Should IPL Trump Domestic Cricket When It Comes to National Selections?

The BCCI set up their Talent Resource Development Wing in 2002.

Umran Malik of Gujjar Nagar, Jammu, played tennis-ball cricket until he was 17. The Under-19 scouts spotted him bowling near Vaishno Devi. While that probably fast-tracked him to age-group cricket – he played in the 2018-19 season – he had played only twice for Jammu and Kashmir in senior cricket by early 2021. In the first, a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy match against Railways, he had 4-0-24-3. In the other, he was hammered by Bengal (10-0-98-1) in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

While there was no doubting Malik’s pace, his small domestic career did not indicate anything special. The Sunrisers Hyderabad scouts still found him ahead of the 2021 season. He was not a first-choice bowler for them. In fact, it was only after Hyderabad were out of reckoning for a play-offs berth – they finished last that season – that Malik got a chance.

Malik broke the 150 kph barrier in his first match, against Kolkata Knight Riders. In the second, against Royal Challengers Bangalore, he hit 152.95 kph – the fastest ball by an Indian in IPL history. His season figures of 12-0-96-2 were not outstanding, but he had one aspect that conventional scorecards will not reflect: pace.

Despite his unremarkable outings in both domestic cricket and the IPL, Hyderabad retained him ahead of the 2022 mega auctions. The selectors fast-tracked him for the India A side that toured South Africa that November.

Without playing a single Ranji Trophy match, thus, Malik leapfrogged his peers and made his First-class debut for India A. Since 2010, Vijay Zol (against New Zealand A in 2013) is the only other cricketer to have done this. The selectors, thus, deviated from conventional procedure.

And after he played all 14 matches in IPL 2022 (22 wickets at 20.18, economy 9.03), Malik was fast-tracked into the India squad. One may argue that he got a chance only because the selectors left out Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, and Shardul Thakur – all of whom would play the Test match in Edgbaston – it also indicates the extent to which the IPL influences selection.

Malik is far from being the first cricketer to be fast-tracked by the IPL. Manpreet Gony had never played competitive Twenty20 cricket before the inaugural edition of the IPL, in 2008. After an excellent season for Chennai Super Kings, he found himself in the squad for the 2008 Asia Cup. His international career was over after two disappointing outings in the tournament.

Rahul Sharma, too, had a similar meteoric rise after his stint with Pune Warriors India in the 2011 IPL. His international career spanned four ODIs and two T20Is, and lasted less than seven months.

There are several other examples, which makes one wonder whether it is fair – to the selected cricketer, their rejected peers, or the national team – to overlook performances in domestic cricket altogether in favour of the IPL.

Let's Roll Back the Clock a Few Decades

Until the 1930s, Indian squads were often influenced by members of royal families, who funded the tours. The Indian Independence as well as the increasing importance of the Ranji Trophy brought a semblance of democracy to selections. While some decisions seemed whimsical, domestic performances were the most important criterion for national selection.

Over time, an unwritten path for selection became established. If one did well at club cricket, they got picked to play Ranji Trophy, then the Duleep Trophy, then for the Rest of India in the Irani Cup. While logical, the geopolitical hierarchy of selections came with an obvious flaw.

The stronger sides had a greater probability of qualifying for the higher rounds, which were also the most-followed matches in the domestic circuit. On the other hand, if one played for one of the weaker teams, there was a significant chance of the selectors missing their best performances.

Unless one moved to a major team early in their career (Bishan Bedi, for example, moved to Delhi after a few seasons with Southern Punjab), their fate was sealed at birth. It was not a fair system.

Talent Resource Development Wing

To combat this, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) set up their Talent Resource Development Wing in 2002. They went beyond the large cricketing centres (Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and the states associated with these cities). They scouted beyond the traditional powerhouses of Indian cricket.

Within five years, the TRDW found and fast-tracked Suresh Raina, RP Singh, Piyush Chawla, S Sreesanth, Irfan Pathan, and most famously and significantly, MS Dhoni. In 2003, the TRDW had deployed former Prakash Poddar, a former Bengal cricketer, in Jamshedpur.

Dhoni scored only 35, but Poddar began his recommendation with "good striker of the ball, has a lot of power."

Dhoni played for India in 2004. By 2005, he was a star. By 2007, he had led India to a T20 World Cup win. A conventional method would almost certainly have delayed his debut, and everything else.

As the IPL teams arrived, they deployed their scouts. With eight groups of scouts exploring the lengths and breadths of India for untapped talent, the already excellent work done by the TRDW was now magnified. It was only a matter of time before they started tapping uncapped cricketers.

IPL Makes Its Presence Felt

Let us consider Rajasthan Royals. In 2008, they pushed Swapnil Asnodkar of Goa to the top of the batting order and gave him a free hand in the Powerplay. The next season, Darren Berry, their director of coaching, spotted Kamran Khan, the son of a woodcutter from Uttar Pradesh. In 2013, they got Pravin Tambe, a 41-year-old club cricketer who had never played First-class cricket. They later recruited Riyan Parag of Assam, and appointed Sanju Samson of Kerala as captain.

In an earlier era, none of them would have played cricket with thousands cheering for them at the venue and millions more in front of screens. All of them had excellent seasons. And yet, of them, Samson is the only one to have been in contention for a place in the national team.

Does the system work? One may argue that the IPL prepares uncapped cricketers in a way domestic cricket does not. They get to rub shoulders with the best in the world, have the best coaches, and are tested by the best in business.

In less than two months, Malik could bowl at Jos Buttler, Shimron Hetmyer, Liam Livingstone, David Warner, and Andre Russell as well as Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, and MS Dhoni – all in front of packed houses with thousands cheering as he steamed in to bowl. Off the field, he would be mentored by Dale Steyn and Muttiah Muralitharan, and would get to bowl at Kane Williamson, Aiden Markram, and Nicholas Pooran in the nets.

Had there been no IPL, Malik would not have been able to hone his skills to this extent. His ability to bowl in front of packed houses would not have been tested either. While Malik is a case in question, this extends to every uncapped Indian cricketer irrespective of whether their strength lies in batting or bowling or both.

At the same time, it has often been argued that being fast-tracked after little experience away from high-profile cricket does not prepare one for failure. One can always cite the success of India’s youngest male debutant, Sachin Tendulkar, but once-in-a-lifetime cricketers hardly make the best examples.

The Absence of a Million Eyes 

Vijay Mehra, Milkha Singh, Mohinder Amarnath, Maninder Singh, L Sivaramakrishnan, Chetan Sharma, Narendra Hirwani, Harbhajan Singh, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Parthiv Patel, Irfan Pathan, Suresh Raina, Ishant Sharma, Prithvi Shaw all debuted before they turned 19, with little domestic experience.

Of them, Yuvraj teed off from the onset, while the selectors persisted with Ishant despite him peaking late. Of the others, some had exactly one peak, and once that ended, they made only fleeting comebacks at international level.

Amarnath, Harbhajan, and Raina clawed their way back through performances in domestic cricket (in Raina’s case, the IPL) after falling out of favour, while Shaw may still do that, for it teaches one to cope with failure without the pressure of every lapse being scrutinised by millions.

The daily grind of round-the-season domestic cricket in empty stadia, often on inferior pitches while being at the mercy of umpires who are not scrutinised by the television camera, demands a level of determination to survive that high-profile cricket does not offer.

To add to that, the IPL may produce cricket of a superior quality, but the tournament – even a 10-team affair – can pass in a blur, and a player’s performance may be the product of a temporary peak or trough in form.

It is perhaps prudent to look at both records while picking a cricketer for the national side.

(Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor of CricketNews by day and biryani demolisher at night. He is the co-author of Sachin and Azhar at Cape Town, and tweets @ovshake42.)