Not just one season wonders

Clearly, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has garnered enough attention over the last decade to become the prime time show when it airs. Everyone wants and loves to see the ball go out of the park for sixes and that’s what they get.

 The IPL is also a stage for players to emerge in front of this  audience and eventually catch the eye of the selectors. But over the years, there have been many players who have managed to shine, but just once or twice. Many of them have been able to have a fantastic season and go into a slump in the next.

While we look at young Prithvi Shaw and Shubman Gill as the future only because they are firing for their respective franchises, we also need to look at players like Paul Valthaty and Swapnil Asnodkar, who have disappeared into oblivion after spectacular seasons. One good season in the IPL is probably not sufficient time to judge a player’s calibre.

The former has a century to his name against Chennai Super Kings from the 2011 edition while the latter got over 300 runs in nine innings in 2008 edition.

For Valthaty, Kings XI Punjab waited for the top-order batsman to fire for two more seasons but the 2013 IPL season was when he played for the last time. He got 463 runs in the 2011 season and 42 runs combined in the 2009, 2012 and 2013 campaigns.

Lalchand Rajput argues that the money involved in the league of glamour makes the players complacent. “Consistency is highly important in any format of cricket. The players need to realise what their aim is — just playing in the IPL or playing for India. One good inning definitely gets to their head,” says the former Afghanistan coach.

There was Manpreet Gony who grabbed 17 wickets in 16 games which made him the highest wicket-taker for CSK in 2008. He made his entry into the Indian squad for the Asia Cup that followed in the same year. Two wickets in two games of the tournament and a poor IPL season after that marked the medium pacer’s downfall. He bagged 16 wickets from season 2009 to 2017. This year, he was not picked at the auction.

“One good season or innings can get you the attention. But for the national team, you need to keep performing. There is no guarantee until you perform well for your domestic team is what I feel,” says Rajput stressing on the need to perform in the domestic tournaments as well. “Even Rishabh Pant is an example but now he has over 500 runs with a century this year.”

T. Natarajan was one surprise at the auction during the  2017 edition where Irfan Pathan and Ishant Sharma went unsold initially. Natarajan was bought by KXIP for Rs 3 crores. The fast bowler, who was chosen for his performances at Tamil Nadu Premier League, announced his presence from the very first ball of his career by picking the wicket of Ajinkya Rahane, but the blues took over soon. After that, he could only take one more wicket in the entire season to go down as a flop. He has not yet featured this year for Sunrisers Hyderabad who bought him for Rs 40 lakh.

Here the former Mumbai coach and current Vidarbha coach Chandrakant Pandit’s thoughts make sense. He feels that emerging players who do well in the domestic circuit should try and avoid IPL to avoid the jitters. “Young players or emerging players are lucky if they are not picked in the auction. It is very easy for the confidence to be affected at that stage,” he says.