Kapil Dev slams players for ‘prioritising IPL over playing for country’ after India’s exit from T20 World Cup

Former India captain Kapil Dev has said that the BCCI should not waste any more time and start planning immediately for the next World Cup. It is to be noted that the next T20 World Cup will be held in 2022. India failed to qualify for the knockouts stage of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 and Kapil mentioned some reasons why India failed to go past the qualifier stage in T20 World Cup 2021.

“It’s time to look at the future. You should start planning right away. It’s not that since the World Cup is over, Indian team’s entire cricket is too. Go and plan. I just feel that there should have been some gap between IPL and the World Cup. But this is certainly there that our player today have a lot of exposure but they could not make the most of it,” Kapil said on ABP News.

Kapil added that some cricketers prefer playing in the Indian Premier League and are not interested in representing the country first. Kapil said that the BCCI must look into this matter.

“When players prioritise IPL over playing for the country, we what can we say. Players should take pride in playing for their nation. I don’t know their financial conditions so can’t say much. But I feel that first in line should be the country’s team and then franchises. I’m not saying do not play cricket there (for the franchise), but the responsibility is now on the BCCI to plan its cricket better. To not repeat mistakes we committed in this tournament is the biggest learning for us,” added Kapil.