Players want to compete in IPL, says Fleming

Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming, however, emphatically denied that there was a club vs country conflict at all in cricket. “There is a bit of a beat-up around it but the IPL is a large tournament that the world’s best players want to come and play in,” the former New Zealand skipper told newsmen on Thursday evening. “It’s up to the Boards, if they are not happy with amount of cricket that’s played, to put some stipulations on it but without the stipulations or the guidelines, the players will want to play, they will want to win and they will want to compete.

“I have seen nothing but that in this competition,” he went on. “That desire to compete and to win shows how important this is in the Indian landscape, and that’s why we are all here. If it didn’t have the intensity, then the players will be taking time off.”

Fleming was asked if the massive amounts of money and pressure from the franchises made it tough on the players. “It’s hard for players to say no, full stop,” he emphasised.
At the same time, Fleming pointed out, the IPL was a huge event. “This competition has value for the BCCI, it’s not some hit-and-giggle competition off-shore somewhere,” he emphasised. It would be hard to stop Gambhir or any of the Indian players from playing because I feel a real passion for them wanting to play.