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LONDON: Former England skipper Nasser Hussain feels the highly-lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) will entice and exhaust players unless it is carefully handled by cricket boards across the world.
"I have seen IPL and I know what it means to the Indian public, they love it, British Indians love it. It's a good tournament, but it will exhaust cricketers," Nasser said.
"There's no doubting it helped their one-day game. I think they wouldn't have been world champions if it wasn't for IPL. But it is now going to hinder them — as we have seen here — in Test match cricket. Because you need young bowlers to be fit and raring to go, and the IPL is death for bowlers," he added.
The 43-year-old cricketer also believes that England players will be in demand for IPL after their 4-0 victory over India and the onus would be on ECB to ensure that they don't allow cricketers to play in the cash-awash twenty20 event.
"They are going to be enticed by IPL money. Come and play, come and play. All of this cricket would have been on (television) in India. (Graeme) Swann, (Stuart) Broad and (Chris) Tremlett ... they'll all be offered decent money. And they need to be looked after by the board to make sure that they don't go. So that they are ready for Test matches in the future," he said.
"Look at India, look at Australia. Looking after this bowling unit and keeping them together is crucial for England at the moment," he added. —Agencies
