IPL Will Lose Its Charm If Big Players Stay Away From The League, opines Sandeep Patil

An IPL season ahead of World Cup is all set to test the loyalties of many international players and is all set to increase the headache of their team management as well. An injury to a key player can be dangerous for the national team and the talk to rest key players during the tournament has been making rounds for a while now.

Amidst this, former chief selector Sandeep Patil, who was also a part of Worl Cup winning team in 1983, has had his say and as per him, IPL will lose its charm if key players miss the tournament.

“Imagine RCB without Virat Kohli, Chennai Super Kings without Dhoni, Mumbai Indians without Rohit Sharma or the Pandya brothers or Bumrah. Imagine Rajasthan Royals without Rahane! The IPL will not only lose its charm but it will lose its competitive standards if big players are to stay away from the league,” he wrote in his column for The Quint.

Indian skipper Virat Kohli had addressed the issue of IPL just ahead of World Cup earlier and sent out a message to the players as well.

In fact, Kohli himself is one of the key players for India’s World Cup plans and might need rest ahead of the World Cup.

He has missed many series in past one year and there can be a case when the captain might lead by example by giving few of the IPL games a miss.

Apart from him, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya are few other players who will have to monitor their workloads during the T20 tournament.

The spotlight will also be on the foreign players, who will make an early return to prepare for the World Cup 2019. Australian players will have to return to their country before May 1.

Only the players from New Zealand will be playing the full tournament as their board has no issue with them playing the full league ahead of World Cup.

Players from West Indies could have also played the full tournament but they have an international series lined up in May, which will see them leave the tournament early.

The 12th edition of the Indian Premier League will start on March 23. Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on each other in the first game of the tournament.

For now, BCCI has only announced the schedule for first two weeks of the league.