Indian Premier League is the biggest T20 cricket league in the world at present. There have been many countries that have started their own T20 league, following the footsteps of IPL. However, IPL being the only T20 tournament with Indian cricketers’ presence along with the best of the overseas players, makes it the best franchise-based tournament in the world.
However, IPL has been blamed, every now and then, for its negative impact on international teams. For example, this year after losing Ashes, former England players and experts argued that English players priortising IPL has led to the decline of Test cricket in England. Meanwhile,Indian off-spinner Ravichandran
Ashwin has come out bashing such criticism on his YouTube channel.
“IPL has been under the radar for so many years. Suddenly, some former cricketer will say something bad about IPL for no reason. Imagine the situation in 2008 or 2010. There were only 20-25 cricketers who would be there. Team India To represent in the Indian setup.” Ashwin further said that a few nations schedule their international fixture keeping IPL in mind. However, since the IPL is kicking off on March 26 this year in place of April 8/9 many teams will be suffering because of this.
“Lawrence Booth (English journalist) had tweeted about IPL fixtures saying it takes almost one-third 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.
Ashwin also spoke about how Indian cricket has benefited from the IPL. “Even when I started, my parents and grandparents asked me if cricket would help me financially. Only 15-20 or 25 cricketers would get a chance in 10 years. But now, because of IPL, every year,” he said. At least 75-80 Indian cricketers are getting the opportunity. “