English cricket doesn't 'hate' the IPL. It just doesn't recognise itself anymore.
Does English cricket "hate" the IPL? Dinesh Karthik suspects so, but the truth is far more nuanced.
Sat in the grandiose surroundings of the Lord’s Long Room, wearing some stylish athleisure gear festooned in London Spirit branding, Dinesh Karthik is primed to make the most pointy of points.
The former wicketkeeper is sat alongside Mo Bobat, the acclaimed cricking guru and Karthik’s colleague at the Spirit and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Sat across the table, literally and metaphorically, from the Spirit’s think-tank are four of the most recognisable faces in the English game: Sir Alastair Cook, David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, Phil Tufnell and Michael Vaughan.
They have gathered at Lord’s to champion the new season of The Hundred, English cricket’s Brexit equivalent, and they are locked in an engaging debate about the franchise game.
The chatter inevitably drifts to the subject of Andy Flower, currently the most sought-after coach in the world, who was recently linked to the still-vacant role with England. But the real trigger point proves to be Jacob Bethell, the widely anointed future of England’s Test team and RCB’s bit-part overseas import.
THE JACOB BETHELL STORY
Bethell, who was born and raised in Barbados, has been tipped for special things since childhood. The elegant left-hander moved to England on a scholarship at the ritzy Rugby School, where he made a splash with his consistent run-scoring, including a stellar stint at the well-known Bunbury Festival. Then, in 2022, he helped England Under-19s to reach the World Cup final in the West Indies, starring in the quarter-final against South Africa with a 42-ball 88.
By this point, Bethell already had a professional contract with Warwickshire and was destined to be picked-up in The Hundred, England’s premier white-ball competition, by the Welsh Fire. Despite oddly meagre returns at domestic level, England always appeared eager to fast-track their teenage whiz.
Bethell’s performances did not merit selection. At all. Not by any measure. But everything about his game just looked right. The authoritative pull shot, the languid drive, the precise back-cut. The shapes. The angles. The power. Bethell had it; an unmistakable touch of class that numbers could not quantify.
So, when he was selected in an England squad for the first time, for the tour of New Zealand in late 2024, it came as both a jolting surprise and a logical progression. A last-minute injury to Jordan Cox, initially preferred because Jamie Smith was on paternity leave, meant that Bethell was abruptly hoisted into the line-up. He immediately excelled, scoring 260 runs at 52 across three games and performing in a calm-beyond-his-years manner that made his critics feel sheepish.
Casual fans, in Blighty and elsewhere, were now alert to Bethell’s talent. Crucially, cash-rich franchises were alert to Bethell’s talent, too. RCB, the IPL’s perennial underachievers, had recently hired Flower and Bobat, two of the sharpest minds in the game, and they had their peepers fixed firmly on Bethell; they ultimately got their man at the IPL mega auction for 2.60 crore.
THE ENGLISH VIEWPOINT
There is a curious paradox that continues to linger over Bethell’s nascent career: he became a force on the international stage, scoring hundreds in all three formats, before he conquered the domestic game. Now, at 22, he still has not scored a ton in domestic cricket. And after agreeing a lucrative contract with RCB, he is unlikely to correct that wrong anytime soon.
Earlier this year, while warming the bench at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, Sir Alastair Cook suggested Bethell’s game would be better served by returning to England and preparing for the summer by playing four-day, red-ball cricket with Warwickshire.
“He's not doing anything," Cook said in April, while Bethell was sat on his backside at the IPL. "Ideally he could come back and open for Warwickshire to help England.”
Kevin Pietersen, Cook’s long-time teammate and long-time critic, was quick to fire back at the former England captain. Pietersen, now a full-time YouTuber, took to X to launch a characteristically, predictably impassioned defence of the IPL, insisting Bethell would become “a way better player” by rubbing shoulders with the likes of Virat Kohli and Josh Hazlewood.
“Alastair Cook has absolutely NO IDEA what it’s like to be in the IPL. What it’s like to always be around the best players in the world,” Pietersen wrote, in a typically forthright way. “So his opinion on Jacob Bethell doesn’t matter at all. Stay in India, Jacob. I know, even though you’re not playing, you’re learning and will be a way better player.”
Ultimately — perhaps mercifully, too, given Pietersen’s one-eyed outlook on life — the debate soon fizzled out, with Bethell having to withdraw from the tournament with an injury. This week, though, Cook, Bobat, Karthik et al. decided to reignite the fire.
THE MOMENT OF TENSION
After discussing Flower’s potential availability, Bobat decided to turn the spotlight back on the pundits. “There was a big fuss kicked-up about Bethell, which Cookie kicked-up, I think. About Bethell being at the IPL … What do you guys think?”
Cook, a fine former player and a likeable, mild-mannered pundit, then tried to clarify his position, acknowledging that he was looking at the issue through an England-first lens. “I was allowed to give my opinion, of him sitting on his arse, not doing anything,” Cook said.
Karthik pointed out that Cook’s suggestion was entirely unworkable, though, having signed a lucrative deal with RCB that committed Bethell to the IPL for the 2026 season. The former India international noted, quite rightly, that Bethell chose to sign with the franchise, knowing full well that he was not guaranteed playing time.
“You say he was sitting there warming the bench. He has a contract in place with RCB, which he has decided to be part of,” Karthik explained. “How do you dishonour the contract which he has chosen to be part of? How do you dishonour it because he is warming the bench?
“So if every player decided to do that — 'If you drop me, I am going back home' — then we will have only 11 players in our environment. I know he should take a decision. You know, ‘Phil Salt is here. I might not play, so I should get back home’. Say it not before the season, but before you put your name in the auction.”
Cook, quite justifiably, refused to retreat, observing that from the viewpoint of an England fan, Bethell was gaining almost-zilch from carrying drinks and serving as a well-paid, high-profile substitute fielder.
VESTED INTEREST THAT OBSCURES TRUTHS
As the discussion unfolded, and neither side appeared to be conceding any ground, Cook and the RCB duo quietly, almost accidentally, acknowledged an obvious truth: that their views were, at least in part, motivated by a vested interest. In the case of Cook, a former Ashes-winning England captain, his loyalties lie with English cricket, its future prosperity and Bethell’s ability to win Test matches in June, July and August.
For Bobat and Karthik, meanwhile, RCB, the Spirit and the franchise world are their immediate priority; their paymasters and their first concern. Bobat and Karthik want and justifiably expect all of their foreign imports to commit themselves wholeheartedly to the IPL for the duration of the tournament, regardless of whether they are on the field or marooned in the dugout. They reason, quite logically, that Bethell signed a contract, and that he should fulfil it.
The impassioned, but good natured, chat then took a detour.
ENGLAND HATES THE IPL?
Karthik said something that is quietly thought, but not often expressed out loud. “Bumble said it is not on the player, but sadly the player feels the heat,” Karthik, who serves the mentor and batting coach at RCB and the Spirit, explained. “It is the truth, and in England it is getting to a point for some reason where they hate the IPL.
“I think it can be unfair. I know it is not watched in this part of the world, but players do enjoy playing the tournament. If you do ask the players, they do have a good time and they get better.”
Now, firstly, it needs to be acknowledged that while English cricket is blighted by sexism, racism and elitism, it is naive to portray the fanbase as homogenous. English cricket fans come in different guises and cannot be so easily pigeonholed as one thing or another.
But there is, undeniably, a large swathe of the cricket-watching public who prefer the ebbs and flows of the Test game. The traditions of the red-ball format and historic county rivalries are cherished by a sizeable chunk of fans, many of whom consider long-form cricket to be more narrative-rich than its more affluent sibling.
It is irrefutable that among this not-inconsiderable demographic, the IPL is often treated with derision and suspicion. Fun, perhaps, but little more than a Coke and a Big Mac for a community that enjoys an expensive bottle of wine and a succulent steak. Many of these fans come from a long, proud lineage of county diehards who see the IPL’s expansion as an encroachment into their fun.
See, county cricket was once the IPL of its day, with local players appearing alongside genuine international superstars, such as Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Wasim Akram and Malcolm Marshall. But those star-studded days are long gone. Budgets are smaller. The reality is more sober. And accepting the new reality, of a new world, is easier said than done.
The English summer has been diluted by the IPL, which deprives counties of some of their best-known players at critical junctures of the season, while The Hundred, and its cash-hungry owners, have hijacked the all-important month of August. That much is true. And is often used as justification to bemoan the impact of the world’s richest, most glamorous T20 tournament.
But Sky, the broadcaster that props up the English game with its billions, has also been complicit in the degradation of county cricket. The Comcast-owned company now acquires IPL rights to fill its early summer schedule. The tournament, in all likelihood, is not a big subscription driver for Sky, but it helps to fill a hole and is much more economical than showing four-day county games. Fans, quite rightly, bemoan the lack of county coverage, but Sky is a private enterprise seeking profit, not sentiment.
THE ENGLISH IPL FAN
Perhaps surprisingly, there is a significant cricket-loving community who were raised on a diet of IPL action, at a time when the England team disappeared from view, behind the dreaded Sky paywall. The tournament, which launched in 2008, was initially broadcast on relatively obscure satellite TV channels, before migrating to Sky.
The IPL was, however, free to watch in the early days and convenient for sports-obsessed school children, who could tune in as their work day wound down. Live sport was tough to find on free-to-air TV at the time, but the IPL was there, at the tips of their fingers. The tournament was colourful, brash, glitzy; it was stuffed-full of well-known players, such as Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar, and it was an easy sell to cricket-starved kids in the UK.
This small but devoted community loved the cricket, embraced the quirks, tolerated the hyperbole and remained loyal, even amid corruption chatter and the myopic commentary. There is a demographic for whom the IPL was their first introduction to cricket; their first love, if you like, and as in the real world, that passion cannot be confected.
THE GLOBAL VIEWPOINT
Now, it is important to create some separation between what the IPL has achieved for Indian cricket, and the shuddering impact that it has had on the game more broadly.
The tournament has, irrefutably, changed Indian cricket and Indian sport in an overwhelmingly positive way. It has become a sporting and economic behemoth, as was evidenced by the sales of RCB and Rajasthan Royals earlier this year.
Take Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, for instance. The teenage messiah dominated this year’s tournament, scoring 776 runs at a mind-bending strike rate of 237. Before making his debut for India at Old Trafford, the 15-year-old left-hander from Bihar was already a millionaire and he was already one of the most talked-about athletes in the world. Remarkably, Sooryavanshi has become Gen Alpha’s first sporting superstar on the back of his IPL performances alone.
Let’s look at the IPL through an alternative lens, though, and consider the fortunes of the cricketing nations that are desperately scrambling for cash, as the sport’s tectonic plates shift beneath their feet. The West Indies, for example, has been one of the strongest T20 sides in the world since the advent of the IPL, winning the men’s World Cup in 2012 and 2016.
Those World Cup-winning sides featured a host of T20 and IPL greats, such as Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Andre Russell and Kieron Pollard. Their power-packed approach to the shortest format revolutionised the T20 game, and their personal relationships with the IPL were, undeniably, symbiotic. The likes of Gayle and Russell swelled their skillsets and filled their pockets, while their presence strengthened the tournament and inspired the next generation of Indian icons.
But at what cost?
Well, since the genesis of the IPL, the standard and standing of the West Indian Test team has continued to slide, with many of their most accomplished players — such as Gayle and Russell — opting to chase the T20 riches. Nobody can blame them, of course; cricket is a profession and an athlete’s career can be fragile. But the demoralising demise of the West Indies Test side since 2008 underlines the threat posed by private enterprise.
THE FUTURE
Cricket’s inflection point arrived in 2008, at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Brendon McCullum launched the tournament in the most fitting way, with a 73-ball 158, and the sport has not looked over its shoulder since.
Players are far better-paid than ever, professional standards have skyrocketed, and T20 has returned cricket to the Olympics after a 128-year absence. But chasing cash has come at a cost. The international game is being hollowed out, the Test format faces an existential threat, and the game is slowly, sadly withering away in certain pockets of the world.
For English cricket, specifically? The IPL is a gift and a curse. A pleasure and a pain. A solution and a question. Fans are being forced to sit back and watch the furniture move in a house they once owned. It feels awkward and unnerving. But that is not hatred. That is the consequence of change.
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I found the article interesting. I will not comment on whether it is right or wrong. Here is my take:
- Cook's perspective was from the point of view of someone who never played in the IPL. And his game was also not designed for that. He was always available for the county season from day 1. At the same time, Kevin Pietersen's style of batting was aggressive, and he never minded playing unorthodox/attacking shots in longer formats, the one that we see in T20 cricket. DK was also in a similar mould and played his shots as and when needed. So from a learning perspective, both Cook and KP will always have disagreements.
- Now coming to the point about West Indian cricket. I think the decline is not just limited to the IPL. It is T20 cricket and the money attached to it. Mr Stanford & co. Their cricket board have always struggled with finances, and the players always felt underpaid. So they took the T20 route. At the same time, the quality of talent in their domestic first-class declined. There have not been any cricketers in their domestic set-up who average 40+ in first-class cricket. So even when Gayle, Bravo and others were there, the decline in West Indies cricket had already started. And it further grew because they started prioritising money over effort.
Interesting article. I dunno though guys I see it as very straightforward: if you want to play Test cricket for England, be available for the start of the red ball season in England. If you don't, that's fine and a personal choice - but you can't have it both ways. And how the ECB allow centrally contracted players to be unavailable for Test matches is beyond me.
The only end point is for a code split in English cricket between red and white ball players. I think the ECB should lean into that and manage a transition to two codes. That would allow for red ball cricket to regain the rightful place as the backbone of the English summer.
BTW I have no animus towards the IPL. It's fine, but the franchise/draft system seems to me to break much continuity of players from one season to the next; it gives the impression of musical chairs. The Hundred is the same really. I just don't get how anyone can develop an allegiance to a team where the players change so much- apart from Indian fans who support their local team, of course. So after all these years of the IPL - and indeed of the Hundred - I simply couldn't care less who wins the tournament because it doesn't have any real context outside of the season itself.