The Indian Premier League has always been the platform for young players to showcase their cricketing skills and get big bucks to do so. The IPL auction sees crores of rupees being spent on 17-18-year-olds, which provides them with financial security.
With over a decade of the IPL, young players now know that they need to have the skills needed to impress the scouts and talent hunters of IPL. However, Indian captain Virat Kohli has a very big advice for those youngsters, who are looking at IPL as a ticket to big money.
"Obviously financial security is something that the IPL provides you but again my point is you should not work on your skills for that. Than you are not being honest to your sport; that's what I feel. It won't last for long," Kohli told India Today.
"You got to play the game for the passion of it. You can't say I will prepare for four overs and make money. It's not the right intent and the wrong intent never works. That's what I believe in. You stick to the right thing and it will always fall in place. Whether it is a slow process or not, I can't guarantee. Short cut is a quicker way to get things but people fade away very quickly,” he continued.
"People who want to play for a long period of time work harder, play for the right things, they last longer and if you look at the financials over that phase, the guy who goes away in two seasons is not even 10 per cent of the guy who works for 10 years and is honest with what he wants to do with the game. It's a thin line, one which people have to be careful of," he said.
Virat himself was picked up by the Royal Challengers Bangalore months before his call-up to the India senior team.
He says, "IPL has helped Indian cricket immensely. We feel honoured that we have that kind of exposure, big crowds. When one does well here you know you can do well in international cricket as well. I think this is the perfect platform to evolve for youngsters.”
"But there is a fine line (and it is important) not to lose motivation to play Test cricket. That I think we have been addressing for so many years and I want to mention it again that guys should aspire to play Test cricket first and other formats will take care of themselves. IPL can make you drift away from that unless you are at a stage of your career where you know this is a logical decision for me but for youngsters who have 10 years of cricket left should always try to play Test cricket first and use IPL to gain confidence," he said.
