Chennai, June 17: Team India coach Gary Kirsten is barking up the wrong tree when he blames the Indian Premier League for India’s unceremonious exit from the World T20 championship. His logic flies in the face of comments from Ricky Ponting and other Australians that their early exit may have been caused because they did not participate in the IPL this season.

In blaming the fatigue factor in Indians on the IPL schedule, Kirsten may not have considered the fact that top players from two of the four teams, plus a couple of prominent West Indians, who are in the T-20 World Cup semi-finals, were active participants in the IPL (see table).

In fact, 11 of Kirsten’s countrymen who are in England were involved in the IPL. A South African from the Cape, Kirsten, in whose coaching none of the eight IPL teams was interested, seems to have picked a handy excuse to shift the focus of blame away from himself.

Experts who analysed India’s poor show have already shed light on the tactical weaknesses of the team for which Kirsten has to share the blame with his skipper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Strangely, there is a difference of opinion between coach and captain with regard to the IPL with Dhoni categorically saying the IPL was not the cause of the debacle.

Analysts have agreed that IPL has enabled players and teams to master the art of Twenty20 cricket.

Also, it is readily accepted that IPL has taken away financial insecurities and fear of selection inconsistencies from the minds of players, many of them Indian, and allowed them to focus only on their cricket. The IPL is regarded as a sporting revolution that has transformed cricket.

As coach of an international team Kirsten may have his own agenda, but in speaking up against IPL — he has already been served a gag order in this regard by the BCCI — he is virtually alone. The IPL is Lalit Modi’s brainchild and the country has a huge stake in an event that has changed the face of cricket.

"How can anyone claim to be exhausted from 14 to 16 games in 40 days, especially when there was another 12-day gap to the world event? Bowlers bowl four overs and not too many batsmen face that many balls in a T-20 game," says V.B. Chandraskhar, a former selector who is part of the think tank at Chennai Super Kings.

The success of many players with IPL experience helps emphasise the point that the event has actually helped them gain the form they have displayed in the World Cup. While for the South Africans the IPL was a home tournament this time, the Sri Lankans and three top West Indians also benefited immensely from the exposure.

Tillekaratne Dilshan of Sri Lanka, who is the leading run-scorer in the World T20 championship, helped Delhi Daredevils get to the semi-finals. Seven Sri Lankan World T20 players were regulars for their teams in the IPL.

Eleven top South Africans were involved wholly in the IPL, with the injured Steyn, and Botha, who came late on the scene after getting his bowling action cleared, playing only three games each.

Of the nine top run-getters in the England T20 World Cup, seven played in the IPL, and of the top 15 only two were not involved in the IPL — Younus Khan and Lendl Simmons. Three Pakistanis who figure among the top 10 wicket-takers did not play in the IPL but would certainly have if the circumstances had been different.

The two unbeaten teams in the tournament are South Africa and Sri Lanka and their players drew immensely from the recent IPL exposure. The West Indians had a busier schedule playing Tests and ODIs in England soon after the IPL before going directly into the world T-20 event. The Pakistanis said they missed the IPL action and even suggested their slow return to form being from a lack of cricket rather than too much of it.

Kirsten, who along with Paddy Upton has helped shape the mental approach of Indian cricketers over the last couple of years, seems to have developed a blind spot for the event because he has not been involved in it. Most IPL teams have chosen Australians to be the coach.

Kris Srikkanth, chairman of selectors, put it succinctly when he said, "We have to look elsewhere for the reasons for the poor show. There were probably a few areas where we’ll have to rework, like playing short-pitched bowling, practising more on that. That will help."

In short, Kirsten is isolated in picking IPL as the reason for India’s shock exit from the World T20 championship.