India Premier League (IPL) is one platform where youngsters are given a chance to display their power hitting prowess and bowling talent. A lot careers have been made because of the IPL and players have become sensations overnight. Take the example of Suresh Raina and Shaun Marsh who became household names after the first few seasons of IPL, prompting selectors to sit up and take notice of their ability.
There have been careers who haven’t quite managed to take off post the spark shown in the IPL. Here are five players who could not make it big despite performing great in the IPL:
Saurabh Tiwary
Dhoni 2.0 was what everyone was saying when Saurabh Tiwary took the IPL by storm during the early editions. The comparisons were evident, Tiwary was from Jharkhand and was a physical specimen similar to the legendary Indian captain. He could also hit the ball long and hard and had the trademark long locks like Dhoni used to sport early on in his career.
Tiwary however was not able to live up to expectations and following a short stint at RCB, he hasn’t featured in the IPL since.
Abhishek Nayar
A player who had shown great promise but fizzled out eventually, Abhishek Nayar played for the Mumbai Indians and then the now defunct Pune team, Pune Warriors. He was purchased for a fee of $675,000 in the auction but only managed to score 66 runs in 9 innings.
Following this, his confidence took a massive blow from which he hasn’t seemed to recover from.
Swapnil Asnodkar
In the first edition of IPL, Swapnil was one of the star performers that led Rajasthan to glory. Swapnil impressed one and all with his gutsy and classy display of batting. Asnodkar scored 311 runs in just 9 games of in the inaugural season of the IPL.
Iqbal Abdullah
Iqbal Abdullah was quite the phenomenon back when he was playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders. He won two man-of-the match awards and picked up the “Rising Star” award for being the best young player in the tournament.
However, he hasn’t been able to take his game to the next level. Though he is still playing in the IPL with Royal Challengers Bangalore, he is nowhere close to making his Indian team debut. He also switched teams from Mumbai to Kerala domestically.
Paul Valthaty
Remember Valthaty? The batsman who blazed a century in IPL 2011 versus CSK and 463 runs in that edition is now playing for the Air India team domestically. He aggravated an injury due to which his career went on a tailspin.
Valthaty will however, be always remembered for that superb IPL but he just could not plough on from there.
There have been plenty of players who have been bought in but not quite accelerated from there. It serves both as a lesson and a warning for future players to be more careful in the way they handle their careers.
