The real dilemma, as in any revolution you care to mention, is which side to choose. Herein may lie the weakness of the Indian Premier League. So far, the evidence is mainly anecdotal but it is still persuasive.
That India is cricket crazy is not in doubt - though the craziness may be less virulent than it was - but it is provoked largely by the worship of the national team. This was cemented after the World Cup victory in 1983. Whatever they do, wherever they go at home Indian cricketers are idols and while defeat is invariably greeted with grave disappointment it lasts only until the next match.
In the IPL the players of the national team are being pitted against each other - and more to the point against foreign players. So for Sanjeev who served breakfast in the excellent, small private hotel, the Manor in Delhi there is a difficulty. He said he was pleased that the Delhi Daredevils (the name was chosen after a texting campaign in the city) had won their opening match in such style but this extended only so far.
When the Daredevils play the Mumbai Indians (which is the least impressive team title), he will support Indians for the simple reason that they have Sachin Tendulkar and Tendulkar is his idol of idols. "Sachin, he is my man," he said. Asked how he would feel if Glenn McGrath, the great Australian bowler who is a Daredevil, dismissed Sachin, he said he would be upset and angry.
There is a long way to go for fans to become accustomed to supporting their own city and despite the money involved it may demonstrate that loyalty can not simply be bought. Mind you, apparently not all Manchester United fans come from Manchester.
Sad but true All the naysayers of happen to be either whities hailing from England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa or brownie Anglophones... I am a big cricket lover and I whole heartedly support IPL and by my reckoning the crowds all over India too!! In the 5 matches over the weekend only one was not a sell-out and that's the Mohali game..But even there too a crowd of around 20,000 was in attendance...Delhi game was a sell out at 40,000...Mumbai game was also a sell-out at 45,000 ....Same goes for the Eden Gardens at Kolkata and Bangalore where crowds of 80,000 and 55,000 were in attendance respectively...I think those are encouraging enough pointers that India is lapping up the IPL readily...I have personally delved into and researched the workings of several professional leagues and it is critical for cricket that they have a full blown glitzy and glamourous professional league of their own at a time when India and China are taking off economically in a big way...NFL has readied up a war chest of $250 million to infect the Chinese with American football fever...NBA is already enjoying a big presence in China..FIFA and the footballing English Premier League are eyeing India with salivating licks like a pack of leery wolves...MLB is conducting talent searches in India and giving away $100,000 each to not so deserving candidates...Cricket has to survive with these realities!!! So what is wrong with a few administrators with foresight coming forward and exploiting the game's most time concise format to construct a full fledged league? People will eventually connect with their city teams...You know why? Because of the huge linguistical and sometimes cultural difference between various parts of India...If a puny little mono culture country like England can harbour an atmosphere to cultivate regional football rivalries then how cannot India? Case to the point...Bangla rock bands getting people sway to their tunes at the Eden Gardens while people in Mohali were jiggling to the tunes of Bhangra pop...Then at some point the rivalry between Bollywood and the Southern India film industry will also come into play in IPL..Scions of the Tamil Industry ( a not so Shabby film Industry with the capabilty of producing $20 million dollar blockbusters and $12 million animation flicks) are getting behind the Chennai Superkings while the internationally recognized stars of Bollywood are getting behind their own North and East Indian teams...Trust me there is enough diversity in India to make the regional rivalries work over a period of time..And India needs an elaborate, extensive and extended cricket culture and infrastructure so that cricket is indelibly imprinted on the minds of Indians...If in a space of two years the if Indian cricket fails to do well at the World Cup and the Indian football team manages to qualify for the football world cup a whole lot of support and money would be lost to soccer which would trigger off the downfall of cricket in the sub-continent..We need to have a cricket culture in India that is akin to Football culture in England...Even if the England soccer teams fails to qualify for the Euro 2008 the English premier league would still pull in around a billion pounds a year and enjoy a hegemony over other more honest sports like Rugby union, Rugby league or Cricket...And for that matter there has been quite a few instances when newly formed professional leagues have been immensely succesful...case in point---The J League football of Japan...though the long protracted Japanese recession has taken the wind out of its sails...But the J League in Japan still threatens to upstage NPB baseball as that country's premier sporting league...If ECB had come up with this IPL idea we would have been looking at a stronger Cricket brand which would have been pulling in 60 percent of the footballing Premier league's revenue rather than the 7 percent it does now....There has been many other follies committed by ECB...Even though old worldly architecture is good for heritage and some pint of time people will get bored of it ...It's time ECB constructed or took over the maintenance and administration of high capacity modern looking stadiums like in Australia...Twenty 20 in a modern reconstructed MCG under a full house looks great...It even surprasses the look and feel of Major League Baseball or NFL...ECB had a chance to takeover the commonwealth games stadium of Manchester but sadly they didnot...Now they would go on and spend 200 million pounds to modernize Lords and bump up the capacity to a grand total of 38,000 over 10 years...Wouldn't that money have been spent if a fresh green field retractable roof stadium had been constructed just outside of London? Even relatively less well off rugby has its huge retractable roof stadium in Cardiff, Wales...Gentlemen modern sport is an arena of merciless business and sooner we stop wallowing in nostalgia the better off we are...English Premier League, Soccer in general, American leagues such as NBA, MLB, NFL and perhaps less so NHL are giant Microsoft/Intel like monopolies..Compared to them Rugby union, rugby league outside Aus and even Cricket are minnows...And I would like Cricket to be rather like Apple (cute giant little company that everybody likes
and makes serious money) facing up to these sporting Microsofts and Intels rather than an amateur financially irrevelant but still brilliant Linux distribution---With this closing statement I rest my case!! Ladies and gentlemen---you be the Judge!!
Posted by: Shaswata Panja | 21 April 2008 at 12:54 AM
superbly said shaswata.
the anti-t20 bias is almost a filter for identifying stereotypes. it staggers the mind that cricket fans of such intellect can not seem to understand that twenty 20 is not some freak monster designed specifically to rob cricket of whatever hallowed customs it hold true, BUT rather a response to the nature of modern life.
t20 haters come from a time when hard work was synonymous with heavy labor and lifting - welcome to a world of 12 hour work shifts at boring, cookie cutter cubicles where the idea of excitement will always be closer to a two hour slap dash version of cricket than any other. people these days don't spend hours reading high brow erotic french literature, they download five minute amateur porn off the internet. its just how it is now.
but perhaps what is saddest aspect of this whole affair is that if they (those tradition bound idealists who trash twenty-20) really love the game, how can they
a) fail to see the glorious uncertainties of cricket that are thrown up repeatedly in a t20 game?
b) fail to learn that what you love will always survive if you nurture it and liberate it, and will definitely die if you fawn over it and protect it jealously?
its yet another case of the talking, writing and blogging heads deciding their version of reality is far more important and truthful than what is actually happening out there.
wake up and smell the instant coffee.
Posted by: ahmer naqvi | 21 April 2008 at 04:50 AM
Your point b sums up the the so called purists's concerns with T20 perfectly!!
Posted by: Shaswata Panja | 21 April 2008 at 09:51 AM
Next IPL session will start in April 2009 which is the most awaited league in India. The average IPL t20 cricket score were more than 150 in previous tournament. Maximum runs came in the form of fours and six’s.
http://www.t20livescore.com/
Posted by: T20 live | 26 November 2008 at 07:36 AM