Yuvraj Singh Blames IPL for Diverting Attention of Youngsters From Test Cricket, Says ‘Big Money Takes the Focus Away’
The 2011- World Cup winner has blamed the Indian Premier League (IPL) for diverting the attention of budding cricketers from the longest format of the game. According to the southpaw, the gala T20 tournament offers “big money” and courtesy which the youngsters are keen to play Test cricket.
Yuvraj Singh has been grabbing the headlines for his bold statements ever since his retirement from the game in August 2019. From slamming the selectors for their wrong selections to questioning India’s strategy in the 2019 World Cup, the southpaw has been quite vocal about his thoughts. Now, the 2011- World Cup winner has blamed the Indian Premier League (IPL) for diverting the attention of budding cricketers from the longest format of the game. According to the southpaw, the gala T20 tournament offers “big money” and courtesy which the youngsters are keen to play Test cricket. Yuvraj Singh Stands with Shahid Afridi in Fight Against COVID-19 Outbreak, Watch Video.
“IPL offers big money and it takes away the focus (from the youngsters). Not the current lot. They want to play Tests but the younger lot, who play one-day cricket mostly, their focus is to play IPL and not four-day cricket for the states,” Yuvraj Singh said in an interview with Sportstar. The talismanic cricketer has himself been a part of six IPL franchises and is very well aware of the atmosphere of the dressing rooms.
While speaking about youngsters, Yuvraj also went on to claim that a current lot of cricketers are not paying a lot of respect to their seniors. “From the interaction with the youngsters, you realize that they can do with more respect for the seniors. It is not the same that we gave to our seniors. There has to be a certain amount of respect towards the seniors, who have taught you so much,” he added.
In the same interview, the 38-year old also took a dig at Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni for not “supporting” him the way Sourav Ganguly did. “I have played under Sourav [Ganguly] and had a lot of support from him. Then Mahi (MS Dhoni) took over. It’s a difficult choice to make between Sourav and Mahi. I have more memories of time under Sourav because of the support he gave me. I didn’t have that kind of support from Mahi [MS Dhoni] and Virat [Kohli].”
After announcing retirement from international cricket, Yuvi featured in Global T20 blast and T20 league. He was last seen playing for Indian Legends in the Road Safety World Series which eventually was called off amid the coronavirus scare.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 01, 2020 02:07 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).