Ravi Shastri clears his stand on Indian players playing overseas T20 leagues

The embarrassing defeat of the Indian team against England in the second semi-final of the 20-20 World Cup 2022 happened to ignite a debate about the participation of Indian players in the overseas leagues. Subsequently, the Indian head coach went on to clarify that the Indians don’t need to play in any overseas league as the management is more focused on the domestic structure of cricket in India itself.

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Now, the former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri also cleared his stand while asked about the same. He echoed the similar stance that Rahul Dravid came up with a few days back in the aftermath of India’s defeat against England. The 60-year-old stressed the fact that the focus should be more on India itself instead of going anywhere else.

“We should focus on our country rather than looking elsewhere,” said Shastri to journalists in a virtual interaction on Amazon Prime Video.

There is enough domestic cricket for all these players to get absorbed in the system - Ravi Shastri

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Earlier, the journalists asked Indian head coach Rahul Dravid about the benefit of playing in overseas leagues and the involvement of Indian players in these leagues. Dravid acknowledged the fact that “Some English players may have had an advantage due to their BBL experience in gauging the semi-finals venue Adelaide, between. But the majority of these T20 competitions take place during India’s domestic season, making it challenging for them to play in foreign leagues.”

While standing with the same opinion, Ravi Shastra extended that the Indian players get enough opportunities in the domestic circuit to get used to with the conditions.

"There is enough domestic cricket for all these players to get absorbed in the system and get an opportunity. Plus, you get these India A tours, and you get a lot of these other tours, where at one given time you might have two Indian teams playing in the future, where the opportunity will come for the other lot to go somewhere else whilst India is in another country – to go play and see what you know they can do,” Shastri added later.