IPL : a boon or bane to TEST Cricket?

IPL: a boon or bane to TEST Cricket?

Jo dikhta hai wohi bikta hai is probably the slogan which Mr. Lalit Modi, the then Chairman of the IPL Governing Council, might be having in his mind when he decided to throw in the concept of Ipl in the year 2008. Ipl has always proved its essense in the years to come from 2008-2020. Mr Lalit Modi however had to face corruption charges and then leave the IPL board of directors and was replaced by Mr. Rajiv Shukla who also left no stones unturned for the success of the INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE.

THe PRESTIGIOUS IPL TROPHY

IPL a platform for young talent?

IPL has always proved to be the platform where young talent can perform and get a chance straight into the Indian National Team. Let us take a few examples to illustrate the above-mentioned point. The very first example that comes to our mind is SURESH RAINA. He is often termed as MR. IPL due to his prolific record in the domestic arena. He is the only player to have scored more than 350 runs in each and every edition of the IPL. It is very true that he got his spot in the Indian National Team due to his performances in the IPL.

The next example to be taken into consideration is RISABH PANT. This young guy who is just 25 odd years of age has been hitting 100m long sixes to the best-ranked bowlers of the world and that too across all parts of the ground. He has a phenomenal strike rate against some of the high-class bowlers like Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, and Imran Tahir. Due to his worthy performances in the IPL, he is now considered as a prominent successor the veteran Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

IPL a damage to test cricket?

Test cricket is considered to be the mother of all forms of cricket that ever been played on the soils of mother earth. Test cricket requires patience, perseverance, talent, strategy, hard work, pain, labour, withstanding capability, torture retention strength. You name a quality and you will get that in Test cricket. As the name suggests TEST, test cricket tests the real cricketer within an individual. Great players of the game like Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Sourav Ganguly have all been very clear regarding why they want to play test cricket and why want to revive it.

During this modern day era when people don't have enough time for themselves, then how can they give 5 days to a test match. In this case comes handy the concept of IPL and T-20 matches. These matches serve as a picnic or a movie date to a family of 3 odd hours and hence gaining popularity. Hence, it is quite clear that Ipl has taken away the glory of test cricket, no one can deny that but it totally depend of governing bodies like the International Cricket Council (ICC), the BCCI, the CA, the CSA, the ECB and other bodies on how to revive test cricket.

AUTHOR : SUBHAJEET KHAWAS