Former South Africa captain and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) batsman Faf du Plessis feels the mushrooming T20 leagues all over the world is a giant risk to worldwide cricket. Du Plessis took half in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 earlier than it was suspended final month because of rising COVID-19 instances in India.
Du Plessis mentioned the directors of the sport should strike a wonderful steadiness between leagues and worldwide cricket. “T20 leagues are a threat for international cricket. The power of the leagues are growing year by year and obviously in the beginning there might be just 2 leagues around the world and now it’s becoming 4,5, 6,7 leagues in a year. The leagues are just getting stronger,” he mentioned in a digital media interplay forward of the Pakistan Super League (PSL).
“I think it’s important that in future you try and see how its possible both can co-exist because it becomes a choice moving forward into the future then it can be a real threat for the international game,” the South African batter added.
Du Plessis, who will play for Peshawar Zalmi within the PSL, which resumes right here on June 9 after COVID-forced postponement, mentioned if the guardians of the sport don’t take corrective steps now, worldwide cricket runs the danger of dropping out to home leagues in future, similar to soccer. The CSK batsman was additionally the third-highest run-getter in IPL 2021, scoring 320 runs in 7 video games with 4 fifties and a top-score of 95 not out.
“That is a huge challenge. May be in 10 years time cricket will almost be like soccer where you have your world events and in between you have these leagues around the world where players can play,” the veteran South African batsman mentioned.
Citing the instance of West Indies gamers like Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo amongst others, Du Plessis mentioned many present gamers would possibly decide to grow to be freelance cricketers going ahead, which might be a giant loss for his or her respective nationwide groups.
“If I take somebody like myself you go and play 2 or 3 or 4 leagues all over the world however I can’t predict the long run. There are increasingly more gamers…(who wish to play in T20 Leagues).
“West Indies probably is the first team that started doing it. All of their guys moved away from international team to the T20 domestic circuit. So the West Indian team lost a lot of their key players. It’s starting to happen with South Africa also,” he mentioned.
(with PTI inputs)
