LONDON: The Indian Premier League (IPL) should be scrapped to safeguard the long-term health of cricket, according to former England all-rounder Ian Botham.

Botham, 58, believes the big-money Twenty20 competition featuring eight franchises which bid for the cream of the world’s leading one-day talent has become ‘too powerful’ and could be fuelling corruption in the game.

“I am worried about the IPL,” Botham said during his MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s where he was once a ground-staff boy before going on to star at the ‘home of cricket’ for both Somerset and England,. “In fact I fear that it shouldn’t be there at all as it is changing the priorities in world cricket. Players are slaves to it. Administrators bow to it.

“I know this has been modified to a degree, but it is still an imbalance. The IPL is too powerful for the long-term good of the game.”

Former England batsman Kevin Pietersen was picked by Delhi for this year’s tournament, a deal worth 20 million Indian rupees, although India’s Yuvraj Singh drew the highest bid of Rs140 million ($2.32 million) from the Vijay Mallya-owned Bangalore franchise.

“How on earth did the IPL own the best players in the world for two months a year and not pay a penny to the boards that brought these players into the game?” Botham said.

Botham said the IPL, which has been tarnished by several corruption cases since its inception in 2008, could fuel the scourge of spot-fixing.

“Corruption is enough of a problem in itself, but the IPL compounds that problem given it provides the perfect opportunity for betting and therefore fixing,” he said. “We have seen a few players exposed, but does throwing the odd second XI player into jail solve it? To kill the serpent, you must cut off its head.”

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2014