IPL a threat to international cricket: Survey

Mumbai:

Extremely popular Indian Premier League has failed to impress the Australian fans of the game as in a survey, they have termed the mega BCCI event as the biggest threat to the health of international cricket.

Launched by the Indian Cricket Board in 2008, the Twenty20 tournament has seen players earning mind-boggling contracts from the organisers via auction.

Senior and young cricketers from almost all the major cricket playing nations have expressed a strong desire to earn an IPL contract.

However, 54 percent of around 4000 respondents in the survey, conducted by 'Herald Sun' newspaper, said the slam-bang format is not good for the health of international cricket while 43 percent were of the opposite view and four percent were not sure.

If the survey is to be believed as any inkling about the future of Test cricket, the purist and lovers of the traditional format of the game have reasons to cheer.

The 78 percent of the participant fans still believe that Test cricket is number one format and only 19 percent said that it has lost its status as top format of the game.

Also, 73 percent people believe that Twenty20 format can not take over as number one form of the game and only 20 percent said it could.

In another thumbs down to the shortest format of the game, 76 percent fans do not want Twenty20 to replace one-day as short form of cricket, though 19 percent voted for it.

A whopping 64 percent feel too much cricket is being played in international cricket calender.

Asked about the best one-day batsman from the ICC top-10 batsmen list, Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni fetched the maximum 26 percent votes followed by Indian run-machine Sachin Tendulkar and their own skipper Ricky Ponting with 22 percent votes each.

Harbhajan Singh (4%) and Zaheer Khan (2%) were at number five and seven respectively in the list of top-10 bowlers.

Interestingly, 55 percent fans feel that Michael Clarke is the best man to fit into the shoes of Ponting but at same time maximum people (14%) feel that Clarke is most over-rated player of Australia.

Injury ravaged Aussie paceman Brett Lee is finished as a Test cricketer, feel 52 percent while 39 percent still believe that he could continue to wear the baggy green.