Had there been no IPL?

Well in the last two months or so, the only tournament that has been making news is the third edition of the Indian Premier League. Since march 12^th this year, there have been only three tournaments out of which only one was seriously important. There was a series between England and Bangladesh and the Chappel - Hadlee trophy that involved Australia and New Zealand. There was also a 5 match one day series between West Indies and Zimbabwe which delayed the return of a few West Indian players like Chris Gayle to the practice session prior to the start if the tournament.

And the next major tournament sponsored by the International Cricket Council is the third edition of the world T20 in the Caribbean that is due on 30^th of this month. This meant that there was hardly any major international cricket tournaments prior to the mega event that defines the winner and loser of the game of cricket in its shortest format - the T20 world cup. The case was different in the earlier case as well when the 2^nd world T20 kicked off in England last year in June. That was just more than a month since the second edition of the Indian Premier League got winded up.

Likewise, there has hardly been any serious T20 cricket that takes place throughout the year as compared to the other two formats of the game namely the one day internationals and the tests. And one can imagine the fate of the teams when they get into the big stage with hardly any match practice behind them prior to that tournament. IPL was a platform for most of the international as well as local (Indian) players to showcase their talent in T20 cricket. This has also proved helpful with its schedule exactly before the world T20. This is the only major T20 tournament in world cricket.

Anyone who misses the IPL will have also lost the opportunity of having a match practice in addition to losing the big bucks that the IPL boasts. Most of the test series' are scheduled in such a way that it consists of 3 test matches, 5 one day matches and 1 T20 match. The maximum number of T20 matches that has been scheduled in any bilateral series is not more than two. There have been series' with as many as 7 one dayers but anly two T20 games like it happened in the bilateral series involving India and Australia in October 2009. So was the case in the bilateral series between Australia and Pakistan that involved just one T20 game.