The Indian mentality of finding a scapegoat after every failure holds true in every sphere of life. It is so widespread that even the sports are not spared. And when its cricket, there has to be a scapegoat behind every loss and failure! What better reason than IPL to blame for all the bad days in office for Indian Cricket Team. Every time the team has an off day, everybody, from an expert to a novice, would blame IPL.
Ever since inception, the IPL has been a thorn in the eyes of the people, especially those, who could not benefit from the cash-rich league. Now a look at some facts – After the first season of IPL, India has played 46 tests, winning 20 and losing 15 (8 of them have been very recent), with a losing percent of 32.6%. Which means that India is a very difficult team to beat. Now coming to the ODIs, India played 99 matches, winning 64, losing 29, 2 games finishing in a tie and four games uncompleted and this means that India has a winning percent of almost 65%. It includes a World Cup win, an Asia cup win, whitewashes for England and New Zealand (a never before phenomenon).
The cynics have been saying that IPL has adversely affected the Indian Cricket and the recent results in England and Australia are a result of that. Its like saying that in the pre-IPL times, we used to win every series overseas and now, in the IPL times, we lose every series overseas. The fact is that Indians have been poor visitors as far as Tests are concerned, winning one off test in each country, while our prowess in ODI format across all countries is undeniable.
Its just a matter of time that the Indian team would bounce back but it needs to be understood that IPL has had no negative impact on the players or the team. If any, it can only have a positive impact.
By Faiz Ahmed, Marketing manager
Sports enthusiast
