Former Sri Lanka captain Aravinda de Silva urged the BCCI to allow Indian players to take part in other T20 leagues for the betterment of the game, as India’s dominance will affect the game globally at some stage because of the drop in the standard of cricket.
Notably, the BCCI doesn't allow its male cricketers to feature in the overseas franchise T20 leagues, citing "exclusivity", but Aravinda believes that India should help smaller nations in growing the game, raising global playing standards, and improving skill levels by not playing mind games.
The non-contracted players are able to get great value at the IPL auctions, and the BCCI, the world's richest cricket body, believes that their exclusivity in not playing in other T20 leagues is the reason behind it.
Aravinda de Silva stated: “It's like the county cricket of those days which gave the English cricketers the advantage. The IPL, Big Bash or the Hundred and T20 Blitz in England, those are tournaments which allow players to develop.
If you have one dominating country, you can see from the IPL, they basically run a monopoly on the premier leagues because the Indian cricketers are not allowed to play in other leagues.”
De Silva added, “So what will probably happen is that the standard -- if it keeps dropping and if there is no real competition -- at some point, it's going to affect the global game.”
He signed off by saying: "Unless (India) find a way to support the other countries and get them up to grips with the kind of support levels which the game requires nowadays, it's a negative for the cricket world.
"It's the (world governing body) ICC's responsibility to make sure that it's done in a manner where these countries keep developing, otherwise we don't want a situation like Zimbabwe and South Africa, how they dipped from their standard of cricket."
(With AFP Inputs)
