IPL did not help us: Gary Kirsten

India coach Gary Kirsten does not believe the advent of the Indian Premier League has given his side an advantage in Twenty20 cricket and is considering withdrawing his top players in future editions.

India coach Gary Kirsten does not believe the advent of the Indian Premier League has given his side an advantage in Twenty20 cricket and is considering withdrawing his top players in future editions.

Having won the inaugural World Twenty20 competition in 2007 and stolen a march on their rivals by setting up the IPL, many saw Mahendra Singh Dhoni's side as favourites to triumph again in England, but that has not

Gary Kirsten

been the case as defeat to the hosts ensured they would not even make the semi-finals.

"The one thing that didn't play into our hands here is that we had a bunch of cricketers who were quite tired when they arrived," said South African Kirsten. "That's not an excuse because we were aware we had a demanding schedule, but we never got to the level of intensity you need to in the international game."

He added, "It probably didn't help that we had two relatively low intensity (group) games against Bangladesh and Ireland... but the standard of cricket and the quality of cricket has been higher than we experienced in the IPL.

Club competition
"That is a domestic competition, a club competition in many respects. While you've got international players playing in the teams, you've got first-class cricketers making up the rest.

"I sense there's a reasonably big gap between what's happening at the IPL level and what's happening internationally.

"When you are picking the best XI from each country the quality is going to go up substantially."