Two highly experienced former players have spoken candidly about the challenges facing the sport across realated fronts, with former India Cricketer Harbhajan Singh warning that franchise T20 leagues have fundamentally altered the game’s commercial and cultural landscape, while Former Pakistan Chief Selector Iqbal Qasim has raised alarm about the priorities and work ethic of the current generation of Pakistan cricketers. Both were speaking in separate podcast interviews with PTI.
T20 leagues have already taken over, says Harbhajan
Harbhajan, who took 269 wickets across 236 ODI appearances for India, argued that the shift in audience attention from international cricket to franchise leagues is not a future concern but a reality that has already taken hold. “Already it has happened, 70 per cent (people are watching club cricket instead of international cricket),” he told PTI. The former off-spinner pointed to the uneven commercial appeal of international fixtures as evidence of a viewership landscape that no longer treats all matches equally. “If India plays Australia then there is good viewership but if India is playing Sri Lanka or Afghanistan, the viewership is not there. Australia playing England, the viewership is there but not for an England Bangladesh series,” he added.
The contrast with franchise cricket, he argued, could not be starker. “…you see The Hundred, the grounds are packed, BBL the grounds are full. In IPL, you can’t find tickets. Already that culture has developed that two months of IPL is a festival…a carnival,” Harbhajan noted. The packed stadiums and devoted fan bases that franchise leagues have built reflect a shift in expectations that international cricket has struggled to match. He does not expect that ground to be recovered easily. “It would be difficult to (for international cricket to get) back to its former stature because the leagues have become so big. In the league, the fans get to see a mixture of everything, competing with each other, so that’s a different spectacle,” he continued.
Harbhajan acknowledged that the T20 explosion has changed both player mindsets and public appetite for the game, with audiences increasingly drawn to shorter formats that fit the pace of modern life. He said he personally retains no interest in ODI cricket despite having played more than 200 of them, while his appetite for marquee Test series — particularly those involving India, Australia, England or South Africa — remains strong. He was emphatic, however, that Test cricket must be protected rather than allowed to drift further from its rightful position at the top of the game. “Test cricket is main cricket. All the stakeholders of the game should protect Test cricket and promote it. Because Test cricket is the best cricket, it tests you in every possible way as a cricketer,” he stated.
Harbhajan said he would want international cricket to receive the attention it deserves but conceded that the two-month IPL window has captured a level of public interest that makes that difficult to achieve. He also noted that the growing financial pull of franchise cricket has created real pressures on boards trying to retain their best players for national duty, citing examples from the West Indies and New Zealand where high-profile players have walked away from central contracts to pursue T20 opportunities globally.
Qasim sounds alarm on Pakistan’s next generation
Iqbal Qasim, who took 171 wickets across 50 Tests for Pakistan and served on the national selection committee across several tenures, directed his concern closer to home. Speaking about what he has observed among young Pakistan cricketers, Qasim told PTI: “I have been a chief selector and a member of the selection committee several times, and we worked on an honorary basis with no salaries or fees. I don’t want to talk about the past or when we played cricket. But seriously, I see a general lack of interest and commitment among most young players to focus and work hard on improving their game awareness and skills. They seem more focused on earning money.”
For Qasim, the essence of what makes a cricketer successful has not changed despite the dramatic evolution of the game over recent decades. “Even now, with cricket changing so much over the last few decades, the formula for success remains the same: how much time a player is individually willing to devote to improving his skill set and understanding of the game. And that is not happening often enough in Pakistan cricket,” he added. He argued that too many young players are leaning on external support rather than developing the independent judgment that separates good cricketers from great ones. “There is too much reliance among young players on coaches, support staff and data. They don’t spend enough time individually working things out,” Qasim stated.
The former selector also recalled a disagreement over Shahid Afridi’s selection involving former Captain Misbah-ul-Haq, using it to illustrate the principle that selectors and captains each have distinct and separate responsibilities — a boundary he believes is increasingly blurred in Pakistan cricket today. He also drew on a memory from Pakistan’s historic 1987 Test series victory in India, recalling a conversation with the late Bishan Singh Bedi during the Bengaluru Test that changed how he approached bowling on a turning pitch and ultimately helped Pakistan secure the match.
On the broader question of motivation, Qasim offered a clear philosophy that he believes young players have lost sight of. “I think playing for your country is the biggest reward a player can get. I have always believed that the more you improve your quality as a player, the more money will come automatically. You don’t have to chase it,” he concluded.
