By Gulu Ezekiel
Delhi Daredevils captain Virender Sehwag’s admission that there is more pressure in the IPL than in international cricket is an eye-opener.
Sehwag is always charmingly straight-forward and when he says a defeat in the IPL means meetings with the franchisee bosses “where you have to explain what went wrong” he disarmingly summed up what must irk the top Indian players the most in this new format of cricket.
Most Indian players bristle at criticisms in the media and from the public and feel they are only answerable at international level to the selectors and their coach who are usually top former international players themselves.
So when a Sachin Tendulkar has to face the music from an Ambani, a Yuvraj from a Preity Zinta and a Sourav Ganguly from the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, it certainly piles on the pressure.
Indeed one of the more memorable moments of the inaugural IPL season was a clearly chastised Kings XI Punjab captain Yuvraj studiously avoiding team owner Zinta as she glared at him following his dismissal in the semifinal against Chennai last year!
On the other hand you have the case of Chennai’s Matthew Hayden who is currently in brilliant form stating he feels much less pressure now that he has retired from national duty.
South African pace bowler Dale Steyn of Royal Challengers Bangalore got into hot water last year when he commented that the IPL was like a “paid holiday” and “you only had to work hard if you felt like it.”
Obviously it is the captains, icon players and the priciest picks who feel the heat the most as they are first in line to face up to the bosses in case the team flops.
Wonder what kind of pressures Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff had to face as this year’s highest paid players went from one flop to another!
www.sportshero.com (16/5/09)
No comments:
Post a Comment