Arrival Of T20 Ends Monopoly Of Cricket Boards On Players, Says Brian Lara
Updated - 07 Oct 2018, 11:57 PM
Former Windies left-hander batsman Brian Lara feels that the monopoly of cricket boards on players has already ended after the arrival of T20 formats.
Meanwhile, in his playing days, Brian Lara had the perfect antidote to all the poisons.
He stood as the backbone of the Windies team every time in his Test career. Lara also holds some amazing records in Test matches than other formats. His 501 not out for Warwickshire, 400 and 375 against England and a match-winning 153 against Australia and are the rare examples in the game of cricket. However, Lara also welcomes the slam-bang format of Twenty20 cricket. In fact, he also said that the advent of T20 cricket was necessary.
“T20 moves into not just playing international matches but franchise cricket with IPL, Big Bash, CPL and quite a few leagues around the world, which is great. It takes that monopoly that cricket board have on players. Players are now associating themselves with franchise owners, which is good. Before it was kind of tough for the players in terms of playing regular cricket. If you were playing international cricket, it was tough for you to play anywhere else. So I believe this has spread game of cricket to all corners of the world, which is great as well,” Brian Lara said in an exclusive chat with Khaleej Times on sidelines of inaugural Abu Dhabi T20 tournament.
Moreover, Brian Lara noted that the rise of T game should not hamper the traditional format. However, five days of cricket is finding few takers now. He also reiterated that the traditional Test series would never die.
“Test cricket is always something that is very strong in some countries and not so strong in others. If I was to speak for West Indies alone, I remember going to Test match in 1979 and you couldn’t even get inside the park. Up to about five years ago I was handing a cap to a debutant player and there was nobody in the stadium. In some places the desire from the public to come out is lost. They no longer feel that is something they want to see. So having T20 is great. I don’t see any problem with it. Five days of cricket has always been tough.” Brian Lara added.
Windies has lost their first Test match of the two-match Test series against India and they are hoping to find some better place in the second Tests.
