IPL is a threat to international cricket

MELBOURNE, Nov 25: Extremely popular Indian Premier League has failed to impress the Australian fans of the game as in a survey, they have termed the mega BCCI event as the biggest threat to the health of international cricket.

Launched by the Indian cricket board in 2008, the Twenty20 tournament has seen players earning mind-boggling contracts from the organisers via auction. Senior and young cricketers from almost all the major cricket playing nations have expressed a strong desire to earn an IPL contract.

However, 54 per cent of around 4000 respondents in the survey, conducted by Herald Sun newspaper, said the slam-bang format is not good for the health of international cricket while 43 per cent were of the opposite view and four per cent were not sure.

If the survey is to be believed as any inkling about the future of Test cricket, the purist and lovers of the traditional format of the game have reasons to cheer. The 78 per cent of the participant fans still believe that Test cricket is number one format and only 19 per cent said that it has lost its status as top format of the game.

Also, 73 per cent people believe that Twenty20 format cannot take over as number one form of the game and only 20 per cent said it could.

In another thumbs down to the shortest format of the game, 76 per cent fans do not want Twenty20 to replace One-day as short form of cricket, though 19 per cent voted for it. A whopping 64 per cent feel too much cricket is being played in international cricket calendar.

Asked about the best One-day batsman from the ICC top-10 batsmen list, Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni fetched the maximum 26 percent votes followed by Indian run-machine Sachin Tendulkar and their own skipper Ricky Ponting with 22 per cent votes each.

Harbhajan Singh (4%) and Zaheer Khan (2%) were at number five and seven respectively in the list of top-10 bowlers. Interestingly, 55 per cent fans feel that Michael Clarke is the best man to fit into the shoes of Ponting but at same time maximum people (14%) feel that Clarke is most over-rated player of Australia.

Injury ravaged Aussie paceman Brett Lee is finished as a Test cricketer, feel 52 per cent while 39 per cent still believe that he could continue to wear the baggy green. (PTI)