Heavy Price Tag of Pak Players in IPL-3
Pakistani players were prevented from playing in the IPL this year after the relations between the two neighbours were soured in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks. Earlier, the Indian cricket team refused to tour Pakistan after their government interfered to cancel the tour. Note that this was not due to security reasons, but because of pure politics. In response, Pakistan refused to allow its players to play in India amid security fears of they being attacked by angry Indians. This move by the government was probably a tit-for-tat, and was perceived in the rest of the world as a personal loss for Pakistan. Some players were unhappy to be denied the opportunity of making quick money, but the decision was made. Soon after, amid security concerns, the IPL was moved to South Africa and the government of Pakistan cleared the players to take the field in SA. But it was too late, Lalit Modi, the magician refused to take in any Pakistani players – there were 11 contracted at that time. Immediately, the franchises cancelled the contracts of 7 of them, while 4 remain suspended. The IPL then went ahead with all fanfare, music, dirty dancing and least of all, cricket.
Now that, out of the blue, Pakistan has produced some astonishing T20 stars, the IPL franchises have already started showing interest in them. The price tag for Pakistani players will be much much highers this time, for the IPL to be commenced in March. Younis Khan’s franchise wanted him back but the captain has already quit the T20s while they are keen to have Akmal and Tanvir back too – suddenly very keen!
Afridi and Gul will be the most expensive, while Razzaq is a hot commodity as well.
All these are of course dependent on the relations between India and Pakistan. The PCB currently isn’t enjoying friendly ties with the BCCI over the World Cup issue but that can change within days.
All said, I do believe that IPL is in fact low quality fun, non-serious cricket. After watching some IPL and the T20 WC immediately, the differences in the quality of cricket were apparent.
Some believe that cricket should take a football-like approach and have more league games. Personally, I’m more inclined towards having games between countries. It is more competitive and the stakes are much higher – if money is to be discounted.
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hmmmm…..let see how this relation progresses.
1. PCB should look for a deal, but I don’t think they will.
2. Cricket cannot take a football-like approach. It will require amounts of money that Cricket cannot generate.
3. IPL sucks.
4. Watch “The Penguins of Madagascar”, a 10 min episode is more entertaining than IPL T20 match
.
For me IPL is confusing, i get confused in understanding who is the player of which team. Anyway, Pakistan has proved they can’t be left alone in cricket, as it was a plan of India to make Pakistan a morally down and isolated cricket team…
hmmmm….time to take money but i would hope that our players would stay away from it. The only country with not a single player in IPL ended up being the world champions.
IPL has been ranked in 6th most valuable sports franchise in the world, ahead of UEFA Champions League(11th), Summer Olympics(15th) and Wimbledon(22nd)! Indian do know how to launch a business.
@Anas: Just noticed something.
“All said, I do believe that IPL is in fact low quality fun, non-serious cricket.”
Younis Khan’s influence!!!
Nah not YK’s influence, I dont regard T20 as WWE wrestling
Its just the difference in the quality of cricket that I saw between IPL and World T20.
Also I read today that Umar Gul earns 10 times lower than Dhoni in IPL – that was his price in 07!
Obviously there is going to be some difference in Club level and International, its the same for every sports.
I know what Umar Gul would say: “Dhoni can take all that cash and……”
WEELL I WANT TO KNOW WHY IPL BOARD IS SUDDENLY HAPPY WITH PAKISTNI PLAYER S . IF PAKISTAN HAVENT WIN THE WORLD CUP THEY CANT DO.
I, personally, found this last IPL tournament very addictive and gripping; way more than the English version! And some of our players do deserve a hefty placement; not to mention, it’ll make sweet-watching for us.
After two seasons of IPL people should realise that the ‘LEAGUE’ thing wont work for Cricket.Although it has been profitable,We can’t really compare International matches with League matches.
its good for us if pakistanis r banned for playing any sort of cricket in india-instead they should get more players from other nations-we dont want to see pakistanis in india its better for them to play some friendly cricket with talibans