Former India opener Aakash Chopra has shared his two cents on the ongoing controversy of whether the Indian Premier League (IPL) is getting too influential after the South African players opted to play in the IPL 2022 over participating in the upcoming Test series at home against Bangladesh.
After the culmination of the ODI series against the Asian side on March 23, all of them will head to India to be ready for selection from the first game of the tournament for their respective franchises.
Players like Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, and Lungi Ngidi will participate in the IPL 2022, whereas Dean Elgar and his men will be without a bunch of their top players as they face off against Bangladesh at home in the red-ball format.
As a result of the decision made by the South African players, the club vs country debate has come back into the foreground.
Meanwhile, Aakash Chopra, on his YouTube channel, said that this is how the international cricket market works.
"The question that stems from this is - Is club bigger than the country? The club versus country debate has caught a little fire again. Dean Elgar had said this will be a loyalty test. The question is - Is IPL bullying the other boards?
IPL has not said anything, IPL in fact says that when
The former Indian opener further elaborated that it should not be in the hands of the players to make this decision. He asserted that players will more often than not choose the IPL over bilateral international assignments.
"Do not make players make this difficult choice. The club versus country conflict will keep continuing, there will be different opinions on it but the fact is the players will choose IPL ahead of bilateral commitments and the boards will not be able to stop it.
Let's be honest, there are a lot of players - Lungi Ngidi, Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram. There is nothing known about Anrich Nortje at the moment, neither is he playing for his country nor does it seem that he will play the IPL," said Chopra.
