For quite some time, I have been arguing in favour of India's top cricketers playing domestic cricket so that the level of competition helps young players coming through the system to mature (refer my previous blog posts). Thanks to IPL and relentless tours after tours throughout the year, India's top cricketers don't go back to domestic cricket, unless they are coming out of injury or have been dropped.
IPL has become such a monolith that the BCCI had to face insult as players like Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer chose to ignore its directives and skipped the Ranji Trophy. Of late there has been a trend wherein once players have established themselves in the Indian team, they do not go back to their domestic teams. This trend is of recent vintage, particularly post the star syndrome brought about by IPL. Ishan Kishan is a classic case. He wasn't in the top league except for the absurdly astronomical auction amount that propelled into the limelight. Thus he was able to get into the Indian team in all the three formats and had good success. But something must have gone into his head. What explains him complaining of mental fatigue midway through the recent Test tour to South Africa and returning home. And though he was categorically told to play Ranji Trophy by head coach Rahul Dravid and BCCI Secretary Jay Shah, he chose to instead join Hardik Pandya in Baroda practicing for his IPL franchise Mumbai Indians.
Hardik Pandya is a classic example of a talented player gone to waste due to the star syndrome. In recent years he has played less and been injured often. He was appointed captain of the Indian T20 team with the BCCI leaving out Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for more than a year. Hardik's move from Gujarat Titans to Mumbai Indians (MI) as captain raised quite a few eyebrows. After all Rohit Sharma had done very well as captain for MI barring the last two seasons. In fact the tremors of Hardik's anointment as MI captain resulted in a delayed announcement of the Indian T20 team for the three-match series against low-ranked Afghanistan. Rohit returned as captain of the T20 team and Virat too was brought back with Hardik and Surya out due to injury. With Jay Shah announcing that Rohit will lead the Indian team in the T20 World Cup, what happens to BCCI's planning for the future? The star syndrome seems to be plaguing the BCCI. After all IPL is a BCCI 'domestic' competition!
One good thing that seems to have come out after BCCI chose to deny both Ishan and Shreyas central contracts, is that the importance of domestic cricket has been driven through. But will the BCCI be able to ensure that all its top stars play for their home teams in domestic cricket? Apart from the star syndrome, scheduling of international commitments has to be looked into. One has to look at how Cricket Australia plan their away tours. November to January is the period when they play Tests at home, compulsorily. Their away tours to a country like India are planned for February-March as India's cricket season (October-March) coincides with Australia's. South Africa too stay at home in the same period and travel abroad like the Australians do. However, in the middle of their home season, India toured South Africa in December-January and come December 2024 they will be in Australia for a five-Test series. Like the Australians, the most power cricket board (BCCI) can negotiate a tour down under without impacting their players' availability during the domestic season.
Once the players availability has been ensured during the domestic, the international commitments have to be so scheduled that the top stars are available to play for their home teams. England set a fine example. Their domestic season starts with the four-day County Championship in April and by the end of May each players has played seven County games. They schedule tours by visiting teams from June to September. Any player who is not playing for the English team compulsorily goes back to their County team if fit. In fact players are released from the Test squad after retaining two players - a twelfth man and a concussion substitute, and they go back to their county teams. Just like the IPL franchises and BCCI sign up contracts with their players, the BCCI should ensure that players sign contracts with their state associations.
Another important thing that needs to be done is the scheduling of IPL away from the peak summer months of April and May. IPL should instead be scheduled in September-October. The BCCI should analyze the real reason behind repeated injuries to its players. Any human body can only take the wear and tear for which it is designed. It cannot bear the heat wave of April-May when a player has to turn out under immense stress and pressure. The entire notion of workload management goes out the window during the IPL; it is applied to national duty instead.
A good beginning has been made and by taking a strict view of players' indiscipline the BCCI has done that. It has to now look at issues highlighted above for sustained growth of the game.
