India made an early exit from T20 World Cup 2021: Players prioritizing IPL and BCCI poor schedules are reasons, stated Kapil Dev

The legendary captain who brought the first World Cup trophy in India, Kapil Dev believes that the players “prioritize IPL” over national projects and BCCI should take the responsibility to make better schedules to avoid mistakes which were made during the T20 World Cup 2021.

India lost its two opening matches against Pakistan and New Zealand in T20 World Cup 2021 which made it unable to reach to the Semi-finals of the tournament. It is the first time since 2012 that India made such an early exit from an ICC event.

On these circumstances, Kapil Dev stated, “When players prioritise IPL over playing for the country, what can we say? Players should take pride in playing for their nation. I don’t know their financial condition so can’t say much.” IPL matches did not clash with any of the T20 World Cup match but the event ended too close to the ICC event because of poor schedule planning of BCCI during the pandemic.

“I feel that first in line should be the country’s team and then franchises. I’m not saying do not play cricket there (IPL), but the responsibility is now on the BCCI to plan its cricket better. To not repeat mistakes we committed in this tournament is the biggest learning for us,” he added.

Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah and outgoing bowling coach Bharat Arun reflected the issue of mental fatigue for players who are on road for almost six months since the IPL began in April. There was a great need of a break after the league’s second leg but India’s first World Cup match was just in a week which led to the poor performance of players in the first two matches.

1983 ODI world Cup winning all-rounder said, “It’s time to look at the future. You should start planning right away. It’s not that since the World Cup is over, the Indian team’s entire cricket is also over. Go and plan.”

He added, “I just feel that there should have been some gap between IPL and the World Cup. But this is certainly there that our players today have a lot of exposure but they could not make the most of it.”

“They (top players) have done well in their careers but if you don’t do well, you will face criticism. Ravi Shastri, Virat Kohli have good track records but if you don’t win ICC events, it will hurt them more,” he said.

The all rounder cricketer asked that everyone should take responsibility for the loss and pledge to do better in the future.

India will have a clash with Namibia as its final Super 12 match on Monday but it’s a dead rubber as Pakistan and New Zealand already qualified for Semi-finals.