Restrict Bilateral T20s To World Cups: Ravi Shastri

The IPL media and broadcasting privileges for the following five-year cycle will go available to be purchased in June, and the worth of the property is supposed to hugely increment. Might the IPL at any point then turn out to be much greater, with more matches and more matchdays?

It’s not shockingly awful. Yet, that implies the chance of the international schedule being significantly more crushed. So, what, asks Ravi Shastri. Bilateral T20 series ought to go off the table, he says, and international T20s ought to just be played at World Cups.

Too Much Bilateral T20 Series Are Being Played: Ravi Shastri

“Yes, absolutely, there’s too much of bilateral stuff going on in T20 cricket,” Shastri said on ESPNcricinfo’s Runorder programme.

“I’ve said that [before], even when I was the coach of India, I could see it happening in front of my eyes. It should go the football way, where, in T20 cricket, you just play the World Cup. Bilateral tournaments – no one remembers.

“I don’t remember a single game in the last six-seven years as coach of India, barring the World Cup. A team wins the World Cup, they will remember it. Unfortunately, we didn’t, so I don’t remember that either.

“Where I am coming from is: you play franchise cricket around the globe; each country is allowed to have their franchise cricket, which is their domestic cricket, and then, every two years, you come and play a World Cup.”

Daniel Vettori, Ian Bishop, And Akash Chopra Discuss If IPL Can Get Bigger

The conversation was on the fate of the IPL toward the finish of the 2022 season on Sunday night. It included ten teams and 74 matches, spread over more than 65 days. Talking on the program, Daniel Vettori, Ian Bishop, and Aakash Chopra concurred that the IPL was probably going to get greater.

Might it at any point have two windows each year, of two months each? No difference either way. Might it at any point turn into a six-month league as per a few different sports all over the planet? Perhaps. Might it at any point make bilateral T20 cricket needless? Possibly.

The way things are, some international cricket is played during the IPL consistently, however, there is quite often a tussle between the boards engaged with these series and their players who have IPL contracts.

Compromises are normally shown up at, not consistently as per the general inclination of the players or the boards, or the IPL franchises whose plans are planned around their whole bank of players.

“I actually foresee there might be two editions of the IPL in every calendar year,” Chopra said. “And that’s not too far away.”

“That’s the future,” agreed Shastri.

“It could be tomorrow – 140 games, split 70-70. In two seasons. You never know. That’s the way it’s going to go. That’s the way it’s developed as a beast of a property. And you cannot hide away from that.

“You might think that’s overdose, but nothing is overdose in India. I have been sitting outside the bubble, I have been watching people, how they have seen, how they have reviewed these last few months, especially [after coming] out of Covid.

“And they are loving every bit of it, and they are almost having withdrawal symptoms.”

BCCI Has The Power To Run IPL For Longer Period: Daniel Vettori

Bishop and Vettori concurred. “It could well happen,” Bishop said.

“You talk about American sport – I know Dan watches his baseball, I watch a lot of NBA basketball, and each team plays 70-odd games a season. There’s the All-Star break in between where they get a week off, but it is really stretched.”

Regarding the matter of player accessibility and that of support staff members, who frequently pursue different gigs for the non-IPL part of the year, Vettori felt,

“That can easily be sorted with remuneration and another window being carved out, which the BCCI has the power to do.”

Also Read: Women’s IPL Likely To Kick-off In March 2023