Zaheer Khan and Ravi Shastri not a fan of India players participating in overseas T20 leagues

When the question was put to Dravid after the game, he agreed that some England players may have been able to gauge the ground dimensions in Adelaide, the venue of the semi-final, better thanks to their BBL experience. However, he also said it would be difficult for Indian players to participate in overseas leagues, since most of these T20 tournaments take place during India’s domestic season. And considering the popularity of Indian players globally, their participation could have a negative impact on domestic cricket.

“I feel there are a lot of processes in place. It’s not about playing only franchise cricket, it’s about going to different countries to learn things. That is something which is important, and you’ve seen with BCCI, with their shadow tours, I think those processes are well in place,” Zaheer said, in an interaction facilitated by Prime Video ahead of India’s first T20I against New Zealand in Wellington on Friday.

“I don’t see any other reason right now for players to go and play in a particular tournament. What you have domestically right now is also a robust structure. So why depend on others? We have more than enough means for producing good players. And you look at our bench strength as well, you can virtually play three line-ups, and they will be able to compete at any level.”

There has been an increase in the number of India A tours over the last few years, and Shastri was of the opinion that the players get enough exposure playing domestic cricket, the IPL, and on these tours.

“There is enough domestic cricket for all these players to get absorbed in the system and get an opportunity,” Shastri said. “Plus, you get these India A tours, you get a lot of these other tours, where at one given time you might have two Indian teams playing in the future, where the opportunity will come for the other lot to go somewhere else whilst India is in another country – to go play and see what you know they can do.

“So there’s no need [to play in overseas leagues], they’re absolutely fine playing IPL cricket and focusing on domestic cricket. We need them to play domestic cricket in India as well.”