England batsman Kevin Pietersen has said he loves to play in the Indian Premier League, and added that it isn't just about money.
Pietersen also accepts being extremely fortunate to have been offered a two million pound deal by IPL franchisee DelhiDaredevils, but the South Africa-born batsman said the tournament is much more than money.
"There is a great buzz there. It's really fierce and competitive on the field, but then you have all the overseas players and young players on non-match days mingling and talking cricket. The players are treated so well," The Daily Mail quoted Pietersen, as saying.
"There are the full houses and a TV audience of more than 120 million people watched Mumbai against Delhi. People thought it was amazing to get 12 million for the last day of the 2005 Ashes. Times that by ten," he added.
"Big players want to play in front of big audiences. You want to hear your name chanted by 50,000 people. It's amazing. It makes you feel so good. The window for that has been created by the other boards but unfortunately not ours," he said.
Pietersen said that playing in the IPL has helped him a become better player, and added that every player gets a chance to mingle with some of the world's finest cricketers.
"It's well documented that I spoke to Rahul Dravid at the IPL about my problems against left-arm spin and his options and I worked at it. OK, they will still get me out at times, but now I walk out there thinking, "right, I can hurt spin bowlers". And, I have done," he said.
"Then the night before the last Test against West Indies I rang Mahela Jayawardene and asked him about Sunil Narine. We chatted for half an hour about what to do against him, what not to do, his fingers and rotation and look at how I played against him the next day. That came from a relationship made at the IPL," he added.
ANI
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