Mickey Arthur wants England cricketers to boycott Indian T20 League
Liam Livingstone (Image source: BCCI/IPL
England recently went on to lose the Ashes 2021-22 by 4-0. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that they were absolutely humiliated by Australia. However, several cricket pundits blamed the Indian T20 league for the Root-led side’s horrific show down under. They felt that players paid more importance to Indian T20 League and didn’t prepare well for the Ashes.
Over the years, the biggest T20 league has been blamed on numerous occasions by several cricket experts across the globe. Recently, even Mickey Arthur also went to blame the ITL for England’s decline in Test cricket. The veteran coach felt that it has acted as a barrier for English cricketers.
The Derbyshire coach demanded a boycott of the Indian T20 League by the English cricketers. However, Arthur was brave enough to blame the team’s batters as well. He stated that the batters haven’t scored enough runs.
“England haven’t scored enough runs. It’s as simple as that. If you want to lay the blame, you can lay it right there. County cricket isn’t to blame. For so long county cricket has been a really good producer of international players,” said Mickey Arthur while speaking to The Times.
“I don’t think there’s a problem with the system. If you want the strength early season, unfortunately, you are going to have to stop the players from going to the ITL. They are playing there in the early part of the season just before the first Tests. You need your best players playing county cricket preparing for that,” he added.
However, this didn’t stop several English cricketers from earning lucrative contracts. In the recent mega auction, Jonny Bairstow was purchased by Punjab for INR 8 crore. This wasn’t it as the same franchise spent a whopping amount of INR 11.5 crore to acquire the services of Liam Livingstone. In the meantime, several other players from the country got massive bids as well.
