Mohsin Naqvi’s 12 slaps on his cheek, Australians playing IPL will not go to Pakistan, ODI series to be held from May 30

New Delhi. Money speaks and when IPL speaks, the world listens whether it is England, West Indies, or Australia but what happened this time was not just a cricket blow for Pakistan, it was a big slap on the cheek of the world’s biggest cricket tournament. The interesting thing is that the slap was given by those Australian players who are playing IPL and they do not want to go to Pakistan.

Of all the Australian players who are currently scoring runs, taking wickets and earning crores of rupees in the glamor of IPL, not a single one will go for the ODI series to be held in Pakistan. Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Mohsin Naqvi may have introduced this series with big fanfare, but the result was that Australia will send its ‘B team’ to Pakistan.

IPL again falls on Pakistan

IPL is not just a tournament. It is the richest, most powerful and most influential cricket platform in the world. When BCCI and IPL franchises contract a player, the player does not stay just for the money, he also stays because the IPL decides the brand value of his career. This choice was not difficult for the Australian players, on one hand there was the glamor of IPL, earning crores of rupees and competition with the best players of the world, on the other hand there was a tour of Pakistan, where there were security concerns, uncertainty and an environment of cricket which is still in search of international trust. Then the decision was obvious. Big names like Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Hazlewood, Mitchell Marsh, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Cooper Connelly are playing in IPL.

Mohsin Naqvi’s dream, slap of reality

Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Mohsin Naqvi has been trying to organize a big tour in Pakistan for some time. He wants Pakistan to once again become a strong center of international cricket, but when Australia allowed its star players to remain in the IPL and sent second-string players to Pakistan, all Naqvi’s diplomatic efforts went in vain. This is not just an insult to cricket, it is an insult to the entire effort that Pakistan had made to bring itself back into the mainstream of cricket.
The real question is, should Pakistan learn a lesson from this? Of course, world cricket now goes where there is money, where there is security, where the future is and until Pakistan proves itself on all three fronts, big names will not come for them. IPL has once again shown that the real power of cricket resides in Mumbai and not in Islamabad.