‘Difficult for players to manage careers’ - Shoaib Akhtar gives assessment of playing modern day cricket

Modern-day cricket is growing into shorter formats. With T20 cricket’s advent, several players have been prioritising shorter formats over Test cricket, and that is the natural way of the sport, according to former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar.

Serving as the brand ambassador of the ongoing ILT20, Shoaib Akhtar talked of the coming of franchised league tournaments and opined that their rise was inevitable with the financial incentives and payments that the players receive for participation. He opined that the players need to plan out their schedule and priorities, and they have to settle for a tough calendar where they have to manage league tournaments and the national teams simultaneously.

“We will have to see the priorities. The players now have to plan their year according to their national team and the league schedules at the same time. It is difficult for the players to manage their careers because they are playing way too much T20 cricket. But this is the way forward, right? And this is the way forward for broadcasters,” Akhtar told the Hindustan Times.

“Because they are demanding the shortest format of cricket. The interest of this generation has been reduced to one or two hours. As I said, the priorities have changed. But I'm glad that cricket is growing; I want this game to be global rather than a couple of regions,” he added.

Thank god I'm not playing in this era: Akhtar

Furthermore, Akhtar also hilariously answered of how he was relieved to not be playing in the modern era of cricket, where T20 cricket has been played in abundance with a plethora of leagues happening all around the world throughout the year. He opined that the way that the batters insult the bowlers in modern games, he would not have tolerated it.

“If I was still playing? Thank god I'm not playing in this era! The way the batters insult bowlers these days, I wouldn't have tolerated that. Having said that, it would've been difficult. I used to get warm-up in four years. In a season, I used to bowl around 800–900 overs. I would've played around 20 leagues in a season,” Akhtar said.