IPL: How Quickly The Stars Fade!

IPL franchises gift inflated cheques to the undeserving, field out-of-form players regularly, but refuse to pick up promising players who can deliver. Young keeper-batsman Shreevats Goswami is just one example.

Everybody following the Indian Premier League would have noticed 17-year-old Sarfaraz Khan, the youngest player ever seen in action, in the IPL. Bought for Rs 50 lakh, a fraction of what the top stars get, Sarfaraz has played just one quality knock so far. But he appears to be capable of scoring quick runs, which must be a comforting thought for Virat Kohli, skipper of Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Or, think Shreyas Iyer, who cost a hefty Rs 2.6 crore in the bidding game that the Delhi Daredevils won. Everybody is keeping an eye on this man. Just 20 years of age, Shreyas has many wonderful strokes in his repertoire, and he is not afraid to execute them. Although Delhi Daredevils, after their loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad, cannot reach the last four any longer, Iyer has proved his worth.

In IPL 2015, in other words, Khan and Iyer have become instant stars.

But IPL stardom can fade as suddenly as it comes. Ask keeper-batsman Shreevats Goswami, who hasn’t found a buyer this year.

Shreevats Goswami who? did we hear you ask? Part of the World Cup winning under-19 team in 2008, he was adjudged the best under-19 cricketer of IPL1 over his other Indian teammates, including Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja.

Having experienced enough ups and downs in his career, young Goswami knows that he cannot dictate any franchise to buy him off the auction racks. Calm but determined, he says,

“Somebody not picking me is not in my control. I take more pride in representing my state Bengal, and having the opportunity to do something I love on a daily basis.”

Like any promising cricketer, his ultimate aim is to play for India.

“The IPL is good no doubt,”

he admits, adding,

“But not getting selected to play in it is not the end of the world either. As long as I am doing well and improving as a cricketer and person, it’s all good. Life is unpredictable, and you never know what’s going to happen. So I just want to enjoy my game, have fun, make memories. As long as I am fit and playing, I believe I can represent my country. That is what drives me every day.”

Shreevats fell in love with the game very early in life. Having made it to the Bengal under-19 team, the keeper-batsman knew he was good enough to wear an under-19 India jersey. He wasn’t wrong.

Soon, he would represent India at the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia (2008).

“That is where I first heard about the IPL. Obviously we were excited by the property. No one at that point looked at it as a means to attain stardom or become rich. At 19 years of age, we were just excited at the thought of sharing the dressing rooms with men we had grown up watching play cricket on TV.”

India won the World Cup. That is when he experienced the feeling of being somewhat famous.

Then, the IPL happened. Shreevats entered a world that most of us can only read, talk and fantasize about. It was a heady cocktail of power, fame and money.

“I was there amongst the best and I had to learn to handle all the glamour, limelight and crowd. It was a different experience, but I gradually got used to the hype. My focus was still on playing good cricket.”

And, good cricket is what he played.

Shreevats played four matches, and scored one half-century. His strike rate, of 96.47, was decent by the standards of that time. The men who mattered spotted him, and he received an award for being the best under-19 player in the edition. His India under-19 teammates, watched Shreevats collect the award.

The young man played for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first three seasons of the IPL. In IPL4, he was signed by the Kolkata Knight Riders but remained uncapped. In the 5^th, he moved to Rajasthan Royals. He continued to be with them in the next edition too. Because of an ankle injury, he remained unsold in the 7^th edition. He remained unsold in the 2015 auction as well.

The best under-19 player of IPL1 is watching IPL8 on TV.

Did Shreevats deserve an opportunity to play this year? If players like Stuart Binny and KK Nair, in spite of their shocking tournament statistics, can play in all the matches for a well-balanced squad like the Rajasthan Royals, he certainly could have made it to a squad. But if the frequently-whimsical decisions of the franchises result in good luck for a few, they also lead to the elimination of quality players from both India and abroad. Seen in that context, Shreevats is just a young lad ‘meant’ to suffer setbacks and not complain or regret but go on and on.

The words engraved on the IPL trophy state “Where talent meets opportunity”. The league has been in existence for eight years, and each year, exciting new talents have compelled the who’s who to take a serious look at their game. However, how many of them have performed consistently over the years? Discovery is one thing, but what about nurturing? Is there a young Indian cricketer who one can point towards and say that he is a product of the league?

If the IPL has been actually created to develop young talent, the BCCI must create setups that guide young talents ‘after’ they have performed in one edition and their confidence levels are high. That will result in the creation of a talent pool, and what’s more, those who stand out in this crowd will definitely step out of the restrictive space of the ‘pool’ someday.