Veteran India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on his Youtube channel, gave a strong reply to the Indian Premier League (IPL) critics and elaborate on several details regarding the cash rich league – its’ impact and future.
Ashwin talked about the much-criticized scheduling of IPL as several teams plan their calendar keeping the Indian franchise tournament in mind.
“What are the disadvantages because of this two-week earlier start when it comes to other countries? They (international sides) would have already scheduled their international calendar. For instance, we have England and Australia are playing few games against different countries during the IPL. Even Sri Lanka has few international matches during the IPL window,” Ashwin said.
“But mostly, South Africa, Australia, England, and New Zealand, schedule their international games based on IPL fixtures. This year, New Zealand are not having any international matches during IPL.”
The veteran spinner pointed out English journalist Lawrence Booth’s tweet who recently criticized the IPL schedule. Ashwin put his point by giving an example of football leagues where the English Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and others majority hold dates of the football calendar but apart from them, the players also played in the Champions League, International matches and FIFA World Cup.
“Lawrence Booth (English journalist) had tweeted about IPL fixtures saying it takes almost one-third (one-sixth) of the year. Even the English Premier League happens and almost has a six-month window. The players will have more gaps between matches and they will have only one or two matches per week. Of course, cricket getting to that stage will always remain a huge question mark. But IPL as a league has all the potential to take cricket into that stage for sure. And all the cricket viewers, cricket nations, stakeholders know this already,” said Ashwin.
