Sunil Gavaskar opened up about the IPL's impact on the Indian cricketers.
Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar warned young stars Ishan Kishan and Shubman Gill against getting complacent and being overly confident after their record-breaking double centuries in ODI cricket.
While both Ishan and Gill have been enjoying great form with the bat in limited-overs cricket, the legendary batter hopes the young cricketers will not repeat the mistakes made by some of the former cricketers who faded after a sparking start to their careers.
They had promising starts to their careers, but they were unable to carry forward, and Gavaskar hopes Gill and Ishan do not join the list, stating that their entire career and future are in their own hands. The legendary batter also praised the IPL for making young cricketers fearless.
Sunil Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid-Day: “In the last one month or so, there have been two double centuries cracked by Indian batsmen in one-day internationals. Both were magnificent innings by young men brimming with confidence and with a huge future ahead of them. They are in their early 20s, so what they make of the future is entirely up to them.”
He continued, “Will they keep their head and feet on the ground after these stupendous knocks or are they going to get carried away so much that they think that all that they have to do is to just turn up at the crease and the runs will flow by automatically.”
Speaking about the impact of the IPL on Indian cricketers, Gavaskar said that the T20 league erased the fear of failure in international cricket and made them play a fearless brand of cricket.
The legendary cricketer further wrote, “Today's youngsters are super confident, and that’s a wonderful thing. The worry of being dropped from the national team doesn’t enter their minds as they have the cushion of an IPL contract. Therefore, failure doesn’t scare them and they can go out and play what is popularly known as fearless cricket when it is actually worry-free cricket.”
Signed off by saying, “When being dropped from the national team is not a worry then a player can go out and play bindaas cricket for there’s always the IPL with its minimum 14 matches in which to make people forget the international failures.”
(Mid-day inputs)