IPL: Former England coach David Lloyd has cautioned that the expanding Indian Premier League must send off “alarm bells.”
Former England coach David Lloyd has cautioned that the expanding Indian Premier League must send off “alarm bells.”
The new IPL season will begin later this month, with two new teams, the Lucknow Supergiants and Gujarat Titans, taking part. As a result, the tournament, which will run more than two months, will feature an additional 14 matches.
Due to IPL obligations, Kagiso Rabada, Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, Lungi Ngidi, and Marco Jansen will not be available for South Africa’s Test series against Bangladesh. Meanwhile, New Zealand will be without 12 first-choice players for their white-ball series against the Netherlands in the IPL.
And, as the competition grows, Lloyd has expressed his reservations about the IPL’s influence on international cricket in his recent Daily Mail column. He wrote, “The alarm bells should be ringing.”
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Lloyd further wrote, “Already, South Africa’s entire attack is unavailable for the forthcoming Tests against Bangladesh, while New Zealand has ruled out 12 players for the upcoming match against Afghanistan. Make no mistake, the IPL is disrupting the traditional international programme.”
Lloyd isn’t the only one concerned about the IPL’s growing effect on the sport; former England captain Michael Atherton has also warned that Test cricket would suffer greatly.
“The calendar cannot contain the competing demands of international and franchise cricket as it is today,” Atherton wrote in the Times in November.
“India will want a longer timeframe, and who knows, maybe the owners may demand a second station be added to the schedule in the future. If the market is allowed unfettered, cricketers will follow the money, and the least profitable components of the game would suffer, particularly Test cricket in nations with limited broadcast markets”, Atherton added.
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