‘Ranji Trophy will be considered as an orphan and poor cousin of IPL’ - Sunil Gavaskar

Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar is disappointed over the payment structure of first-class cricketers of the country and said Ranji Trophy — the premier First-class competition of the country — will remain a “poor cousin” to the Indian Premier League (IPL) if the compensation of the players is not substantially raised.

In the Ranji Trophy, a player currently gets around Rs 2.5 lakh a match which is high compared to what it was not so long ago but yet peanuts when seen against the players who are made millionaires by the IPL overnight.

Speaking at the 26th Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial Lecture in New Delhi on Saturday, the 70-year-old said: “IPL dominates Ranji Trophy. Unless match fees are increased substantially, it (Ranji Trophy) will be considered an orphan and poor cousin of Indian cricket.”

Last May, Gavaskar penned a hard-hitting piece on Sportstar about the Ranji-IPL issue. He questioned how players who were failing to deliver in the IPL in the season after season were still being traded for millions.

“As the world’s best T20 tournament comes to the play-off stage, the stars, as well as the failures, are being seen in the bright lights from which nobody can hide,” Gavaskar wrote as the IPL 2019 approached its business end.

“The foolishness of bidding extravagant sums for some players who have failed to deliver season after season does bring to the fore the question whether there is something more than what meets the eye. That is, how are franchises, especially their scouting teams, benefiting from such repeated errors of judgement?”

Sunil Gavaskar questioned ‘over-rated’ IPL players

Taking a dig at IPL’s ‘mystery bowlers’ who could not really live up to their expectations in the premier tournament, the legend said while they look good in local leagues, the IPL exposed them even after franchises bought them for hefty sums. He also spoke the same about some hard-hitting batsmen who dominate local leagues but failed to replicate the same in the cash-rich tournament.

The former captain, who was part of the World Cup-winning team of 1983 and also led India to win the 1985 World Series in Australia, also expressed shock in his piece saying not many players from teams that won a Ranji Trophy or finished in the semi-finals could be seen in the IPL franchises.

He conceded that the formats of the are different but yet said Ranji’s format requires batsmen who have a good technique that helps them adjust to the IPL than those who only play white-ball cricket.

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