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Making it to Lucknow IPL team will be no cakewalk for Uttar Pradesh players
Outstanding performance will be the only criterion for a cricketer to impress the talent scouts of different IPL franchises
Even though Lucknow now has an Indian Premier League team of its own, it won’t help Uttar Pradesh or the state capital’s cricketers get a chance to play for the new franchise next season unless they do “extraordinarily well” at the upcoming Syed Mushtaq Ali Twenty20 Trophy, beginning November 4 at Gurugram.
Outstanding performance will be the only criterion for a cricketer to impress the talent scouts of different franchises. Inconsistent showing by the UP team in the last few seasons has raised doubts about the prospects of its players. Barring a few practice bowlers for the team nets, there is no chance of anyone new making it to the side.
“It’s going to be big entertainment for cricket fans in Lucknow as well as in Uttar Pradesh, but saying that having an IPL team would benefit UP or Lucknow cricket is baseless as we don’t entertain cricketers on the basis of their location, but yes we pick them for their performances,” a talent scout official of an IPL team said on condition of anonymity.
“Look at the performance of UP cricketers in the past few years. They couldn’t make it to the knockouts after 2016 and that’s the reason why no new player from UP (is) getting a chance to showcase their ability at the IPL for different franchises,” he said, adding, “Barring a few, most of the UP cricketers were made to sit on the benches during the just concluded IPL at UAE.”
He, however, said that since the IPL family has grown to 10 teams now, a number of talent scout teams would be watching the 500-plus cricketers in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy next month, and only the outstanding performers will have a chance to be picked for the different sides.
“Many new faces from UP will have a chance to play in the IPL next season only when the side wins the trophy this season,” he added.
In the 13 editions so far, Uttar Pradesh could win the prestigious Syed Mushtaq Ali Twenty20 Trophy only once in 2016 when Suresh Raina-led side defeated Baroda by 38 runs in Mumbai.
Skipper Raina and opener Prashant Gupta batted well and helped the side put up a decent total of 163/7 and, thereafter pacers, Ankit Rajpoot and Amit Mishra, along with chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav, bowled superbly to restrict Baroda to 125/7. In 2013-14, UP finished runners-up, losing to Baroda in the final.
After the success of the Uttar Pradesh team at the national championship that year, franchises at the Indian Premier League found a good pool of talent among UP cricketers. Along with Raina, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Praveen Kumar, RP Singh, Piyush Chawla, many new faces found a chance to showcase their ability at the mega event.
Thereafter, successive failures in the T20 Trophy, where UP struggled to make it to the knockout rounds, dashed all hopes of the state’s cricketers making it to the IPL teams. Except “old warhorses” like Raina, Bhuvneshwar, Ankit Rajpoot, Chawla, and, to some extent, the Under-19 pacers Shivam Mavi and Kartik Tyagi, none could impress the talent scout teams of different franchises.
Raina, one of the top run-getters in IPL history who usually turned out for Chennai Super Kings, also played for the Gujarat Lions for two seasons, after the suspension of two teams.
