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IPL feeds off international players

The Courier Mail’s Paul Starick says Andrew Symonds, the IPL’s A$1.5m man, is being humiliated. Symonds, who was hit for 30 in an over by Virender Sehwag on Tuesday, has struggled with bat and ball during the first week.

It is not the Indian crowds tormenting Symonds – as happened on last year's Australian tour – but his own form. In his first two games, Symonds, the IPL's most expensive non-Indian player, has gone for 55 runs from four overs at an economy rate of 13.75 runs per over. He has scored 44 runs off 52 balls. With Symonds earning an estimated A$200,000 for his fortnight in the IPL, he has yet to turn Deccan's investment into value for money.

News coverage of the competition in Australia is about to get smaller, according to the Australian, due to the IPL’s demands, which led to a boycott by international news agencies.

The Indian Premier League is a good thing, so long as we understand that it’s only fun because it attracts Test and one- day stars from around the world, writes Alex Parker, in the Johannesburg-based Times.

If not, TV money will devour the sport. Once it is done, it’ll spit out the corpse, which will by then consist of a Twenty20 championship in India, some low-level club tournaments around the world, international “friendlies”, a la soccer, and that’s about it.
Eventually, even the IPL will have nowhere to find its international superstars, and then the game will have eaten itself in a frenzy of greed and TV rights.

Meanwhile in iafrica.com Rob Peters asks what's not to like about the IPL.

While I enjoy Test cricket as much as the next guy, I do not view the T20 format as a naughty child. Truthfully, it only adds to the game for me. You have all the elements that make cricket such a great game with the added excitement of huge hitting, fierce bowling and a carnival atmosphere. I’m not about to complain about dancing girls either!

IPL at 4am

Selectors ignored Salunkhe but Warne didn’t

Amar Shah is doing his best to keep abreast of all things IPL...from Los Angeles at 4am:

Since the league began, I've risen as early as four in the morning each day to log on to my computer to watch live choppy streams of such grandiose (ok, nascent) rivalries as the Bangalore Royal Challengers vs. the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Delhi Daredevils vs. the Rajasthan Royals.
For the next six weeks, top cricketers from all over the world will participate in a league that could shift the entire landscape of the sport. Traditional cricket, the test variety, lasts up to five days. But the IPL's Twenty20 format , where matches are limited to 20 overs (one over equals six pitches), is a run and gun, slap-happy form of the game that perfectly suits the waning attention span, especially my own.

As a recent cricket convert, I've come to realize that cricket is not so much a sport in India, but the lingua franca as Cricinfo.com blogger Lawrence Booth put it. Which makes the audacious experiment of the IPL an exciting proposition for the commercial expansion of the sport. And just perhaps, intriguing enough, for the American sensibility.

ESPN has the full story.

End of the world? No problem

Spotting talent: Shane Warne has shown faith in the unheralded Dinesh Salunkhe ©

While the Mumbai selectors have ignored the performances of Dinesh Salunkhe, Warne has picked him alongside himself in the both the IPL games for the Jaipur side, writes Pradeep Vijayakar in the Times of India.

Salunkhe had not played for any of the Mumbai age group sides, but after playing for Jhunjhunwalla and Khalsa College, he was picked for the university side thanks to the insistence of selector Sanjay Patil. Kapil Dev rewarded Salunkhe with a stint in Leicester cricket in 2007. Air India then took him on scholarship and he has rewarded them with consistent performances.

Also read S Ram Mahesh in the Hindu writing on the remarkable rise of P Amarnath.

When mulling over the decision to quit his job for one that wasn’t nearly as secure, Amarnath didn’t for a moment consider the transition he would eventually make — progressing in four years from bowling in the city’s fourth division to bowling in the Indian Premier League.

The same paper also has a piece on Sanjay Bangar's penchant for writing.

The seven-article series Sanjay Bangar wrote on a popular cricket website is still read widely. He’ll laugh if you describe it as good, but the feedback to his writing has mostly been positive.

Bangar's articles appeared on Cricinfo. You can read them here.

The quality of spin has dropped considerably over the years and yet the batsmen of today flounder on what would have been an average wicket a few decades ago, writes Saad Bin Jung in the Asian Age.

April 22, 2008

IPL causes a TV frenzy

Posted on 04/22/2008 in Indian Premier League

A first look at the ratings by TAM Peoplemeter System shows that IPL has delivered a record opening, write Ratna Bhushan and Surbhi Goel in the Economic Times.

Official broadcaster Sony Max says it will now hike spot rates to Rs 3.5-4 lakh per 10 seconds for the remaining matches. Said SET president Rohit Gupta: “The response from television audiences and stadia has been higher than what we expected. People rooting for Sanath Jayasuriya in an Indian stadium was unheard of but it happened.”

In the Indian Express, Shivani Naik traces Lalit Modi's fetish for funky team names.

Whether it's the Rajsamand Pelicans or Jhunjunu Dragons, they greet you revealing a set of canines that could never add up to a friendly grin. Even the usually-docile camel seems to acquire predatory pouts under the Barmer-district banner. Lalit Modi's fetish for team names, elaborate logos, and scope for merchandising can be traced back to two seasons ago when he decided to distribute these tags to 32 districts, which now play under these banners.

The saga surrounding the Eden Gardens pitch is far from over. An investigation by the Kolkata Telegraph has revealed that the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) did not go through even the basic ground drill before throwing open the ground for the opening game.

Posted on 04/22/2008 in Indian Premier League

The media continue to pore over what effects the IPL will have on cricket as we know it. Richard Williams in The Guardian takes a positive view:

"Cricket first developed on village greens such as Hambledon; it looks as though it may come to an end at Bangalore," a former editor of the Times wrote yesterday, deploring Twenty20's success. Strip away the cheerleaders, the film stars, the promotion and the players' salaries, however, and I'll bet that last weekend's inaugural IPL match was closer to the game played by Hampshire landowners and rustics on Broadhalfpenny Down in the middle of the 18th century than the weird, distended, passionless version enacted at various county grounds last week.

No one is taking the Indian Premier League more seriously than Shane Warne, writes Simon Hughes in the Daily Telegraph.

He has taken an unlikely character under his wing. Dinesh Salunkhe is a swarthy 25-year-old from Bombay who last year was an anonymous club player ... Warne likes him. "He's got a positive attitude and learns fast. The important thing about leg-spin is not where the ball lands but how it gets there. You vary your grip, trajectory and position on the crease, and you can make two apparently similar balls totally different."

April 21, 2008

To cheer or not to cheer

Posted on 04/21/2008 in Indian Premier League

For many fans there's an emotional disconnect with the IPL, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.

Whether to enjoy Sourav Ganguly's dismissal or to celebrate Ishant Sharma's pace magic in shattering their own Rahul Dravid's stumps.

Indications are that the cricket-mad Indians, who got hooked on Twenty20 when the country won the World Cup in South Africa last year, are now addicted to the IPL, writes Bruce Loudon in the Australian.

On evidence of the first few games, it appears that the city-based rivalry that the IPL has sought to conjure with rupee power on television could take some time to fructify, writes Avijit Ghosh in the Times of India.

The IPL got off to a great start, but questions need to be answered, writes Steven Smart in the Observer.

Most sports in the world are over in less time than a Twenty20 game, writes Amit Varma in Mail Today. All popular sports, in that much time, pack in immense drama. Regular fans of those sports appreciate the sophistication in each of those games, and can talk about the nuances endlessly. Why then do so many of us speak of Twenty20 as if it is gilli-danda?

What's not destroy'd by time's devouring hand?

Posted on 04/21/2008 in Indian Premier League

An erstwhile editor of The Times, William Rees-Mogg, uses his opinion column to rail against what he sees may be the end of cricket:

The culture of cricket now seems to be going the way of Troy, or indeed of the Roman Empire. The glory of cricket, with its intelligence and the complexity of the interplay, is sinking into the past; we are moving, surprisingly rapidly, into the dumbed-down cricket of Twenty20. Cricket first developed on village greens such as Hambledon; it looks as though it may come to an end at Bangalore.

April 20, 2008

England stay away from the fun

Posted on 04/20/2008 in Indian Premier League

A handful of spectators made the trip to Lord's for the match between MCC and Sussex to mark the beginning of the 2008 county season © Getty Images

The Times' Simon Wilde, who is in India to cover the IPL, says that the England board has faltered by not allowing its players to take part in the tournament's first edition. He begins his piece with a humorous elegy.

In affectionate remembrance of the hope that the England cricket team would soon win a global one-day tournament, which died, at home, on April 18, 2008, while the rest of the world celebrated the birth of the Indian Premier League at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore. The health of the team itself had been undermined by the loss of grave quantities of money offered by a circle of Indian friends. The body will be cremated and the ashes scattered on the Ganges. - with apologies to Reginald Shirley Brooks, the Times, 1882.

Scyld Berry, while analysing the impact of the IPL, feels the tournament needs "major surgery to survive. His article in the Telegraph has more.

But the organisers of the IPL seem, at this stage, to have missed a couple of tricks - and they could prove extremely, perhaps terminally, damaging. Yesterday, sandwiched between the successes in Bangalore and Delhi, came a match in Mohali in front of a stadium that was half-full - a match which saw a superb century by Mike Hussey set up a 33-run victory for the Chennai Super Kings.

The first drawback is that too many unremarkable Indian cricketers are making up the numbers: a problem which can be solved either by reducing the number of franchises (impossible in the short term) or increasing the quota of foreign players from the existing four-per-side. Indian spectators and television audiences want to see stars, whether in films or on the cricket field. It was a point made last year when India staged 20-over matches between state sides, and the country became the only place in the world where the format did not take off. The second point is the IPL organisers are asking too much of fans in expecting them to exchange old instincts for new loyalties.

Meanwhile, Vic Marks, in his blog in the Guardian, critisises the scheduling of the match between Surrey and Lanchashire in the middle of April after the entire fourth day's play was washed out. He also hopes the IPL will force a change in the hectic county schedule.

A cricket rock star

Posted on 04/20/2008 in Indian Premier League

With his fireworks in the opening game of the IPL, Brendon McCullum has had the doors to India's massive commercial opportunities unlocked for him, writes Dylan Cleaver in the New Zealand Herald.

Following his pyrotechnics he was taken to a party in Bangalore, attended by both teams, where he was schmooozed by Khan and an array of India's Bollywood and industrial giants. McCullum was apparently impressed with Khan's passion for cricket and his humility. The star, who is as recognisable in India as Brad Pitt is in Cailfornia, introduced McCullum to his family and the two chatted for the best part of an hour.

Paul Holden takes time out to give you taste of cricket's WWF in his blog Sideline Slogger.

Get a bet on - it is a crass, over-hyped tournament focused on money so you should get on the bandwagon by flinging some dosh around as well. Twenty20 is a complete and utter lottery - witness Indian winning the T20 World Cup with their B team, and England destroying us via Master Mascarenhas. So I’d be heading toward slapping $20 on the least favoured teams - they really do have just as much chance in this inaugural competition where nobody knows what they are doing. Get on Shane Warne’s coachless Jaipur team (aka the Rajasthan Royals) or the Martin Crowe-tillered Bangalore Royal Challengers.

Also read Andrew Miller's interview with McCullum on cricinfo.com.

April 19, 2008

Starting with a big bang

Redskins' cheerleaders shake up Bangalore

It was perhaps fitting that the new world should challenge the old in the city of Bangalore, a place where old colonial clubs and buildings jostle with cool bars and swanky headquarters of software houses, writes Simon Hughes in the Daily Telegraph.

If Rahul Dravid were to suddenly break into a brief bhangra in between shadow cover drives nobody would be surprised, writes India Today's Sharda Ugra. In another piece she says that if Test matches are extinct two decades later, it will be because cricket—its governors, its players and its entire community—didn’t fight hard enough for them, didn’t believe them to be worth preserving.

For all the well-meaning - if belated - intentions, it was hard yesterday evening to imagine an international event in England matching the IPL for sheer unadulterated hype, writes Lawrence Booth in the Guardian.

This child of hype and bombast needed some substance to make it credible, and it got that from the scimatar-like bat of Brendon McCullum, writes Dileep Premachandran in his Times blog.

Kunal Pradhan has a say in the Indian Express: "The excitement in the match will have to complement the pre-game frenzy for the IPL to hold the audience for 44 days. An abject surrender by the home team doesn’t help their cause."

Stephen Brenkley chips in with his views in the Independent: "India have been bold and if some of the figures would seem to suggest that the boldness strays into fiscal foolhardiness those involved can afford it."

Also check out Hindustan Times' interview with Geoffrey Hampson, the CEO of the Vancouver-based Live Current Media Group who are hosting IPL's official website. You can sample the official site here.

Emily Wax of the Washington Post writes about the impact of the 12 cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins on the opening day of the Indian Premier League. The girls have been brought to Bangalore by Vijay Mallya, the owner of the Royal Challengers, and are training an all-Indian cheerleading squad.

In white go-go boots, yellow spangled short shorts and bikini tops, they pompomed their way onto the field, bursting right through local notions of modesty. The result was something that few in this cricket-obsessed nation thought possible: tens of thousands of male cricket fans finding it hard to keep their eyes on the game.

She continues …

The Redskins cheer choreographer, Donald Wells, said the Indian cheerleaders he's working with are already adept at shaking their hips and staying on the beat. He noticed that Indian cheerleaders were very expressive with their hands -- Indian classical dance has countless hand motions -- and joked that they probably wouldn't need pompoms.

"The Indian girls who tried out so far were so beautiful and so good, they were practically better than us," said Sharica Brown, 27, a Redskins cheerleader from Baltimore, as she snacked on a plate of nachos before the game at Bangalore's Hard Rock Cafe.

The tamasha of IPL

Warne nervous about ‘ridiculous sledging law’

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is picking up some Tamil and refusing to call the match between the Chennai Superkings and Kings XI Punjab a face-off between him and Yuvraj Singh. He writes in the Hindustan Times:

I know Friday's game was being seen as Sourav versus Rahul and Saturday's game being spoken of as Dhoni versus Yuvraj, but at the end of the day it will be teams who will take each other on, and not just a couple of individuals.
That's just fodder for advertisers to whip up excitement before a game, and does not translate into actual rivalry. Fortunately, I am not a bowler otherwise the hype on the 'Dhoni-Yuvi face-off' would have shot through the roof! Yuvraj is an aggressive cricketer, and I know that he will come hard at my team, but that's the charm of this format since it pits you against your teammates and teams you up with your opponents. I have been meeting Yuvraj quite a few times since Thursday, and there have been no cold vibes between us.

In the same paper, Poonam Saxena is fed up of the non-stop IPL chatter on Indian new channels.

In keeping with its time-honoured tradition of giving us Rakhi Sawant day and night, Headlines Today did a hundred-hour interview with her about the IPL ... There were three of them in the studio, asking her penetratingly intelligent questions such as which of the IPL videos she likes best (and why she isn’t in any of them), which team is her favourite and so on. Rakhi wiggled her eyebrows and eyes, often both at the same time, and gave equally penetratingly intelligent answers (she favours the Vijay Mallya video because he’s in the company of men for a change).

In the Mid-Day, Anand Naik has some tips for those who want to come to the stadiums to watch the IPL games.

The ICC must start listening

Shane Warne says in his Herald Sun column the Indian Premier League is here to stay – and his only concern is “the ridiculous new sledging law”.

It will be hard not to say something to someone, but I think the pace of the game will help as there will be no time to sledge. Well, maybe a little sneaky one here or there.

Warne, the captain and coach of the Rajasthan Royals, is excited about returning to bowl after a long break.

Although I am pulling up a little sore in the mornings, it's hard to know if I have lost any zing until we start playing. To be honest, I have not done lots of batting and bowling until this last week and, surprisingly, I feel in a pretty good space and am looking forward to testing myself in the Twenty20 format.

No longer a gentleman's game

Alex Brown, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says the ICC is not listening to the players, the national administrators or those who seek to profit from cricket.

In the inaugural week of the Indian Premier League - a competition many believe will revolutionise the way the game is played, marketed and distributed worldwide - participants have formed a united front to express their belief that, unless the ICC installs an IPL window in the Future Tours Program, cricket could be torn apart.
Alarm bells should be ringing throughout the ICC's Dubai headquarters at a decibel level to rival a Long Bay prison break. After all, cricket should be more mindful than most sports of the threat posed by cashed-up raiders with players in their sights. But despite the impassioned pleas and the painful lessons of history, the ICC does not seem to be heeding the call.

In the same paper Philip Derriman compares the IPL to the popular singer Andre Rieu.

April 18, 2008

Posted on 04/18/2008 in Indian Premier League

Writing in ABC's Unleashed, Dileep Premachandran believes that the IPL might undermine the primacy of international cricket.

A journalist is preparing to sit down for dinner with his family when the phone rings. It's the agent of a player who wants the journalist to write his biography. "I’m on a yacht in the harbour, with four bottles of champagne by my side," he says cockily. "Our man just sold for close to a million." His jubilation is understandable. After all, he is Mr 15 Per Cent.

The player has just been through a gruelling season, one in which he has enhanced his reputation as one of the game's modern-day greats. Won't 14 matches in six weeks, even if it's Twenty20, be a bridge too far, asks the journalist. The agent's response was revealing. "He can always do a hamstring after three or four games," he says with a snicker.

Indian Entertainment League

Posted on 04/18/2008 in Indian Premier League

The Indian Premier League is widely perceived as the marriage between cricket and entertainment, and the early evidence shows that the entertainment is certainly the dominant partner. On the eve of the opening match, the Bangalore Royal Challengers, led by Rahul Dravid, weren't allowed to practice in the stadium. Why? Because the preparations for opening ceremony were considered more important. Kunal Pradhan of the Indian Express has more.

The Chinnaswamy Stadium is a hub of activity a day before the so-called revolution. There are huge stacks of speakers lying at various corners of the outfield. At short mid-wicket, a drum-kit takes pride of place on a tailor-made platform. Deep third-man has a troupe of young performers walking on stilts. At long-on, there are Washington Redskins cheerleaders in tank tops and bridal veils practicing an expansive jig.

In the same paper, Harsha Bhogle says it would be unfair to compare the Indian Premier League to a Friday blockbuster release, where fortunes are made and lost in the first three days.

This is more like a brand launch, to be assessed at the end of the season, for commitments are in place for much longer. Few brands get it right the first time; and when the horizon is ten years, the first year becomes a learning phase rather than a do-or-die shootout.

In the Hindu, Nirmal Shekar wonders if the IPL’s big money will subconsciously translate into ‘high value’ and ‘quality’ in our minds.

As players see their bank balances swell by hundreds of thousands of rupees with every over bowled or every brief innings played, some of us might lament the demise of cricket’s so-called soul (for the want of a better metaphor) and the game’s selling out to commerce.

The Telegraph lists out the luxury items available at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore on opening day.

Respecting your freedom of choice, we would like you to sample IPLT20.com

Buchanan predicts Twenty20 mania

Posted on 04/18/2008 in Indian Premier League

In the Sydney Morning Herald Alex Brown speaks to John Buchanan, now the coach of Kolkata's IPL franchise and a man whose radical ideas perhaps don't seem as outlandish in the wake of the IPL explosion.

"This is just the beginning," said Buchanan, prior to the Indian Premier League's first match between Kolkata and Bangalore tonight. "Administrators need to make very good decisions over the next few years. I believe all three versions of the game can coexist, but I think this particular form of the game has the potential to take off round the world.
"I can see cricket getting to a stage where in the next three to five years the world is split into zones, like in soccer, with the winner of each zone playing off in an annual world series under a roof somewhere. Players will be spread round the world. Here at Kolkata we have eight or nine internationals, and I think that's a model you'll see more and more of."

Some have likened Buchanan to a bread-board toting street preacher in recent years, proclaiming the end of the world as we know it and making wild predictions of what form cricket's future might take. But as the league and other Twenty20 competitions have taken hold, the former Australian coach's views no longer seem so radical, suggesting he may yet prove a soothsayer.

April 17, 2008

'We invented this game, it's our game'

Posted on 04/17/2008 in Indian Premier League

Many of the county reports in the media made the comparison that the cold start to the Championship is in some ways a metaphor for the shadow cast on the English game by the Indian Premier League. In The Guardian, Paul Kelso observes the knock-on effect of the IPL on the opening day at the Rose Bowl and finds Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove in fighting mood.

I think the challenge is to respond to the IPL. We invented this game, it's our game and we should be leading," said Bransgrove. "Hopefully the chairman and the board will found a vibrant, exciting Twenty20 competition in this country that will decide our players to stay, as well as attracting the best players from around the world to come here."

Geoffrey Boycott is typically forthright in The Telegraph and looks to the long term implications on central contracts, among other issues. In a must-read piece he is firstly sceptical about Allen Stanford’s potential Twenty20 match involving England players, calling it “a brilliant publicity stunt”. He calls for England’s two-Test series next year to be scrapped, while demanding the players are allowed in next year’s IPL, but not to play all of it so that they can play the first three county matches ahead of the Ashes:

if the players don't like the idea of missing half the IPL, the ECB have one big ace in the pack. They can come back and say: "You don't have to have a central contract at all. And we don't have to pick you." Once these lads stop getting international exposure, all their endorsement deals are worthless, no matter how many Indians are watching them in the IPL.

Continue reading "'We invented this game, it's our game'"

April 16, 2008

Stanford v IPL

Posted on 04/16/2008 in Indian Premier League

Most English players will be playing county cricket during the first edition of the Indian Premier League but Mike Selvey thinks with the introduction of the Twenty20 tournament this could be the last English domestic season as we know it. He writes in the Guardian:

Should the IPL prove to be the success that is predicted even beyond the hype of those with vested interest, then the repercussions will be hard to resist. England-qualified players, up to 30 of them according to Mark Ramprakash, have already had their toe in the water and next year will want some of the wealth available to them despite the bullish noises coming from the England and Wales Cricket Board.

In the Telegraph, Nick Hoult looks at the IPL's latest rival - Allen Stanford.

You do not have to spend long in Stanford's company to realise that he is not used to hearing the word "no". The island of Antigua is his personal fiefdom. Stanford owns Antigua's national bank, runs the hospitals, built the biggest hotel, and owns the island's airline. You half expect to see his picture on the east Caribbean dollar notes.

Australians keen for last-minute IPL deals

Posted on 04/16/2008 in Indian Premier League

Indian Premier League teams are still topping up their player rosters and that is good news for Australian state players like Shane Harwood, according to Chloe Saltau in the Age.

Harwood is a prime example of a cricketer for whom the Twenty20 explosion could work wonders. Though his Cricket Victoria contract is expected to be renewed next month, its value may be reduced on account of the 34-year-old's propensity to blow a shoulder or tweak a hamstring at any time.
But even if his days in first-class cricket are numbered, Harwood could prolong his career and boost his pay considerably with a contract in the IPL. He remains a feared weapon when fit, and last summer was ranked by his peers as the country's best Twenty20 bowler. Though he is yet to sign, Harwood is ready to fly to India at a moment's notice.

April 13, 2008

The IPL - cricket's fourth epoch

Posted on 04/13/2008 in Indian Premier League

The Indian Premier League, which launches in less than a week, has brought forth a host of responses from respected voices in the game. To start things off, Scyld Berry, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, labels the IPL as the 'fourth age of cricket'.

When dusk descends on India this Friday evening, and the lights go on in Bangalore, not only will the Indian Premier League commence. It will also launch the fourth age of cricket.
The first era extended from the sport's birth in medieval England to the 1870s; the second covered Test cricket for the next hundred years; and the third was the commercial, international era launched in Australia by Kerry Packer.

Starting next weekend, India will shape the sport, as their eight city-based franchises play matches of 20 overs per side in a three-hour package designed for mass, global entertainment. The salaries of the top IPL cricketers are beyond the wildest imaginings of anyone who has played before - unless the Aladdin who went into a cave was a useful all-rounder.

Ian Chappell, in the same newspaper, says the ICC haven't learnt anything from the Packer revolt. Click here for the full article.

The administrators haven't studied the history of the game closely; in the seventies they fought Kerry Packer over World Series Cricket and lost. To the extent that the ICC haven't offered IPL a window in the schedule where the tournament can be conducted without affecting players' commitments to their country, the administrators are again resisting change

Meanwhile, Mike Brearley calls for embracing the "fizz-buzz appeal of Twenty20" in the Observer.

Also in the Observer Jamie Jackson has his take on the revolution.

Simon Wilde previews the English county season in the Sunday Times. He writes about the cloud of uncertainty hanging over it due to the emergence of the IPL

Neil Manthorp, in his tour diary on the SuperCricket website, criticises the IPL for its "obsession with money"

April 10, 2008

Media boycott in the offing?

Posted on 04/10/2008 in Indian Premier League

“Greed and arrogance” is the damning headline in an editorial for The Hindu which predicts a media boycott of the IPL whose administrators are making “over-the-top” demands.

Under the guise of protecting its intellectual property rights, it issued a set of guidelines for media bristling with unacceptable conditions. The most outrageous condition in the original accreditation guidelines was this clause: “For the avoidance of doubt, IPL shall be entitled to use and reproduce, free of charge, worldwide and without limit in time any and all photographs/images captured by the Accredited Party at any ground and the Accredited Party shall make the same available promptly to the IPL...at his/her cost.”

The piece goes on to list what the IPL want, commenting that this is far from likely to happen. The paper believes that in fact the only answer is a boycott and calls on the history of previous stand-offs which have only gone one way: the administrative bodies in question, be they cricket, rugby or soccer related, have had to back down to the media’s will.

Meanwhile Prem Panicker, in his blog, says the problem isn't with the terms of the negotiations but the fact that the media is negotiating at all.

In Canadian newspaper the Star, Faraz Sarwat writes that with the IPL filled to the brim with international stars there is sensory overload. At this point, the average fan would struggle to identify the team South Africa's Jacques Kallis will play for or who will open the bowling for the Delhi Daredevils. Meanwhile the ICL showed that it is a living league and there is reason to believe that there will be more players signing on, although still of the disgruntled, rejected and retired variety.

April 8, 2008

Lalit Modi’s daylight robbery

Posted on 04/08/2008 in Indian Premier League

Prem Panicker, writing in the Rediff blog, questions the motives behind the controversial IPL accreditation process.

... And more than the provisions pertaining to media accreditation for the IPL, this is the crux of the problem—the BCCI has repeatedly thrown aside all norms, and treated cricket as its personal property, to buy and sell at will ... Can the BCCI on the same lines either start its own magazine, or ‘sell’ rights to one paper or magazine, and immediately prohibit everyone else from mentioning Indian cricket, in whole or part? Can the BCCI launch a television station tomorrow, and forbid everyone else from applying for coverage rights, or showing even the briefest of clips? And most importantly, what do you mean, sold? Was this a private transaction the rest of us are not privy to? What was the process followed?

There is a further update as well. Read here.

April 6, 2008

No league for old men

Posted on 04/06/2008 in Indian Premier League

Amol Muzumdar, the Mumbai stalwart, doesn't find a place in the Mumbai Indians, the IPL team based in the city © Cricinfo Ltd

England's players are not the only set missing out on the Indian Premier League. Also MIA are some of the most consistent and prolific performers in India's domestic circuit, who - despite years of experience - have failed to cash in the Twenty20 boom, reports the Indian Express.

As the cricket fans get excited about getting the first feel of the city-based league with international stars and get blissfully lost in their dilemma to be a Knight Rider or a Daredevil, it’s quite unfashionable to speak about [Nilesh] Kulkarni. Or say, Amol Muzumdar, Amit Bhandari, Gagan Khoda, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Sairaj Bahutule and Shitanshu Kotak. These are the stars; who for more than a decade have turned up for their respective state, city or region but their efforts haven’t been significantly applauded, rewarded or even recognised. T-shirts with their names were never seen at retail outlets, there were no promotional videos made of their team, nor have they walked on to the field with a theme song on the public address system.

...

Interestingly, there is one team in the IPL that has a few old-timers. Bangalore Royal Challengers, on the advice of former Indian captain Rahul Dravid, have drafted in a few 30-plus domestic cricketers. Karnataka regulars Sunil Joshi, J Arun Kumar, R Vinay Kumar and Thilak Naidu are the rare domestic seniors in the IPL.

March 31, 2008

The end of Test cricket?

Posted on 03/31/2008 in Indian Premier League

The Independent's Stephen Brenkley expresses his concern over the future of Tests, and holds the financial clout of the Indian board, expressed via the IPL, responsible for the situation.

Money has done a lot of talking. Couldn't be better? Don't believe it. The game is hurtling towards a crossroads and not only might it struggle to know which way to turn, it might also have little choice in the matter. One country, India, is setting the pace and plotting the direction.

Other countries are wondering how to respond. They recognise the new league as a hitherto unseen cash cow but in some cases are casting envious eyes. There are reactions and knees jerking everywhere. New Zealand bowed to the inevitable last week by allowing five of their players to arrive late for the tour of England so that they could earn some of the Indian money. In England, there is mild panic, with talk of the big counties trying to form their own breakaway league.

Test cricket, the blue riband version of the game, is under impending threat. In six of the 10 countries where it is played, it is virtually unwatched most of the time by live audiences, while in a seventh, Zimbabwe, it has not been played for almost three years and may never be again.

Vibrant though the game might be in three countries – England, Australia and India – there are profound concerns that most of the power, influence and, crucially, money will all belong to India. The International Cricket Council are probably worried, but what their officials possess in gumption they lack in influence, especially where India are concerned.

ECB must stop Twenty20 becoming road to India

Posted on 03/31/2008 in Indian Premier League

For the ECB, the emergence of the IPL presents a challenge on two fronts, says Richard Hobson in The Sunday Times. Early evidence suggests a struggle on both, with an unsustainable stance of blocking centrally contracted players who wish to cash in and the most timid of recommendations to the domestic structure.

English caution in Twenty20 has been costly as with IPL the bird has flown to the East and begun to deliver bigger nuggets, says Hobson, who feels that India, galvanised by a “rebel” league, has seized 20-over cricket. When an Indian administrator sneezes, the ECB catches the cold.

In the Sunday Telegraph, Simon Briggs spoke to IS Bindra, one of the IPL co-founders, who defended the competition.

The men running the IPL might be expected to resent these attempts to muscle in on their territory. Bindra, in fact, says he welcomes the expansion of the IPL concept. "We want to work together with other boards to make the official structure of domestic and international cricket as strong as possible," he said. "The ECB is a good example, because the rebels are already looking to expand into grounds in England.

In the same newspaper Richard Sydenham caught up with Dean Headley, ambassador for the Professional Cricketers' Association. Headley warns that the ECB may face "catastrophic" player losses if they do not soften their stance on the participation of England players in the lucrative IPL.

March 25, 2008

The changing face of cricket

Posted on 03/25/2008 in Indian Premier League

"The ICC said that all the countries have to do is not issue a "no objections certificate" to any player they do not want to lose and based on its [the IPL] promise, the IPL will not employ them. While that sounds good, however, that is wishful thinking and it is wishful thinking especially as far as the West Indies are concerned," says Tony Becca in the Jamaica Gleaner.

The West Indies territories are poor, the West Indies board is broke (or almost broke) the people of the West Indies have always backed the players and with the players earning so much money from the ICL and the IPL, the West Indies Cricket Board will never ever attempt to prevent them from earning that amount of money by issuing a 'no objections certificate'. That means, therefore, that as far as the West Indies are concerned, it is up to the players to make a decision. And with, for example, US$800,000 coming from the IPL and US$30,000 coming from the West Indies, the choice seems obvious.

March 20, 2008

A win-win situation?

Posted on 03/20/2008 in Indian Premier League

"Cricket is the perfect platform for our brands to engage with young India," reveals Vijay Mallya, whose company owns the IPL's Bangalore franchise © AFP

The Indian Premier League seems to have caught the attention of Knowledge@Wharton, the Wharton School's online business journal.

Some excerpts from the article:

The franchisees are working overtime to ensure that the new format works. In Hyderabad, Deccan Chronicle is talking about hiring special trains to bring in fans from the hinterland. The train ride will be an experience in itself, with marketing men salivating at the thought of such a focused and captive audience, which also has time on its hands during the journey. In Kolkata, Shah Rukh Khan is planning a special women's stand, while he makes the occasional guest appearance. Meanwhile, the Delhi team has hired an Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) alumnus, a 45-year-old former colonel in the Indian Army, as assistant vice-president (operations). Corporatization and professionalization are clearly the watchwords of the day.

...

The franchisees are confident that they have a winner on their hands. "Cricket is the perfect platform for our brands to engage with young India," Mallya said, while launching his IPL team and logo. "The equity that our brands gain from this association is the real potential for us. We have tied up with Reebok for sporting gear and Louis Philippe for the formals. (Fashion designer) Manoviraj Khosla has designed special uniforms for the cheerleaders. Sale of merchandise and on-ground activities will be used to reach out to the Royal Challengers fan following. We are talking to several partners in the online space to tap young fans, create virtual clubs, explore mobile space and leverage the new media potential."

...

Critics wonder if some companies have been bowled over by the glamour. India Cements vice-chairman and CEO N. Srinivasan had to spend most of an analysts' conference justifying the company's investment. "A misconception is that we are going to invest $90 million," he said. "We have committed ourselves to $9 million a year for the next 10 years for the franchise." By his calculation, there will be "not one rupee going out of my pocket". He added, "It is a win-win situation for India Cements. We should be applauded." But these calculations could be undone if television viewers don't tune in to watch the matches -- at least in the numbers that the sponsors expect.

March 15, 2008

IPL or warm-ups?

Posted on 03/15/2008 in Indian Premier League

Five New Zealand players are set to play in the IPL which clashes with the start of their tour of England. New Zealand Cricket will take a decision next week on whether to allow the players to participate in the IPL games or to ask them to be in England for the warm-up matches at the start of the tour. New Zealand Herald's David Leggat analyses the upsides and downsides of the three likely scenarios.

Arriving in England with one-third of the squad absent and a group of fill-ins being recruited out of league cricket. Bad look, bad for morale. The players' perspective, as put more than once by Vettori, is that appearances don't matter.It is the modern young man's view in a rapidly changing cricket world. Pragmatism in this case would allow the players the best of all worlds - pick up some cash in India, then move on to what they all insist is where their heart lies, playing for their country. NZC's difficulty is finding a happy middle ground. They won't win in the court of public opinion if they let the players arrive late in England.

In the same paper, Adam Parore writes that for Daniel Vettori the smart money lies in taking the high ground.

At issue is about US$300,000 ($367,500) of lost earnings if he makes the call to be on tour with the Black Caps in England from day one. In the overall scheme of things this is small bananas for Dan. He will make at least $1 million per annum for each of the next two years and I would imagine he will then sign for a further three as well. As it is, he will pick up about $300,000 for the couple of weeks that he will be on IPL duty ...

March 7, 2008

Modi Operandi: the real Mr Cricket

Posted on 03/07/2008 in Indian Premier League

More than a decade ago Lalit Modi tried to launch an officially sanctioned professional cricket league but was thwarted by what he describes as "vested interests" in Indian cricket. Today, he's the chairman and commissioner of the first officially sanctioned multi-million dollar cricket league, the Indian Premier League. In an interview to the Sydney Morning Herald, Matt Wade profiles the man who helped turn the BCCI into one of the richest sporting organisations in the world, with an annual revenue of more than $1 billion. Modi also talks extensively of the IPL and how it was conceived after extensive research.

Modi works from the plush Mumbai offices of Modi Enterprises, the industrial conglomerate owned by his family. Founded in 1933, the group has interests in agro-chemicals, tobacco, tea and beverages, education, entertainment and marketing. Casually dressed and sitting on a large lounge chair, he flicked the channels of an enormous plasma TV, ignoring the constant buzzing of his palm pilot.

March 6, 2008

Emburey: ICL and IPL can co-exist

Posted on 03/06/2008 in Indian Premier League

John Emburey, the former England and Middlesex offspinner, has been appointed coach by one of the ICL franchises. Patrick Kidd finds out more in today's Times:

Emburey has signed a three-year contract with the Ahmedabad Rockets, who will be captained by Damien Martyn, the former Australia batsman, and include Murray Goodwin, the Sussex and Zimbabwe batsman, Wavell Hinds, of Derbyshire and West Indies, and Jason Gillespie, the former Australia fast bowler, who is due to play for Glamorgan.

Speaking to The Times from Chandigarh yesterday, Emburey said that he was relying on his core of senior players to lift the inexperienced young Indians in his team and added that there was no reason why the league could not coexist with the official Indian Premier League (IPL), which is backed by the Indian board.

“The competition between the two will be good for the game,” Emburey said. “People have been surprised how much financial impact the ICL can have. There are lots of companies out there interested in sponsoring it.”

March 5, 2008

Behind the buzz

Posted on 03/05/2008 in Indian Premier League

Is the Indian Premier League going to be successful? Well, the Economic Times tries to find answers among prospective sponsors, merchandisers, marketers, ad and brand gurus, and sport management firms. A few responses:

Kishore Biyani, group CEO, Future Group, believes that while Indians wear a T-shirt representing Team India, he doesn’t see any display of pride in rooting for a local team. Overruling any merchandising possibilities, Biyani says: “Prima facie, there’s no emotional affinity for the audience to buy team merchandise. So right now, I don’t see any potential.

“It’s the fans who bring in viewership and not the other way around,” says Anil Nair, president, Law & Kenneth. “Can the team owners get 10,000 Kolkatans to travel to Mohali to cheer Kolkata? That’s the test the IPL has to pass.

“What we have to figure out is how to keep the IPL alive from June 2 this year (when the IPL ends) to the next tournament. How do you keep the local fan base excited about IPL for one whole year?” queries Piyush Pandey, group chairman , O&M .

In the Daily Telegraph, Simon Heffer says cricket is in a crisis and suggests a radical idea to save it from ruin.

If the cricket authorities have the vision to see it, and the guts to act on that vision, what they should do about the insurgency by Indian riches into cricket is quite obvious. From the county, state or provincial level up to the international, cricket needs to be split into two games or, to use a rugby analogy, two codes.

There would be two discrete groups of players. One would play first-class cricket. The other would play Twenty20. There could be a negotiation about which, or whether indeed both, would play the 50-over game. There would be little money in the first-class game, except from certain Test series.

March 1, 2008

Twenty golden overs

Posted on 03/01/2008 in Indian Premier League

Middlesex captain Ed Smith suggests the best way forward for cricket may be to embrace IPL in the short term, while dedicating its full attention to outwitting it in the future. He writes in the Times:

...international cricket could revisit its scheduling. If one month of IPL can make $1 billion for the Indian board, that surely exposes the myth that more cricket makes more profit.

The money has been splurged, the players have been bought. But what about returns on investment? And will domestic cricket profit? An analysis of the IPL auction in Outlook magazine:

It is learnt that Tendulkar had a senior Reliance official tagging along with him in Australia. After regular meetings and daily conference calls with Maker IV, Nariman Point, Tendulkar gave Reliance a list of 21 players that it should try and buy. Says Reliance's Kaushik Roy, who is working on the IPL initiative: "We don't pretend to be a sports company, so obviously the current team is exactly what Sachin wanted and was comfortable with."

February 26, 2008

Flocking to India

Posted on 02/26/2008 in Indian Premier League

In the past week we've just watched the cricketing world being turned topsy-turvy in front of our eyes, says Paran Balakrishnan in the New Zealand Herald.

Once upon a time the greatest dream of any Indian cricketer was to spend the summer playing with an English county team, getting a taste of pace bowling and walking on the field with big hitters from around the world.

Now many of the world's top cricketers will be picking up their kit and converging on the subcontinent for 45 days a year. They'll brave the Indian summer and the other attendant dangers of living in this part of the world, like the much-feared Delhi Belly. They'll learn to drink only bottled water and avoid raw food if they want to stay healthy - yep, that means no salads.

Balakrishnan highlights the influence of Lalit Modi, the BCCI vice-president and the IPL's chairman and commissioner.

Modi brought together an unbeatable combination of India's two loves - movies and cricket. So you had movie superstar Shah Rukh Khan as a team owner bidding for cricketers like India's one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

What future for Test cricket?

Posted on 02/26/2008 in Indian Premier League

The impact that the IPL will have on the game is being debated in depth since last week's player auction. Opinions vary from mild concern to a complete breakdown of cricket as we know it. In The Times, Christopher Martin-Jenkins says there is a threat to Test cricket if the Twenty20 machine isn't carefully managed but it should be possible to strike a balance.

There are exciting aspects to the IPL, of course, especially for the lucky few players involved. Twenty20 is still cricket, after all, and the game has always had to keep up with social trends to remain vibrant. But too much will breed contempt. The new beast can still be controlled. The primacy of international cricket, and especially of Test cricket (albeit probably played over four days rather than five), is worth fighting for.

February 25, 2008

Cricket de-coupled?

Posted on 02/25/2008 in Indian Premier League

According to an editorial in the Business Standard, the IPL is a safe bet for the team franchises and the real test would be for the broadcasters.

The real risk has been taken by the TV company that has committed a little over a billion dollars for TV rights over the next decade. Over the same 10 years, the team owners will get their lion’s share of TV sponsorship fees (80 per cent for the first five years, 60 per cent for the next five) and the title sponsorship fee (60 per cent) which is to be paid by DLF. Each team owner therefore stands to get a guaranteed share of between $80 million and $100 million over 10 years — which makes the teams themselves virtually free for some of the less ambitious bidders (even the highest team bid, by Mukesh Ambani, was for $111.9 million). The team owners also get access to all on-ground and local revenues as well as the obvious branding opportunities, all of which taken together should be comfortably enough to pay the players’ fees (a total of between $3 million and $5 million per team). After 10 years, team ownership is there in perpetuity without any further charges. So what might have seemed like a flaky play by movie stars and cash-rich businessmen is in fact a pretty safe bet.

Subir Gokarn, writing in the Business Standard, dwells on the Indian Premier League and its possible ramifications to the game of cricket as we know.

The main threat comes from the duration of the league and the density of the scheduling. Forty-four days may be a good starting point, but can hardly become a permanent timeframe. The franchise will have to be expanded to at least twice the current number of teams over the next couple of years and the frequency of games will have to be reduced to mitigate viewer fatigue. Realistically, this means at least a four to five-month season every year, which will both eat into the domestic schedules for many countries and reduce the time available for the international calendar, which is set up by the International Cricket Conference several years in advance. If the IPL is to work financially, it cannot but challenge the ICC’s international schedule.

Alokananda Chakraborty, of the Financial Express, believes the IPL will bring back the magic of television.

Writing in the Mint, Ramesh Ramanathan believes the real transformational change in India’s debate on a market-based economy didn’t announce itself on the front page of politics or economics, but sneaked in last week through the back door of the sports pages.

“The untold story is how an opaque monopolist such as BCCI was forced to respond by the competitive threat created by Subash Chandra’s ICL (Indian Cricket League).”
Wait until the tournaments actually start. Imagine the Kolkata cricket team and what it’s going to do to the political debate in that state in the coming years: The aam aadmi lining up to watch his city team promoted by a Bollywood badshah, funded by market capital, featuring marquee players from across the world, and undertaking a daily mark-to-market on Sourav Ganguly. A thousand Montek Ahluwalias couldn’t have managed to pull this off in a 100 years, bringing the common man into the complicated conversation on markets and society.

Srinivasan Ramani, writing in the Post, says the IPL is as skewed as the system. He compares it with the "well-oiled structures" of club-based sports in USA, Spain and Japan.

February 24, 2008

English cricket prepares for IPL test

Posted on 02/24/2008 in Indian Premier League

Not for the first time English cricket is being left behind as the rest of world is swamped by the riches of the IPL. Due to their touring commitments and county season no England players have yet to join the IPL, buy as Scyld Berry reports in The Sunday Telegraph that could be about to change.

It is only a matter of time - and a few days at that - before English cricketers join the IPL and miss the start of the coming county season. England's top 12 players are on central contracts so they won't be going anywhere except New Zealand in the next few weeks. But that leaves several marketable players who are currently being tempted by offers.

And he says that "when (not if)" players begin to sign it will test the county's attitudes towards the IPL.

There is simply no precedent for a county player going off to play somewhere else during the county season: it is only recently that the economies of the East have boomed.

In The Observer, Jamie Jackson tries to make sense of all the goings on of the past weeks and speaks to some of the main men involved.

Modi, though, hardly seems to care. In a further indication of just who now holds the power in world cricket, he was dismissive of the ICC's proposal, tabled on Thursday, that an official window for the IPL should not be created in the international calendar.
This is due to be ratified next month, but Modi is not moved. 'I'm not concerned. Most countries' season ends in March, apart from the West Indies and England,' he says, apparently dismissive that English cricket's pre-season will prevent Kevin Pietersen and company playing unless an official window is created. 'Our time of year [for the IPL] has traditionally been free, it is a natural window - and I'm sure that will stay.'

February 23, 2008

Symonds surely worth the spend, reckons Sir Viv

Posted on 02/23/2008 in Indian Premier League

Andrew Symonds has often been likened to Viv Richards, and the West Indian legend is not surprised by the Australian allrounder's price at the Indian Premier League auction. He tells the Sydney Morning Herald:

"I am a great fan of Andrew Symonds, his fielding and the way in which he plays his cricket, with that sort of aggression. Having people like that on board is certainly going to add to the [Indian Premier League] razzamatazz. So if I was as well-connected as those individuals [the league's franchise owners] in business, with the funds they have, why not?"

The Sunday Telegraph says it discontinuing Symonds' column after Cricket Australia gagged it twice.

In the same newspaper, Stephen Corby recounts his experience of playing park cricket against Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Nathan Bracken, Darren Lehmann and Stuart MacGill.

The big bazaar

Posted on 02/23/2008 in Indian Premier League

Since discovering its own value, Indian cricket has courted money often to the exclusion of all else. The IPL auction was the logical extension of this love affair with the free market, says Sharda Ugra in India Today.

IPL franchises are now left holding their big brood of babies. They have their teams, their teams have an event that begins in less than two months. Already some are feeling frazzled. A Delhi insider said all team owners wanted was to get the first tournament under way and over with.

The impact of such money on young cricketers who traditionally dreamed only of playing Tests for their country is yet to be seen, but they may now go to sleep dreaming of the incredible riches to be made in the short-form competition, says Peter Lalor in the Australian.

Sorry for being a voice of dissent in these times when everyone wants to celebrate the power of India’s cricket economy, writes Kunal Pradhan in the Indian Express, but true loyalty is not easy to buy — especially not in a country such as ours, where cricket is linked so closely with national pride.

Liverpool fans who went to Istanbul, despite 21 years of despair, for the Champions League final against AC Milan in 2004, will tell you. Boston Red Sox fans, who waited 86 seasons at Fenway Park for a World Series title, will tell you some more. They had stuck it out through the bad times; that’s why they wept on the streets in the good.

Meanwhile in the Week magazine P. Sreevalsan Menon and Neeru Bhatia wonder how the IPL franchisees fill their coffers.

February 22, 2008

You can't put a price on 'Pup'

Should they have gone Dutch?

"While a cricketer's value can be determined by a salivating squillionaire, a man's worth can only be determined by his actions," says Andrew Webster in the Sydney Morning Herald while reflecting on Michael's Clarke decision to ignore the Indian Premier League. Webster got hold of a copy of the letter Clarke sent to Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman and commissioner.

"With no disrespect to the IPL, I feel my body and mind needs a break and with the hectic international schedule over the next 18 months, I feel I need to freshen up and a break will do me good," Clarke wrote. "By trying to continue to advance my profile and reputation with the Australian team, I hope to one day become an asset to your tournament.

Will Delhi support Asif over Tendulkar?

Amol Agarwal wonders whether a Dutch auction would have been better than an English auction - the probable one that was used, when the Indian Premier League's franchises tried to outbid each other in the race for players. To get what that means, read his article on livemint.com.

Another report on livemint.com ponders whether Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a depreciable asset or stock-in-trade?

Ricky Ponting expressed surprise at his rather low price of US$400,000, but the Australian captain could take solace from this statement:

Ponting might have something to cheer after all, although he attracted a surprisingly low bid of $400,000. Even if his Kolkata teammate Murali Kartik, who is not considered good enough to play for India, will get paid $25,000 more than him, Ponting’s take-home package may be higher as IPL’s overseas players have to pay a basic tax rate of just 10% as against the maximum basic income tax rate of 30% Indian players will attract.

'Who told you to win in four days?'

Kunal Pradhan in the Indian Express feels the franchises of the Indian Premier League will have to strive hard to find a following like their counterparts in other sports, since "it takes time — years, decades — to get such loyalty. And it takes as long for that devotion to translate into good business for those who own the clubs from the day of their inception."

He points out that the auction reflected how franchises sought out Indian players, as most Indians would connect with them, and expresses his doubts whether supporters will opt for country over club.

Picture this: if Brett Lee of Mohali is bowling to M.S. Dhoni of Chennai, sitting in the heart of Punjab, whom will you support? Will you feel enough loyalty for your city that you cheer against a national hero? Will you jump up in joy in Jaipur if, with four runs needed to win, Mumbai’s Sachin Tendulkar is caught on the fence by Shane Warne off the last ball of the match?

The entire auction in Mumbai on Wednesday was a reflection of that same national pride. Ishant Sharma was bought for Rs 3.8 crore and Ricky Ponting for 1.6, Rohit Sharma went for Rs 3.1 crore and Matthew Hayden for 1.5. Corporate India showed where its priorities lay. They wanted crowd pullers, not necessarily the best team available. Nationalism was the mantra, not cricketing logic.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his boys might have done world cricket a disservice by winning the Twenty20 Cup in South Africa last year, says Suresh Menon in his blog on espnstar.com. The same generated a buzz around Twenty20, and was perhaps the prime driver behind the formation of the IPL. He voices his concern:

If the 44-day tournament (where the top players will make crores of rupees) is a success, then it is not difficult to see India nudging the world in the direction of Twenty20 cricket - to the detriment of one-day internationals and Test cricket.

A reduction in the number of ODIs may not be a bad thing, but if Test cricket and all that it stands for begins to disappear, then the harm done to the game will be incalculable.

The thought of the market deciding what form of the game should survive is at once scary and abhorrent. No sport can be about making money alone. That is why cricket boards, and indeed the ICC itself needs to be old-fashioned and consider themselves the custodians of the game rather than boardrooms where men in suits squeeze every last penny out of it.

Read Harsha Bhogle's take on the same.