TT gets best foreign players, ISL dross
NEW DELHI: The first few weeks of 2019 have been pretty actionpacked for professional leagues in India with the Pro-wrestling league ending recently while the Pro-volleyball league is on right now. The biggest of them all, the Indian Premier League, is expected to start the last week of March.
While these leagues manage to get the best Indian talent, they also attract lots of overseas players, ranging from junior players making the step up to grizzled veterans looking for a final payday.
But of all these players coming over from abroad, how many of them could be seen as ‘worldclass’? Which professional league gets the best foreign players?
Our analysis of foreign players in the various leagues shows that Ultimate Table Tennis in its latest season had the highest proportion of foreign players who are world-class—96 percent—while football’s Indian Super League (ISL) had the lowest—one percent.
23 out of the 24 overseas players in the 2018 edition of Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) met our criterion for being ‘world-class’. The criterion in table tennis being that players should
have been present in the top 50 of world rankings for men’s/ women’s singles or men’s/ women’s/mixed doubles for June 2018, the month UTT started. The highest-ranked men’s singles player in UTT was then-12thranked Simon Gauzy of France while the top women’s singles player was then-13th-ranked Doo Hoi Kem of Hong Kong.
On the other hand, of the 70 overseas players in the 2018-19 season of ISL, only one—the Australian Tim Cahill who plays for Jamshedpur Fc—met our criterion for football. The criterion is that players should have been selected for their national team at the 2018 World Cup or recent regional championships such as the Copa America, European championships or African Cup of Nations. If we were even stricter with the criteria, even Cahill would be dropped since he’s retired from international football now.
Criteria similar to that of table tennis and football were applied to foreign players in other leagues, using the latest seasons for which data is available.
The one thing that can be said in the defence of the ISL is that it is a six-month-long affair from September 2018 to March 2019 while leagues such as UTT last just two weeks.
Global stars would find it easier to commit to something for a fortnight as opposed to the six months ISL requires.
Also, ISL functions less as a one-off tournament and more as a league that is part of the world footballing structure or ‘pyra- mid’. There are rewards other than monetary in the ISL
with the winners going to the qualifiers of a regional competition, the Asian Football Confederation Cup.
By contrast, leagues such as Ultimate Table Tennis and Premier Badminton League aren’t even on the official calendars of their sports because of all the tweaks organisers make to the format of the game.
WORLD RANKING
PBL 4 (2018-19) PWL 4 (2019) IPL 12 (2019) PVL 1 (2019) ISL 5 (2018-19)
In world’s top 50 for men’s/women’s singles or men’s/women’s/mixed doubles for December 20, 2018
All of which means that participation in these tournaments may add dollars to a player’s bank account but no points to their world ranking.
One surprise here is seeing IPL rank below some of the other leagues in terms of overseas player quality. Only under half the overseas players (31 out of 64) in the upcoming 2019 edition have been judged world-class. The criterion being that players should be in the top 50 of the latest International Cricket Council T20 world rankings for batsmen, bowlers or all-rounders.
This may be down to the oneday World Cup beginning in May this year right after IPL gets over and several top players opting out of IPL in order to prepare for it.
What better foreign talent in a league means is a higher playing standard, and better entertainment for TV audiences and matchday crowds. Clearly, some Indian leagues offer better value for money than others.
Present at 2018 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary
Present in top 50 of ICC T20 world rankings (Jan 25, 2019) for batsmen, bowlers or all-rounders.
Selected for national team at 2018 World Championships in Italy and Bulgaria
Selected for national team at 2018 World Cup or Copa America, European Championships etc.