Colombo: Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga has blamed the BCCI and the IPL for India’s debacle in England, saying the Board did not let the players prepare well for the tough English conditions.
“They seem to have got carried away with their IPL. It seems like they don’t need outside influences to harm Indian cricket, the BCCI is doing it,” Ranatunga said. Ranatunga attributes lack of preparation as the main reason which caused the Indian down fall in England. “After winning the World Cup all of India’s leading cricketers went straight to play in IPL and then some of them opted to miss out the West Indies tour.
“Some of them even delayed surgery after the World Cup not wanting to miss the cash rich IPL, and after arriving in England half-fit broke down half-way through the England tour,” Ranatunga told ‘The Island’. Ranatunga is a known IPL critic as in 2008 as the head of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) he wanted his players to undertake a tour of England to fill the void of Zimbabwe. But the players opted to play in IPL backed by powerful local politicians. His opposition to IPL had primarily cost his place as the head of SLC.
The legendary skipper felt going into the England Test series with just a solitary warm up game did not serve well for Indians. Ranatunga though praised Rahul Dravid, who was outstanding in the series because “he had been well prepared”.
He also cited the example of Sri Lanka’s wicket keeper batsman Prasanna Jayawardene, a non IPL player who was the man of the series in the Sri Lanka-England series which preceded India’s tour.
“For a batsman of Kumar Sangakkara’s quality it took nearly a month to adjust to the conditions in England. Mahela with his quality couldn’t score a hundred,”he said. (PTI)