Last Updated on 4 minutes ago by Charbel Coorey
Former England captain Sir Alastair Cook has said that the Indian Premier League (IPL) is not quite as good as everyone thinks it is.
Talking on the ‘Stick to Cricket’ podcast on ‘The Overlap Cricket’ YouTube channel alongside Michael Vaughan, David Lloyd, and Phil Tufnell, Cook was talking about his previous statement that all-rounder Jacob Bethell should play domestic cricket in England instead of being with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), where his opportunities have been limited.
Cook said, “I don’t know what the IPL is like quite clearly; I haven’t been there, but you do hear some of the little undercurrents. Well, it’s not quite as good as everyone thinks it is.”
“No one ever says it’s terrible because they don’t ever want to upset their bosses,” he finished.
As of May 6, Jacob Bethell has played only five matches in his IPL career so far. He played two matches in IPL 2025, where he scored 67 runs, including a knock of 55, and this season he has played three games after Phil Salt’s injury and has 39 runs to his name.
Kevin Pietersen’s reply to Alastair Cook about the IPL
As mentioned earlier, Cook had said previously that instead of being on the bench at RCB, Bethell can look to play county cricket. After which, former England batter Kevin Pietersen had replied that Cook has ‘no idea’ of how it is in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The players share dressing rooms with legends like Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar and Lasith Malinga, and they get to learn a lot, and it helps them improve as cricketers.
Cook also touched on this and said, “I just gave my opinion. I can justify that at the time he wasn’t playing, and he didn’t play (much) last year either. So, he had that benefit of doing it once or twice. In my opinion, he has done a bit of that. Ironically, since all that came out, he has now played a bit.”
He further said that he gets the point of learning, but at some point, the players have to play, and you can’t just learn from them.
