'Spoke to few Indian players, some of them didn't sleep till 3 am': Dinesh Karthik on why Manchester Test was cancelled

Aakash Chopra lashes on this nation players for betraying their IPL franchises

Aakash Chopra household name for commenting predicting and analyzing the game of cricket. He is a legend in the Hindi commentary section. He’s a great analyst and a fantasy team predictor. People love to listen to his commentary and game prediction.

Now he came up with a remark on the England cricket board. He made a remark on England cricket Board after the mass withdrawal of players in IPL. Chopra doesn’t like the attitude of the players as they step back at the last moment. England players including Sam Curran Dawid Malan and many more are withdrawing their names from IPL.

As they want to prepare for the T20 World Cup ahead. But my month back they all said yes to the IPL and suddenly stop being back. It’s really hard for the franchises to make a quick replacement of these players. Aakash Chopra’s remark is a slap to the England board and players also.

Aakash Chopra remark on English players

“The English players will have to keep this thing slightly in mind that when you pull out your name from an IPL season, the franchise that has bought you feels cheated, they feel you have been betrayed by them, Aakash Chopra said this on his official YouTube channel. He directly uses the word betrayed because English players make sense to eat.

Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer, Ben Stokes – they were already not coming. But now Dawid Malan, Chris Woakes, and Jonny Bairstow have also taken their name back.

The 43-year-old further emphasized how the franchises would have developed their game-plan around a certain player’s presence, and that their withdrawal would seriously affect the balance of the teams.

“Of course, these are tough times. We do understand all of that but it remains in the mind that I had gone with you and had created my strategy after a lot of thinking, you were an important cog of my wheel, but the cog has left,” he explained.

“This means when the auction happens the next time, they have an elephant’s memory, they will definitely not forget who all had come and who all left. And because of this when they say that Mitchell Starc will be paid a lot, it is possible he may not get it because when you take back your name twice it remains in the mind of all teams.”

The second leg of the IPL will resume from Sunday, September 19. Hundred percent agree with Chopra’s statement. He makes sense in the statement. Big names like stokes Johnny Sam Chopra Milan are withdrawing their name and tagging them traitors or betrayers is good to move.

That means half a dozen English players will not be part of the IPL. It has been a mass exodus. The IPL family doesn’t forget.”

Team that depend on English players

Franchises like Chennai Rajasthan are purely dependent on these players. Rajasthan without Jofra Archer, Ben, and Buttler are worthless. Chennai needs the strength of all-rounder Sam Curran because he provides the stability in the team. Punjab also suffers as they lose their world number one batsman Dawid Malan.

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Dinesh Karthik, who was in England till last month as a commentator, said that a lot of the Indian players couldn't sleep till 3 in the morning and hence it was almost impossible to go ahead with the Manchester Test.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik said he spoke to a few of the Indian players currently in England and tried to understand why they were reluctant to take the field at the Old Trafford in Manchester for the fifth Test against England, which was postponed indefinitely due to Covid-19 fears.

"I spoke to a few of the guys (Indian players). Almost all games have gone down the wire, they are tired and they have only one physio right now.

"They had two, but before this one went down along with the chief coach, another couple of the coaches, so they had one physio, so they've done a lot of work with that man. And now he tests positive. Now, that is the problem," Karthik told Sky Sports.

India's assistant physio Yogesh Parmar tested positive on the eve of the Test match in Manchester and a number of top Indian cricketers had trained with him on Wednesday, which led to the fear among the players despite them testing negative in RT-PCR tests conducted late on Thursday.

"If it was somebody else, somebody was helping you know in terms of logistics and all that they wouldn't be this afraid but when this person got it, the physio, I think that's when they got the jitters a little bit," he added.

Karthik also said that the resumption of IPL 2021 in the UAE being only in 9 days' time, made the Indian players more reluctant.

"You also have to understand, as soon as this finishes, they have the IPL soon after that the World Cup, and soon after that the New Zealand series and we are talking about literally one-week turnarounds," Karthik said.

"How many bubbles can they do? When they left, when they assembled in India on May 16 it's almost four months. That's a lot of time already."

Karthik, who was in England till last month as a commentator, said that a lot of the Indian players couldn't sleep till 3 in the morning and hence it was almost impossible to go ahead with the Test match.

"Let's take an example for today, most of the guys today haven't even slept till 2.30-3 in the morning because they don't know if they have to be ready for the match, they don't know because you know it's very late in India, so they don't know if they're going to be able to speak to ECB those kinds of discussions were gone.

"So most of them haven't even slept till 3 O'clock so the Test match happening today was out of question almost. It's whether they can delay it further, but you have to remember that there is a good chance that in the RT-PCR test three days later, someone could test positive and if he's in the playing 11, then what happens to that person," he said.

"Is he going to spread it around? Is he this super spreader for that point of time, that puts every other player in jeopardy, and then they have to stay 10 days in England then what happens to the IPL, which is supposed to start four days after they land in Dubai...

"...So it has so many other questions, it's not necessary that they've tested negative today means that two days later they will test negative again. Even if it is one person who does test positive, then that puts the whole thing into another different dimension," said Karthik.