The Indian Premier League was initially started with the aim to foster talent and innovation in cricket. It was particularly meant to promote Indian talent but of late, it seems that the players from the overseas are overshadowing the Indians. There are various visible instances to prove this point. Let us start with Pune Warriors India. Recently, the team decided to hand over the captaincy to Angelo Matthews in IPL 6 as Michael Clarke was unavailable due to his injury. Interestingly, Mr. Matthews is not the only Sri Lankan to lead an IPL team. His fellow teammates Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene also happen to lead Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Daredevils respectively. Kumar has already lead Deccan Chargers and Kings XI Punjab in earlier seasons.
Taking a closer look at the nine teams that are competing for IPL season 6, there are only four Indian players leading their respective teams. Kolkata Knight Riders have Gautam Gambhir as their captain, Rahul Dravid leads the Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers Bangalore is led by the charismatic personality of Virat Kohli, and but of course not forgetting our Captain Cool, MS Dhoni has been leading Chennai Super Kings since the beginning of IPL.
Besides the foreign captains named earlier, the IPL season 6 has witnessed former Australian skipper Ricky Pointing leading the Mumbai Indians. He was roped in for a whopping $4,00,000. It seems a bit strange that Ricky was provided with this opportunity inspite of not having played in IPL since last four years. Kings XI Punjab, too, are being lead by Adam Gilchrist, a former Australian player. It is worth mentioning that Gilchrist had announced his retirement from IPL last year but we still see him leading Punjab.
There might be countless reasons for the ever-increasing popularity of foreign captains in the IPL tournament. However, there are some reasons, which are hard to ignore. One possible reason why we see so much of foreign players captaining IPL teams is that there is a serious shortage of highly proficient Indian captains. Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar who led Delhi & Mumbai respectively have denied captaincy.
Look at any IPL team and you will find a serious dearth of competent Indian captains. Both Punjab and Delhi have no Indian player who can be conferred with responsibility. But if we look at Sunrisers Hyderabad, they do have some options such as Parthiv Patel who has led Gujarat on many occasions. Then, they also have Shikhar Dhawan who has captained Delhi in Ranji Trophy. Despite having options, Sunrisers Hyderabad has still gone for Kumar Sangakkara. Everything boils down to one point. Is India lacking players who are good enough to lead IPL teams? What do you think?