serious to disallow him from playing the Indian Premier league. “I will talk to Lalit Modi to reconsider the decision,” said Shah Rukh, who is owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders team, for which Shoaib has been roped in to play.
He said the charges against the fast bowler are not so serious that his presence could create a negative impression in the minds of young cricketers.
“It is a ban related to his behaviour and I hope things get sorted out in our favour,” Shah Rukh said.
“Shoaib is a great player and I would like to have him back. I don’t know why he cannot play. I want him in the team as he is very important for Kolkata Knight Riders,” Shah Rukh said.
“I know I am allowed to take another player but I want Shoaib back,” the superstar said.
Earlier in the day, Modi, Chairman of IPL’s Governing Council Chairman, told reporters that the speedster cannot take part in the high-profile Twenty20 competition, beginning from April 18, till the PCB lifts the ban on him.
“A big discussion on Akhtar has taken place. The decision of the Governing Council was very simple that Akhtar has been banned for a period of five years, he has appealed and till the time he is cleared, the Governing Council will not be allowing Akhtar from playing in the IPL,” Modi said.
The absence of Shoiab takes out much color from the Kolkata IPL team, Knight Riders and who knows that the low demand of tickets for the seven matches of IPL in Kolkata maybe a reflection of this.
It is great news for BCCI and the IPL. The Indian cricket team now has
2 extra days to promote IPL after India ended the second test match in
record time. Who cares if India won or
lost. After all, the multi million dollar IPL league is about to start
and every one, BCCI, the IPL and the Indian cricketers need to prepare
for the mega tournament.
BCCI bent its own rules when it allowed the Indian cricketers
promote the IPL. The IPL is not international cricket and according to
BCCI ( officially ), international cricket comes first. But still our
cricketers ( ICON PLAYERS ) were busy launching apparels, slogans,
brand ambassadors for their local teams.
South African players are also playing the IPL but they were busy
practicing. And maybe this is why after being under pressure from the
Indians in the first test match, the South African came back and
crashed the Indians in all departments of the game and ended the match
imposing a humiliating innings and 90 runs on India ’s home ground.
Korbo Lorbo and Morbo, well that seems to be one IPL teams slogan
but the Indian cricketers are doing the first two for IPL promotions,
(performing and fighting) and leaving the third for international
cricket ( dying ). We doubt BCCI and the IPL cares, as long as IPL is
on track and the test match performance does not affect IPL ticket
sales.
This calls for celebration, and more branding! I don’t know if i am or
David Collier, the ECB chief executive, has said it will be very hard
for England’s top players to take part in future Indian Premier League
(IPL) tournaments because of the international schedule. He added that
the ECB was preparing to adapt their domestic Twenty20 Cup to attract
more leading players and offer an alternative for IPL.
“It is a question of finding periods of the year for this [the IPL] to
take place,” he told BBC Radio Five Live’s Sportsweek show. “We are one
of the few countries who play in June, that is why our competitions are
so successful because we can attract the best players in the world.
That is why we believe that an English Premier League will be very
successful including a broad range of cricketers.”
An expanded Twenty20 Cup is on the agenda of
the ECB meeting this week and changes could take place as early as this
season’s tournament in June. An increase in overseas players is one
option on the table with more drastic changes being discussed for the
2009 event.
Recently, Kevin Pietersen has said that frustration is growing
that England players are unable to take advantage of the money on
offer. Dimitri Mascarenhas is the only representative from England,
have coming to a deal with Hampshire who will release him for two
weeks.
There has been talk of the IPL being brought
forward so it doesn’t clash with the start of the English domestic
season, but there isn’t much room in a congested calendar. “The obvious
time for the IPL to play is April and May, but that clashes with the
start of our international season,” said Collier.
“We play New Zealand on May 15 in England,
for our players to take part their schedule has to come forward a few
weeks to fit into that calendar. We should also not forget that we go
to the West Indies in the spring of next year. The IPL has said that
the tours programmes will take precedence, and clearly that will clash
with us being in the West Indies.”
Collier also said that it will take time to
find out how commercially successful the IPL will be and that it will
have to operate at a loss for some time. “Certainly if you look over a
five-to-10-year period, we can believe the claims that Indian cricket
is worth a billion dollars,” he said. “But there are 10 franchises, and
every one has a turnover of about eight million dollars, it is being
said in India that those franchises will be making a loss for a number
of years.
“That is not unusual, in the US when
franchises start, they make losses for a number of years. But if you
are investing in such numbers, you expect a return in the
not-too-distant future, and that will happen in India. But it will not
be for a while.”
The owners of King’s XI Punjab, better known as the Mohali IPL team, Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia gave an interview to Indian Tv Channel CNN-IBN - some excerpts below from the Interview.
Preity Zinta: Irfan Pathan, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Piyush Chawla…yes you’re right. We’ve got everybody we wanted. Thank God we already had Yuvi on the team.
About her involvement with IPL and Cricket she said that - she is purely in for the game. She has been a sportsperson all her life and she thinka it’s time for some action now.
On the Auction front she pointed to Ness wadia and said that the department was with him and Tom and she thinks that they did a fantastic job and thanked them and the coach also for setting the best team.
Ness Wadia added that there was a lot of planning like any business meeting or pitch and went through it (our strategy) two-three times and also on the phone during lunch time. He thinks that they had strategies in place. Most important thing was that they were not interested in pushing other people’s prices up. “We were really interested in getting the players we wanted to get. We were so focussed on what we were doing, frankly speaking, the rest didn’t really matter. Of course, there’s luck as well” - Ness Wadia added.
How did the Brett Lee and Sreesanth happen? Did you go for Sreesanth because of the character he brings to the game?
On Sreesanth Preity Zinta added that they have a fast wicket and on fast wicket they need fast bowlers. She again mentioned that the strategy was put together by Tom and Ness with budget in mind.
About Sreesanth Ness wadia added that he is one of the better players today in the Indian team. He’s been through that first high and now he’s sort of coming off, not into a low but in sort of a lull like most sportsmen do where they start thinking where am I, what’s happened etc. I’m pretty sure he is going to bounce back, and as far as the selection strategy was: everyone had 10 players and there was a number to be pulled out and whichever number came out, that was the number for bidding. So when we were looking at spinners, we were short of spinners and we had no spinners left. We had Ramesh Powar and Piyush Chawla, so we just wanted to safeguard ourselves and we took a lot of decisions which were risking our model as opposed to just going and buying for the sake of buying.
On her involvement with Kings XI Punjab - Preity was absolutely serious. She said - “King’s XI Punjab, is a team of Punjab and there cannot be a chance we don’t mention Punjab. It’s not a country playing another country. It’s a state playing another state. In Bombay, people have already started calling me K11P, as they do it in the film industry. But yes, I’m treating IPL like a film. I’m dedicating three months of my life to it till the tournament gets over and then I will go back to films. I have four films releasing this year. So it is a very exciting year for me in terms of film as well as cricket. Hopefully, we will win the tournament.” She also added that she is going to tell all my producers to not release any movie between 19 April and 30 May. It will be suicide.
Lets hope we see a nice and cheerpul Priety in the field dancing around with every sixer by Yuvraj and every wicket by Sreesanth.
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