How IPL Fooled Everyone By Giving Away 'Average' Players To India's Test Team

Anurag Dasgupta

How IPL gave average players [Source: AP Photo] How IPL gave average players [Source: AP Photo]

Indian Premier League - "where talent meets opportunity," but sometimes, the opportunity is not given to the deserving candidate. IPL is a platform where, if you perform at the highest level, the chances are the Indian selectors will notice you, and could give you a breakthrough in the Indian team.

However, that breakthrough should only be reserved for India's T20I team, and not the red-ball side. In the age of social media, one good IPL season can turn your fortunes, and bring so much hype that the selectors are compelled to give you a chance at the international level, while ignoring the difference in format.

Test cricket, though, consistently reminds us that performance in first-class cricket should be the sole parameter for selection in red-ball cricket, rather than the IPL. However, in recent times, that trend has changed, and IPL has dominated the proceedings when it comes to selecting players in Test cricket. The result is that we get mediocre players who are raw and not ready.

Anshul Kamboj - the 120 km/h, who is not ready for Tests

For some reason, Gautam Gambhir and the team management decided to give Anshul Kamboj his Test debut, and the decision turned out to be a disaster for the side. Truth being told, he isn't ready for Test cricket, and yet, the bowler was thrown into deep Ocean by the management against an England side, who were waiting to pounce on him.

It was strange to see a new ball bowler, clocking just 120-125 km/h, and giving away freebies to the English batters. He was jet-lagged, he was unfit, and despite all of this, the pacer was given his India Test cap. But the question is,  why was he selected at the first place?. 

The answer lies in the PR game. Kamboj plays for Chennai Super Kings in the IPL, and even before his CSK debut, the pacer was hyped so much that the franchise decided to include him in their playing XI. In 8 IPL games in 2025, he had just 8 wickets, but despite an average performance, the pacer was drafted into the Indian squad. The question is, were there not any worthy candidates in the domestic setup instead of Kamboj?.

The Sai Sudharsan conundrum

759 IPL runs in 15 matches, with a strike-rate of 156, defined Sai Sudharsan's 2025 season in the cash-rich league. As a result of his stellar IPL campaign, the selectors and coach, Gautam Gambhir, decided to make him their new number 3 batter.

This was another decision that raised eyebrows, as Sudharsan had averaged less than 40 in his first-class career, and despite that, the southpaw was picked in the side. Unlike IPL, Test cricket is a different ball game altogether, and Sudharsan felt the heat, as he amassed only 91 runs in four innings, and struggled against the moving ball in England.

It was quickly realised that Sudharsan, despite having a compact technique is not ready for red-ball cricket, and England exposed his short-ball weakness, which the bowlers in IPL couldn't.

The constant struggle of Prasidh Krishna in England

15 matches, 25 wickets in the IPL 2025 season, and there was Prasidh Krishna, boarding the flight to England for the Test series. India didn't learn from his previous Test outings in Australia, and South Africa, and picked him in the team, solely based on his exploits in the IPL, where not every team has world-class batters.

The first couple of Test matches in England gave a fair idea about how wrong the selectors were when it came to the eye test. Krishna registered an unwanted record of having the worst economy rate in Test cricket for any bowler (with 150-plus deliveries).

His stats in the ongoing series - 2 matches, 6 wickets, economy rate of nearly 6 runs per over. These are stats we usually see in ODIs, but Krishna lacked the control over his lines and lengths and got punished by the England batters. He was yet another product of the IPL, who failed to deliver the goods when it mattered the most.

One main reason why Krishna and, to some extent, Kamboj, struggled was because in IPL, one usually bowls a four-over spell, and that is it. However, Test cricket demands more. It demands 20 overs from the lead pacers, and the Indian seamers lacked the fitness to go the distance and bowl their hearts out.

There is still a second innings left, and another Test match for the "IPL stars" to redeem themselves, but do they have the skillset to deliver the goods?.