New Delhi (PTI): Indian Premier League may have hit a cord with spectators, but former Indian captain Bishen Singh Bedi on Saturday strongly criticised Twenty20 cricket, saying the game had "reached its lowest possible denominator" in the name of entertainment.

"I must say that cricket has reached its lowest possible denominator. May be it is popular because people have a herd mentality. They tend to follow everything blindly that is new to their eyes and taste without any substance," Bedi said.

"The administrators, the players, the franchisees, the media and the spectators are all responsible for this degeneration of cricket. And I am sorry to use such strong words that they are all collectively "gangraping" cricket, and we think that this is entertainment. In my eyes cricket is the biggest institution for character building," he told Sahara Samay.

Taking stock of the present day scenario in cricket, Bedi came down heavily on sportspersons and not the sport for deviation from its path.

"Cricket is not deviating from its path, rather, the cricketers are deviating from their path. There were times when the game and the player looked merged into one another, such was the dedication for cricket. Now-a-days, it has all vanished and lost into a void. And there are certain reasons behind it."