Team India bowed out of the T20 World Cup 2022 on Thursday (November 10) with a 10-wicket thrashing at the hands of England in the semi-final at the Adelaide Oval.
Chasing 169 to win, England openers Alex Hales and Jos Buttler made a mockery of India’s bowling attack and took their team over the line with four overs to spare.
After the game, India head coach Rahul Dravid acknowledged that playing in the Big Bash League 'certainly' helped England players in their semi-final win but also added that if the BCCI allows its players to feature in the foreign leagues, India's domestic cricket would be under threat.
"A lot of England players have come here and played this tournament (Big Bash League). It certainly showed," he said in the post-match press conference.
Dravid then cited the example of West Indies cricket to state that allowing Indian players outside would 'finish' domestic cricket.
"I think a lot of our boys may be, do miss out on the opportunities of playing in a lot of these leagues. It's really up to the BCCI to make that decision but the thing is that it is right in the middle of our season and with the kind of demand there would be for the Indian players, if you allowed all the Indian players to play in these leagues, we would not have domestic cricket. Our domestic cricket, our Ranji Trophy would be finished and that would mean Test cricket would be finished,” the India coach remarked.
"I know a lot of people talk about it but we have to understand the challenges Indian cricket and BCCI will face in a situation like this. We have seen what it's has done to West Indian cricket and I would definitely not want Indian cricket to go that way. It would certainly affect our Ranji Trophy, Test cricket and Indian boys playing Test cricket is very important," he elaborated.
Team India’s next assignment is the white-ball tour of New Zealand, where they will play three T20Is and as many ODIs. The T20I and ODI squads don’t feature senior players like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul.
Hardik Pandya has been named the captain of the T20I team while Shikhar Dhawan will lead the ODI side on the New Zealand tour.
(With TOI inputs)
