Former Indian cricketer turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra reckons international cricket might only be played in available windows between the shorter-format leagues across the world. The Indian Premier League (IPL) almost has the exclusive window in the cricketing calendar.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said: “What you are saying is absolutely correct. When you sow the seeds, you don’t know how big the tree will be, you don’t know how many branches will go left or right. When T20 cricket came – IPL and the other big leagues – no one knew what exactly will happen. Now we have reached there where we have the IPL, BBL and The Hundred, the ICC is carving windows for them. Then CSA, the UAE league, CPL, PSL – that’s it boss, everyone wants their league and they want the players also for that. International cricket at this point in time is getting squeezed.”

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However, Aakash Chopra feels other players might follow Trent Boult’s example, with the New Zealand pacer as the bowler has opted out of his national team contract. Giving the examples of Andre Russell and Sunil Narine, he further added that the West Indies players might be at the top of that list.

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“I won’t say that international cricket is going to end. It will not end because league cricket is just one format. We always give the example of football but football has only one format and when that got commercialized, leagues took over and countries’ sport was left behind. It then became World Cup to World Cup and friendlies. But international cricket is not like that. Only T20 leagues are there, at the most T10 leagues might happen but Test and ODI cricket are still at the top,” Aakash Chopra concluded.