 "IPL and star culture aren't the problems for India's trophy-less decade")
It was even before India lost the World Test Championship (WTC) final that netizens started blaming Indian Premier League (IPL) for the team's failure in the red-ball format. It was the second time in a row that Team India lost the final of WTC while playing it after IPL's conclusion. Fans' ire was always going to be there.
After India eventually lost the WTC Final, former coach Ravi Shastri said that Indian players must prioritise what they want. This makes sense to an extent, however, giving up IPL just to prepare for WTC final doesn't add up.
On being asked whether IPL is responsible for India’s loss, even skipper Rohit Sharma said that he would have ideally liked to have 20-25 days to prepare for such an important game. But where would that time come from is the bigger question.
India won trophies and reached the finals after playing IPL
To find solutions, one would have to go back to the times before the IPL. India hadn't won any major tournament till MS Dhoni and his bunch of young guns lifted the T20 World Cup in 2007, which became the foundation for the launch of IPL.
Post the IPL, India lifted the ODI World Cup in 2011 and the Champions Trophy in 2013. The Men in Blue have been able to reach the finals of various other ICC tournaments as well. But they always faltered in the final after 2013.
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy down under in 2020-21 is the biggest example of why IPL is not the reason for failure. India had travelled to Australia after playing the IPL 2020 in UAE. The Champions Trophy 2013 was also won right after the IPL.
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So if a team is good enough to reach the final of an ICC event, and win a four-match Test series in Australia, it means that they are not tired because of playing IPL. The problem is of handling the pressure in the final.
How star culture argument is flawed?
There is another argument that since IPL has made even the new cricketers a household name, they stop paying attention to international cricket and give preference to the money-minting league. Jasprit Bumrah’s example is given to support this argument. Bumrah did indeed pick up an injury while playing IPL, but that could have happened even when he was training for WTC or playing a five-day game in England.
IPL can make players famous, but it lasts only two months. For the rest of the ten months, anyone will only watch them when they are playing for India. Thus, playing for the country is always the biggest inspiration. No player would say that his dream is not to lift the World Cup but an IPL trophy.
Other counties have leagues too, why don't they complain about it?
Other countries like England and Australia also have their T20 leagues that run with full houses. They might not be even remotely close to money-making in comparison to IPL, but they do give opportunities for the players to come through the ranks.
The centrally contracted English and Australian players usually do not play in their home leagues but prefer playing in IPL for the money. Their cricket boards also understand their economic preference and try to reduce the load from senior players. Even the scheduling the leagues by those boards is done in such a way that the senior players are rather involved in playing international cricket, especially Test matches which are part of the home summer.
You would never see anyone in England or Australia blaming T20 Blast and The Hundred (England’s domestic T20 leagues) or Big Bash League (BBL) (Australia’s domestic T20 league) for their team's failure.
Tight scheduling by BCCI is the biggest issue
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) doesn’t only want the best Indian players to play IPL, but also the best from the world to do so. It is the reason why they schedule IPL in March-April when there is no cricket in either Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (end of the summers) or England (end of the winters), the four countries that provide the biggest chunk of best cricketers to the world apart from India.
The biggest solution to the IPL problem could be staging it in a period when the WTC Final or any other major Test series away from India is not in proximity for at least one month. That would give players a chance to rejuvenate and work on their red ball techniques. Or, the BCCI could put pressure on the ICC to try and get WTC Final shifted to July-August and be held anywhere else if rain is the problem in England.