So says Tiger Pataudi, the former India, Oxford and Sussex captain and a member of the IPL governing council along with Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri.

Pataudi, who is on a brief visit to London, told The Indian Express in an exclusive interview, “A lot of money is involved which will go to support the Duleep Trophy and Ranji Trophy from where our Test cricketers are introduced. Some of the money will be redistributed, it will go into infrastructure, it will go into junior cricket and it will be very beneficial.”

Commenting on how the potential of lucrative earnings could impact younger players, Pataudi added, “There is an option now. A young player who has talent, his parents will not mind so much if he goes into cricket and makes a career out of it. Even at the first class domestic level, he’ll be making a lot of money.”

‘Test cricket losing popularity’

He dismissed the concerns of purists who are worried that the Twenty20 matches will affect the future of what they characterise as ‘real cricket’, saying, “I don’t think it does. I think what’s happening at least in India is that Test cricket is losing its popularity. Even if you have a Pakistan-India match, in the old days the stadium would be jam packed. Today you can get in very easily, maybe half the stadium is full.”

Asked what lessons had been learned from the matches, Pataudi responded, “We thought it was completely a batsmen’s tournament, but it isn’t — it turned out very much to be a 50-50.

“The bowlers learn to bowl a different line, a different length. The batsmen. The successful ones, have basically played correct cricket, although sometimes they’ve heaved the ball around. There has been a dramatic improvement in the fielding, a dramatic improvement in the outfield infrastructure, in the wickets and so on, especially if you look at it being played in May, in the middle of summer, when the wickets tend to crack very quickly.”