Arthur Turner

Australia’s dominance of the Indian Premier league is unhealthy. Lalit Modi and the IPL will have to ensure a better balance of coaches for a more objective approach to contracting. They need to ensure that the best foreign players are being contracted to improve the standard of the competition.

Five of the franchises are coached by Australians and only two of them have international experience, John Buchanan and Tom Moody.

The fact that coaches like Greg Shipperd, Darren Lehmann and Darren Berry who are unknown outside of Australia have managed to secure rich IPL contracts proves that Australia as a cricketing nation is totally over rated.

This problem is clearly reflected in the contracting of foreign players to the eight franchise squads. Each franchise is allowed to contract a maximum of 10 foreign players but only four are allowed to play in any given match. No less than 26 Australians have managed to secure IPL contracts. This number does not include probably at least 10 of their top players like Ricky Ponting and Mitchell Johnson who have decided not to play in the IPL in 2009 because of the forthcoming Ashes series in England or those who are injured like Shaun Marsh.

In comparison, South Africa who are rated the number one limited over team in the world and easily beat Australia in the two recent ODI series’ have only 15 players in the IPL. Only two of these players - Dillon du Preez and Ryan McLaren - have not played international cricket. McLaren was chosen for the Proteas but was forced to withdraw because of his Kent Kolpak contract.

Ten of these Australian players have never, and in all probably will never, play for their country in any form of the game and have very ordinary or poor T20 records. Burt Cockley from New South Wales is yet to play a T20 game for his state but has been contracted by the Kings XI Punjab who are coached by Moody.

If one draws a comparison with the Australian players to certain South Africans it tells the true story.

For example if one looks at Rob Quiney. a batsman from Victoria who plays for the Rajasthan Royals. In 21 matches he has scored 299 runs at an average of 14.95 with a strike rate of 112.44. Henry Davids in 34 matches has scored 545 runs at an average of 20.14 with a strike rate of 140.44. He has also scored a 41-ball hundred in the Pro20 series while Quiney’s highest score is 91.

Another good comparison is Ryan Harris from New South Wales who plays for the Deccan Chargers coached by Lehmann. In 16 matches he has scored 86 runs at an average of 10.75 with a strike rate of 95.55. He has taken 18 wickets with an economy rate of 6.87. Compare this to Rory Kleinveldt who has played 38 matches and scored 338 runs at an average of 16.09 with a strike rate of 159.43. He has also taken 34 wickets with an economy rate of 7.23.

This is ample proof that the dominance of Australian coaches is favouring some very ordinary international and especially state cricketers in Australia. The Australian coaches are not held accountable because the franchises are owned by the Bollywood stars who know nothing about the game of cricket. They are only interested in seeing themselves on television and enhancing their own profiles and fulfilling their egos.

The IPL will have to address these problems and create equity in the future contracting process to ensure that the standards and profile of the tournament are maintained if it is to remain the Premiership of T20 cricket.

Arthur is a former cricket administrator and current player agent.

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