One more victim of IPL

Last year, Andrew Symonds was the highest paid foreign cricketer in IPL and see where he is currently - not fit to be part of most important series that Aus is going to have in recent times where their #1 ranking is on the line. Last year would rank among the most tumultuous for Aus Cricket in general and Symonds in particular. No doubt, Symonds had some record earlier also but that does not compare with his infringements last year since he became the highest paid cricketer in IPL - skirmish with Clarke in WI, fishing incident, Pub incident and radio talk.

This year the honour of being the highest paid cricketers goes to Flintoff and Pietersen and results have started coming in. Eng lost the first test miserably to WI. Even before the series there were spats between the captain and coach (both ex now) once it was clear that KP would be among the top money makers in IPL. Would we see the same trend as last year?

Looking at the behavior of Symonds and now English cricketers, my respect for Indian cricketers esp Sachin Tendulkar has increased mani-fold. If this is how cricketers get affected by money in cricket then imagine how well Sachin has coped with this distraction for last nearly 20 years. He has been getting this kind of adulation and attention since the time he started playing international cricket but this has never got into his head unlike some of the cricketers and he has been among the most consistent batsmen. Not only Sachin but other Indian cricketers have been getting similar distractions but hats off to them that we do not see such negative press covergae for them except for a few.