IPL vs ICC Cricket World Cup!
While most of the ICC World Cup-2019 teams from various nations are having or are going to have training camps soon for the biggest event, India continues to have only Indian Premier League (IPL-2019). Good…
For Virat Kohli to continue as Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain even after the most embarrassing proceedings when it comes to the team’s performances has an obvious reason. Being a superlative cricketer and also being the captain of the India team, Virat was the main attraction of the IPL-2019. Thus, despite the stinging defeats, he still had the lion’s share of commercial air time along with some of his non-performers, and a mouthwatering element of suspense was maintained by cricket pundits, media or viewers. it could represent a comeback for their franchise yet, and who knows..! For similar reasons in terms of money and glamour, Indian cricketers simply couldn’t leave the IPL halfway while many of the other international cricketers had already left or were leaving for training or preparation camps. of their respective countries. Ideally, a camp should last for a month, and most countries followed this with all seriousness. However, with the last match of IPL scheduled for May 12, 2019, the India team had not even a fortnight to prepare with the ICC-2019 World Cup kicking off on May 30, 2019 in England and Wales. Also, there was no news as of yet whether there was actually going to be an Indian camp or not.
IPL has been an enigma in different ways. Many cricket pundits and some sports journalists believed that the competitive IPL provided good match practice for the upcoming international tournament. This was a very controversial topic. The format of T20 is entirely different, with bowlers not allowed to bowl more than 4 overs each, and batsmen desperately trying to get sixes or fours out with the little time available. How are you going to provide good practice in scoring and keeping England fast bowls in ODIs or over 50 matches? Also, stalwarts like Sourav Ganguly kept making controversial statements mixing T20 with the ODI format. Ganguly, who went wild over a match-winning tackle from Rishav Pant recently, said this world cup was not the end of the road for him, there will be more to follow in at least 15 years to come, adding to the astonishing hype created during the non-selection of Pants for the World Cup-2019. A few days later, he said that Virat Kohli’s form in this IPL was not an indication for the next World Cup. Well, it was all a matter of convenience to analyze IPL in the intended way, as is clear from such comments. On the day or rather the night that RCB was finally knocked out of the tournament, some members of the media were quick to add that Virat Kohli should now concentrate only on preparing for the World Cup.
God forbid, the IPL could be the biggest hurdle to the World Cup when it comes to the performance of the India team in that event. The bonanza of competitive clubs is no match for the international event where pride of nation is far more important than money and glitz. On the other hand, if some players had benefited from the IPL, they all belonged to rival teams. For example, Australia’s Warner and Smith thrived just after returning from serving a year’s suspension for the ball-handling scandal, good batting practice, and now prep camp on top of that; Some of the Caribbean cricketers also benefited greatly from this tournament, some of them made it to the World Club team and now they will also have the training camp. Only Indian cricketers have played like maniacs on flat and slow domestic pitches with no way out, and now they will head off to England without any preparation in terms of physical conditioning. And also, they would definitely be destined to face the superstars created by this IPL in rival teams in the next international event.
Either way, the India team remains the heavy favorites to lift the World Cup-2019, and we believe in that positivity as well. If Virat struggled in the IPL captaincy, he will have Dhoni and Rohit on his side in the World Cup. However, we still regret the possible lack of any preparatory camp for India to land in England reactivated without the hangover of the IPL. And then this time, the ICC World Cup will be a round-robin with each of the 10 teams playing each other once, with the top four teams reaching the semi-final stage. This promises to be a super cricket rivalry saga with the first match taking place on 30th May 2019. Happy cricket times to all the lovers of this game.