Shastri, Zaheer shuts critics over Dravid's 'overseas leagues' stance

The need for BCCI to allow Indian cricketers to play in overseas leagues was urged to be prioritised by most veteran cricketers which included the likes of Wasim Akram, Anil Kumble, Stephen Fleming and Tom Moody among others, moments after India incurred another disappointing outing in the T20 World Cup. India head coach Rahul Dravid had explained that the notion could dampen Indian domestic structure and former India cricketers Zaheer Khan and Ravi Shastri have both sided with the legendary batter.

Indian players being at a disadvantage for not playing overseas leagues like the Big Bash League was highlighted by many after the team faced a 10-wicket loss in the semis against eventual champions England, who had 10 of their 11 players having BBL experience.

When Dravid was asked about the same moments after the loss, he explained that since these leagues happen when India have their domestic season running, it could be difficult to pull off before adding that India would not want to go the West Indies way.

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Zaheer, who has been involved with IPL franchise Mumbai Indians are their global head of cricket development, sees no point in Indian players going abroad for overseas leagues when India have a "robust structure" in domestic cricket.

"I feel there are a lot of processes in place. It's not about playing only franchise cricket, it's about going to different countries to learn things. That is something which is important, and you've seen with BCCI, with their shadow tours, I think those processes are well in place," Zaheer said in an interaction with Prime Video. "I don't see any other reason right now for players to go and play in a particular tournament. What you have domestically right now is also a robust structure. So why depend on others? We have more than enough means for producing good players. And you look at our bench strength as well, you can virtually play three line-ups, and they will be able to compete at any level."

Shastri spoke much on the same lines highlighting that beside IPL and domestic cricket, BCCI also stages India A tours.

"There is enough domestic cricket for all these players to get absorbed in the system and get an opportunity," Shastri said. "Plus, you get these India A tours, you get a lot of these other tours, where at one given time you might have two Indian teams playing in the future, where the opportunity will come for the other lot to go somewhere else whilst India is in another country - to go play and see what you know they can do.

"So there's no need [to play in overseas leagues], they're absolutely fine playing IPL cricket and focusing on domestic cricket. We need them to play domestic cricket in India as well."

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