Aakash Chopra Comments on the T20 Leagues’ Effect on International Cricket
Former Indian cricketer turned famous commentator Aakash Chopra has said that international cricket might only be played in available times between the T20 Leagues around the world. Notably, the Indian Premier League (IPL) already gets an almost exclusive window in the cricketing calendar as well.
In a recent video shared on his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra was asked whether the introduction of the Cricket South Africa (CSA) T20 League and UAE T20 League will see that international cricket will only take place in gaps between such tournaments, to which he responded affirmatively as well.
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He said: “What you are saying is absolutely correct. When you sow the seeds, you don’t know how big the tree will be, you don’t know how many branches will go left or right. When T20 cricket came – IPL and the other big leagues – no one knew what exactly will happen. Now we have reached there where we have the IPL, BBL and The Hundred, the ICC is carving windows for them. Then CSA, the UAE league, CPL, PSL – that’s it boss, everyone wants their league and they want the players also for that. International cricket at this point in time is getting squeezed.”
Aakash Chopra believes international cricket won’t end amid the craze of T20 Leagues
Aakash Chopra also feels that other international players might follow veteran New Zealand pace bowler Trent Boult, as the pacer having opted out of his national team contract. Giving the examples of Andre Russell and Sunil Narine, he again shared that the West Indies players might be at the top of that list as well. He also shared his views on whether Boult opting out of central contract and Ben Stokes’ recent retirement from ODI show international cricket is dying slowly.
“I won’t say that international cricket is going to end. It will not end because league cricket is just one format. We always give the example of football but football has only one format and when that got commercialized, leagues took over and countries’ sport was left behind. It then became World Cup to World Cup and friendlies. But international cricket is not like that. Only T20 leagues are there, at the most T10 leagues might happen but Test and ODI cricket are still at the top,” Aakash Chopra concluded about the T20 Leagues.
19:30 IST
