Chris Gayle has offered a solution to prevent potential conflict between franchise tournaments and international cricket. Citing the example of IPL, Gayle advocated carving an exclusive window for the popular franchise tournament with ‘no interference’ with international schedule.
Often overseas players end up withdrawing from IPL midway through the season or at the fag end to play international cricket. During IPL 2024, a host of England cricketers left the tournament right before the playoffs since they were called back by their cricket board for a bilateral T20I series against Pakistan.
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Gayle feels it’s unfair to see cricketers having to leave IPL and termed it as too one-sided.
“When the IPL is going on, you see players who have to leave the tournament to go play for their countries,” Gayle told DafaNews. “If you have an IPL window [then] it should just be the IPL in that window. You shouldn’t have international cricket during that time frame, because there’s only one team that’s going to benefit, and its India. That’s unfair. You cannot have a system like that.”
“If it’s a World Cup window, then it’s just that, nothing else. Same for the IPL. If you want the best players in the world to be playing in the IPL, the biggest franchise in history, then you have to allow them to play in that particular window without interference like international cricket. You cannot pull players out of such a big franchise tournament, because it’s unfair and too one-sided,” he added.
When asked if players can form a group to put their demands in front, Gayle replied, “No one can speak to India. India runs cricket, you know? It’s a fact. Who is going to talk to India? Who is going to challenge India? No one. They control cricket.”
Gayle felt that putting players in a dilemma when they are forced to choose between playing for country and franchise will ultimately be detrimental to international cricket.
“It’s not like the players are going to form a union. We already have a players’ association. What can it do? It could be call by the players, at some stage, to say ‘Hey, listen to me, I’m going to choose the IPL over international cricket’. We’ve seen cricketers retire from international cricket to play franchise cricket and you’re going to get more and more such cases and international cricket will on the losing side,” Gayle said.
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