IPL not to blame for India's Test problems, says Pietersen

Kevin Pietersen has said it is wrong to blame the Twenty20 Indian Premier League for the tourists poor Test form in England.
In the absence of exiled former captain Pietersen, England came from behind to beat India 3-1 in a five-Test series, with skipper Alastair Cook overseeing the recovery.
That led many pundits to take what IPL star Pietersen said were "lazy potshots" at the lucrative Twenty20 event, which some have blamed for turning the heads of young Indian players in particular.
"It is a cheap shot to blame the IPL and portray the young Indian player as being uncaring about Test cricket," Pietersen wrote in his Daily Telegraph column on Monday.
"I know Virat Kohli will be hurting and I know how happy Murali Vijay was to score a century at Trent Bridge and almost get another one at Lord's. It was dream come true for all of them to play a Test at Lord's.
"It hurts these guys every single time they do not score Test runs."
Pietersen said it was the reluctance of Indian officials to let their players appear in domestic overseas tournaments, not the IPL, that was harming the team's Test chances,although batsman Cheteshwar Pujara recently agreed to join Derbyshire for the final few weeks of the English county season.
"The Board of Control for Cricket in India has stopped its players appearing in Twenty20 competitions because it does not want to add broadcast value to tournaments that rival the IPL," Pietersen said.

Yeah everyone's talking as if Indian team used to be terrific overseas prior to IPL. IPL isn't ideal, but "blame it all on IPL" is just running away from the issue me feels. Way too much blame is placed on IPL.

That said Dhoni's press conference where he said "stop being jealous" of IPL is shyte too. IPL is blamed way too much, but it MAY have contributed to the undervaluing of tests by new crop of test players.

Kyle..You stole that sentence outta me.Just what i wanted to reply after reading this thread..
IPL is to be squarely blamed for the downfall,and here he is telling us the other way round.if IPL is taken off the charts,the players will perform better.Money is all that speaks with them.

I think this seems to be a lack of interest in the Test format. Players seem to more interested in spending their efforts in the shorter and more rewarding versions of the game, it shouldn't be wrong from their point of view. Hopefully this will not translate to Test matches fading away. This performance problem only seems to be for Indian and a few other players, some of the other top teams always give their best performance in a test series.

I just wish that they hold these events outside India so that  our player can get accustomed to the foreign conditions. We don't get to play much cricket outside India.


So yeah, don't blame IPL here.