IPL helps opponents plot India’s downfall

Foreigners, who played in IPL, are finding it easy to crack Team India code.

By Shreyas Sharma | Mail Today – Sun 30 Sep, 2012 11:22 AM IST

Colombo: It has almost become fashionable for the Indian Premier League (IPL) to be blamed for all the ills that plague cricket, all around the world.I have learnt a lot about Indian players thanks to the IPL: George Bailey

But in the case of India’s campaigns at every World Twenty20 since the billion-dollar league made its debut back in 2008, there’s a clear trend — opposition teams exploit their familiarity with the Indian players to plot their downfall.

Take the example of India’s two tormentors in Friday’s game — Aussies Shane Watson and David Warner. They have played five and four seasons of the IPL respectively and the former admitted after the game that the fact that he was used to facing the Indian spinners helped his cause.

“I have been lucky in a way that I have been able to play all those spinners in the IPL over the past few years, so I knew how they were going to bowl to me and how they were going to try to get me out,” the all-rounder said.

Thanks to the IPL, India are an open book for rivals

Australia and South Africa are the two countries that contribute the maximum number of players to the league, apart from India, and almost every player from those countries talks about using his IPL experience against the Indians.

George Bailey, the Australia skipper, has played just four IPL games for the Chennai Super Kings, but has seen the likes of MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin and Lakshmipathy Balaji at close quarters over the last four years.

“This game can be very fickle and you don’t decide on basis of one or two performances. I have tried to follow that while selecting the Australian team. I have learnt a lot there,” Bailey had said before the game.

Chennai teammate Albie Morkel of South Africa is more blunt in his assessment.

“Well, it certainly helps having played alongside these players. Since I have shared the change room with these guys, I will be able to give inputs to my team about them and vice-versa. But then, they will also need to make adjustments to stay ahead of everyone,” he says.

That’s something the Indians seem to do very irregularly, which has led to a massive decline in their T20 record.

None of the players in the squad of 15 — bar Ashoke Dinda and, to a certain extent, Ashwin — has used the IPL as a vehicle to the India shirt. That just goes to show that the league, which was supposed to be a showcase for Indian talent, has had the opposite of the desired effect.

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