Great platform!

It is good to see many young Indian players doing extremely well at this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL). IPL is a wonderful platform, which gives uncapped and unknown players a stage to shine as bright as possible. Who can forget the emergence of Rinku Singh, Abhishek Sharma or Vaibhav Sooryavanshi? They used the IPL as a platform and cemented their position in the national side, while many good players could not repeat their success in the next season and lost their shine very soon. I feel sorry for such players.

I remember Sarfaraz Khan, who is now part of Chennai Super Kings (CSK), making his debut with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), long ago but could not cement his position. Even another talented youngster Prithvi Shaw started well for Delhi Capitals (DC), but failed to exhibit his talent and is now sitting on the bench. How can we forget the sensational pacer Umran Malik, who came with loud fanfare as a fast bowling sensation but disappeared after a couple of seasons and we are still waiting to see him in action again. So I feel keeping fit and maintaining a great attitude are also important to become successful. Managing name and fame at a very young age is not easy.

Shahzad Ali,
By email