The Indian Premier League gives the cricketers experience of the shortest format of the game and also makes them financially strong, however, as per Michael Clarke, there’s another thing that IPL brings to them.
Recently, in an interview, Michael Clarke opened up how the international cricket teams have gone against their nature and are now less aggressive against the Indian cricket team. He feels that players are scared of sledging Virat Kohli because of IPL. He had said:
“Everybody knows how powerful India are in regards to the financial part of the game, internationally or domestically with the IPL. I feel that Australian cricket, and probably every other team over a little period, went the opposite and actually sucked up to India. They were too scared to sledge Kohli or the other Indian players because they had to play with them in April,“
However, it seems like his statement didn’t go down well with the Australian Test skipper, Tim Paine, who has now cleared the air regarding his controversial statements. In an interview, Tim Paine said that the whole team tries to give their best and he doesn’t remember the time when they went easy on the Indian skipper. He said:
“I certainly didn’t notice too many people being that nice to Virat or not trying to get him out or anything like that. I thought everyone who had the ball in their hand or when we were batting were trying their absolute best to win the game for Australia. I’m not sure who was going easy on him; we certainly had a thing where we didn’t want to provoke any fight with him because we think that’s when he plays at his best,”
He added:
“Who knows what will happen this series and, as we saw in the documentary, there was still quite a lot of heat in some of those games. I certainly wasn’t holding back, but again the IPL’s not a huge draw for me at the moment, so I had nothing to lose,”
Tim Paine also reiterated his stance of his team giving their best without caring for an IPL contract. He said:
“But anytime our guys go out and play a Test match for Australia, they’ll be giving their absolute all and I’m pretty sure they’re not thinking about an IPL contract when they’re running in, bowling to Virat,”
