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May 14, 2008
Posted 3 hours, 3 minutes ago in Indian Premier League
Shantanu Guha Ray, writing in Tehelka, analyses the perform-or-perish mantra that has been on display in the IPL.
The leaguing of cricket has ushered in corporatisation, fabulous salaries and high voltage drama on the playing fields, but it’s come at a price — punishment for non-performance is swift. Worse, the execution is very, very, public. Midway through the IPL season, the first CEO axing has been effected: liquor baron Vijay Mallya pulled the plug on his Royal Challenger team boss, Charu Sharma, who resigned last week, citing ‘personal reasons’.
With the Challengers bottoming out the points table, with two wins in seven matches, you didn’t need rocket science to know what those personal reasons were. Coach Venkatesh Prasad (also India’s bowling coach) could also face the axe. Hours before the firing, Sharma called his counterpart in Kolkata, Joy Bhattacharya, and asked whether he was facing tension from Shah Rukh Khan or Jay Mehta. The Knight Riders, with two wins in six matches, are ahead of Bangalore, but not by much.
Makarand Waingankar, in the Mumbai Mirror, says the bottom-placed teams are suffering as they are constituted more of ”sifaarshi (recommended) players than of performers.”
The Indian Express’ Sandeep Dwevedi reveals how old friends L Balaji and Ashish Nehra, who last played together on the tour to Pakistan in 2004, have enjoyed each others’ success in the IPL.
May 11, 2008
Posted 3 days, 4 hours ago in Indian Premier League
Four of eight teams in the ongoing Twenty20 are owned or managed by individuals with links to either BCCI or IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi, writes Shriniwas Rao in the Indian Express.
One of the owners of Kings XI Punjab is Mohit Burman of the Dabur family. His brother Gaurav, who is based in UK, is Modi’s step son-in-law. When contacted, Mohit Burman said: “It’s not just me alone, there are three other investors and naturally they won’t be putting their money because I am related. The IPL is a good business opportunity and the relationship with Modi is a mere coincidence.”
The Hindustan Times' Pradeep Magazine feels a corporate culture will leave cricket shaken.
Meanwhile the Hindu's KP Mohan asks if there is any relevance to dope testing in IPL?
In rushing through with an anti-doping code, the IPL has exposed younger domestic players to some risk.
Also read Anand Vasu's piece in the Hindustan Times where he mentions the punishment precedents that the board can lean on in the Harbhajan - Sreesanth row.
May 10, 2008
Posted 4 days, 3 hours ago in Indian Premier League
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Kapil Dev: worries for the future of cricket
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It's too early to predict the future of cricket but it is quite likely that competitive Test cricket will draw an audience comprising both the hoi polloi and purists, writes Ronojoy Sen in the Times of India.
Shah Rukh Khan, India's most successful actor and the owner of the Kolkata franchise, speaks to the Calcutta Telegraph on how he has won the confidence of the side.
The Guardian's Barney Ronay is confused about whether he should join the IPL or not.
Imagine my excitement, then, when I received a call at home from Shahrukh Khan this week. At first I was suspicious. How could I be sure this was indeed Shahrukh Khan, the brightest star in the Bollywood Milky Way and the driving force behind the IPL's blend of excitable showbiz and showbiz excitability.
In the Hindu, Kapil Dev laments the frills associated with the Indian Premier League.
“In times to come you would see teams struggling to survive even 50 overs to save a match because of the mindset of the modern batsmen. I don’t think you will ever get a player like Sunil Gavaskar or Rahul Dravid now."
Herschelle Gibbs speaks to the Cape Times about the standard of the IPL, playing with his new Aussie team-mates and those black boots.
May 9, 2008
Posted 5 days, 2 hours ago in Indian Premier League
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Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the most valuable player at $1.5 million can, technically, be bought by another franchise
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Raghuvir Srinivasan, writing in the Hindu's Business Line website, says that the IPL’s financial structuring remains a mystery to the larger public who heard and read about the astronomical sums that a Dhoni or a Symonds was bought for. Srinivasan draws up two simple tables and analyses the way the IPL has been structured, sizing up the main revenue streams for the franchisees - the sale of broadcast rights, sponsorship, gate receipts in matches at their home grounds and team sponsorship - with two big ticket expenses - player costs and the franchise fee payable to IPL - before asking the question: will the franchises break even in the first year itself? Read on to learn more.
The real action will begin from the next edition in 2009. That is when the franchisees will get a grip on the concept and build on the experience of the first year.
Besides, trading of players could start in right earnest, especially if the BCCI decides to remove the cap of $5 million that is now placed on player purchase. The final proof of the success of IPL will come when the franchisees decide to list their teams. This is a live possibility at least by the third year of the IPL, which is 2010, assuming the concept succeeds.
The more successful teams could be prime candidates for listing, especially if player trading takes off aggressively. That is when the franchisees will feel the need for more capital and what better place to raise it than the stock market.
Sharda Ugra, the deputy editor India Today, says the Royal Challengers owner Vijay Mallya has responded to his team's defeats like a disgruntled fan.
May 7, 2008
Posted 1 week ago in Indian Premier League
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Matthew Hayden perfects the art of 'moving on'
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The Indian Premier League has been a journey of self-discovery for Matthew Hayden, who's come a long way from the infamous "obnoxious little weed" remark on Harbhajan Singh, part of a confrontational summer against India. What Maharishi Mahesh Yogi did for The Beatles, the IPL has done for Hayden, writes Phil Lutton in the Brisbane Times. Read on in stuff.co.nz
"We're quite subtle and we'll give each other a high five and a bit of a hug. Generally speaking, our levels of celebration are quite subdued. From our point of view, we've always looked at the other side and thought 'that's a bit over the top'. But that's the melodramatic nature of their sport - the belief that they have in their culture - and they love success equally as much as Australia."
Posted 1 week ago in Indian Premier League
The IPL has got heads turning and Somini Sengupta, attempting to strip down the Twenty20 tournament for an American audience in the New York Times, says it is "is trying to spin off India’s colonial inheritance into a money-making symbol of a brash, emerging nation". The writer throws in the views of fans of different ages (a flustered mother with a front-row seat, a bored 20-year old), CNN-IBN's Rajdeep Sardesai, yet to convert, and Ramachandra Guha, also dwelling briefly on the cheerleader brouhaha and how loyalties are yet to be formed.
At the game between the Mumbai Indians and the Deccan Chargers, Ambani was in his box with his wife, Nita, and their three children. The whole family wore blue, the team color. Nita Ambani had slapped a Mumbai Indians sticker on the back of her flowing chiffon salwar kameez. The team logo, she pointed out, was a ball of fire, a divine weapon known as a chakra lifted from Hindu mythology.
No matter. Mumbai was losing badly. The Ambanis’ children looked ashen. “I have to keep reminding myself, it’s only a game,” she said.
May 5, 2008
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in Indian Premier League
In the Rediff website, Srinivas Bhogle, Purnendu Maji and Arthur D'Silva crunch numbers to figure out the most valuable player in the IPL so far.
The chief value of the MVP is that it factors in a lot of performance indicators (runs scored, strike rate, wickets taken, economy rate, fielding prowess) into a single index. Better still, the MVP value can be looked upon as a simple "run equivalent". If Shane Watson has a MVP of 292, it means that his combined effort as a batsman, bowler and fielder is equivalent to having scored 292 runs.
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago in Indian Premier League
In the Indian Express, Leher Kala writes on the demands placed on the IPL cheerleaders.
"On the first day we didn't understand cricket at all. Now we get it a litte," says Evgenia Guseva, who is a trained gymnast, ballet dancer and who's been a cheerleader for four years for football matches in Russia. Currently she's learning hip-hop and salsa in Moscow and plans to open her own dance school soon.
The IPL is in desperate search of a new grammar where emotions are on a raw edge and everyone is so passionately involved that he needs to hit to opponent to prove his commitment, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
In the same paper, Varun Gupta writes on the mystery over Shane Warne and his love for No.23.
May 4, 2008
Posted 1 week, 3 days ago in Indian Premier League
Three weeks into the IPL, James Robinson of the Observer makes his observations on cricket's traveling circus and catches up with a few fans along the way.
Exhaust fumes rise, mixing with the smoke from a spectacular firework display, but through the haze and smog the floodlights glimmer in the distance, soaring high above the street vendors and crowds of spectators swarming into the stadium. When the cacophony of engine noise and police sirens subsides, the rhythmic beat of traditional Punjabi Dhol drums floats through the night-time air.
May 3, 2008
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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Is Shane Warne really angry or upto one of his masterful mind-games?
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Sharda Ugra, the deputy editor of India Today, doesn't think Warne v Ganguly will mean as much in the context of the IPL.
Yet there is an air of the ho-hum about this Warne-inspired needle-fest. His grouse(s) against Ganguly may be justified but the blond bad boy has, after all, made his reputation not just as the king of spin but also as the master of the mind game. His late-night press conference in Jaipur where he launched his offensive seemed more theatrical than enraged. As fine a piece of theatre as it was, it hasn’t quite generated the frisson of animosity it would have in another context.
That other context is, of course, international cricket; when playing for Australia, Warne may have yet said what he did about an opponent, probably not at a press conference but a syndicated newspaper column. His words would have loomed over every other encounter and involved every man on either side.
Elsewhere, the Telegraph's Austin Peters, reveals how Jeremy Snape, the Rajasthan Royals' performance coach, has impressed the side and won Shane Warne's confidence.
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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So who's telling the truth now?
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Why Saheba has decided to deny a conversation that took place with his consent at his residence in Ahmedabad over several plates of yummy kesar-pista ice-cream as he happily posed for pictures is a mystery to us.
The conversation with Mirror's Tapan Joshi, in fact, was the third time that day Saheba was going over what had transpired during the Mohali match. Earlier that morning, Saheba was part of a talk show on Radio Mirchi with RJ Dhwanit and Tapan Joshi.
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
Instead of being banned for 11 matches by the organisers of IPL for having slapped Sree Santh, Harbhajan Singh should have been given a medal, writes a cheeky Jug Suraiya in the Times of India.
By giving Sree Santh a high-five across his face, Bhajji not only subsumed the noble traditions of cricket into the even nobler traditions of pugilism, but also brought the sport back into consonance with present-day Indian culture, as manifested by road rage, mob rule and fisticuffs in Parliament, another once-British institution which has been thoroughly indigenised thanks to the vernacular rituals of chappal-throwing and storming the well of the House.
Both Harbhajan and Sreesanth have a history of abuse and both could be in deep trouble, says Shantanu Guha Ray in the Tehelka magazine.
It is now evident that under the guise of this entity repeatedly and tiresomely called “fearless, young India”, all lines of conduct are being treated as mere patterns in the sand, writes Sharda Ugra in the India Today.
May 2, 2008
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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Simon Katich got up close and personal with Glenn McGrath
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Peter Lalor, writing in the Australian, speaks to Simon Katich about his brief Indian Premier League stint. He faced Glenn McGrath for the first time in a match, judged a talent contest and was reluctant to leave because he was having so much fun.
"There was a lot of hype with the tournament and the amount of money invested at the start," Katich said. "But in a way that has helped the intensity because everybody knows this was high stakes which put extra pressure on the performance.
"The other thing was that you always want to perform in front of big crowds and that spurs everybody on to play really good cricket.”
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in Indian Premier League
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Muttiah Muralitharan: enjoying his stint in Chennai
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Muttiah Muralitharan says he never wanted captaincy because he felt he didn't have the qualities to be a good leader. R Kaushik interviews him in the Deccan Herald.
It’s essential for the captain to stay cool and not put pressure on the players in the team, even if he is upset. If the captain shows he is upset, the bowlers get upset and commit more mistakes. But if the captain is relaxed, the bowlers will draw confidence from that. Mahela is a lot like that, he doesn’t take pressure and he doesn’t put pressure. But Dhoni is cooler than any other captain because he takes it so easy.
Read the Sportstar for a piece on another spin wizard. More than a year after he retired from international cricket, Shane Warne continues to show he has few equals in making things happen, writes S Ram Mahesh.
However, foreign cricketers have found few takers in terms of brand associations, writes Ratna Bhushan in the Economic Times. Sports management agencies attribute this to most Indian advertisers still preferring local players, there not being enough time in the itinerary of the foreign players and the season not being long enough.
With that in mind read GS Vivek's story in the Indian Express where he speaks to Chennai's two unheralded stars in the IPL.
Posted 1 week, 5 days ago in Indian Premier League
The euphoria of having discovered a new world of cricket cannot be at the cost of certain enduring traditions, writes Rajdeep Sardesai in the Hindustan Times.
Sport is ultimately about a deep emotional connect between players and fans and not about transient pleasures derived from being part of a three-hour extravaganza. There is almost something sacred about this relationship that cannot be diluted by flashy music videos, glamorous cheerleaders and even more magnetic film stars. When on-field tension is matched by off-the-field hype, when the camera focuses relentlessly on the stars and the dancers instead of the cricketers, then questions must be raised about the direction the sport is headed.
Also read Rohit Mahajan in the Outlook.
The IPL's first week has revealed a flaw that could prove fatal, an identity crisis that looks like it will need the last million dollars of the marketing men to be resolved.
May 1, 2008
Posted 1 week, 6 days ago in Indian Premier League
Michael Atherton, in his first week as The Times’ chief cricket correspondent, casts his eye over the IPL Twenty20 and then the ramifications of the shorter format on all forms of the game. Here he is on the Indian tournament:
Crucially for its future success, the players have taken to it wholeheartedly. This is not surprising when you consider the financial rewards on offer, but when, after the first match, Brendon McCullum, the New Zealander who scored 158 for the Kolkata Knight Riders, said that he could not feel his legs for the first eight balls he faced because of nerves, it was a good sign.
For sports fans are discerning enough to smell a fraud. They need to sense that it matters to players how they perform and whether they win or lose, which is why mere exhibition matches have never taken off. H.L. Mencken's dictum that you never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the public may work for daytime television producers and Hollywood directors, but not for sport. The players care, the public want it and on that basis alone Twenty20 is here to stay. It will drive the finances of domestic cricket the world over.
Over in the Telegraph, Simon Hughes writes that English cricket needs to copy the IPL model. Whatever happens, he says, players will do well financially, concluding: "All in all, not a bad time to be a professional cricketer, eh?"
Posted 1 week, 6 days ago in Indian Premier League
"One of the reasons why the Indians run foul with authorities is because there is very little sledging in first-class cricket in India," writes Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the Hindustan Times. "It's when these youngsters get into the international level that they see and hear what the other teams are saying and some of them try it, but without the expertise of their foreign counterparts. I have said this in the past: sledging is an art, and our players must learn it well before practicing it. Otherwise bans and fines will always be handed out to them."
April 30, 2008
Posted 1 week, 6 days ago in Indian Premier League
Writing in the Guardian blog, Dileep Premachandran believes that Harbhajan's slap on Sreesanth may prompt a welcome change of attitude in Indian cricket.
On Tuesday night, I was part of a panel that debated the controversies that have spiced up the IPL's opening week, and there was complete agreement among the audience when it was suggested that all of India had a right to feel let down after what Harbhajan did.
Posted 2 weeks ago in Indian Premier League
Are players performing up to their IPL price tags? The Economic Times works out their moolah-run rate and finds that Abhishek Nayar, Shane Watson and Yusuf Pathan have fared much better than star players Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Andrew Symonds and Rahul Dravid.
In the Times of India Daniel Vettori, who leaves for England on May 1, hopes to make his IPL exit on a winning note, while Mark Boucher thinks the Bangalore Royal Challengers won't be too affected by the Australian and New Zealand exodus.
Posted 2 weeks ago in Indian Premier League
Anil Kumble has bowled alongside Harbhajan Singh for a decade and is now his Test captain. Regarding the latest controversy that Harbhajan was involved in - an on-field spat with Sreesanth - Kumble writes in the Hindustan Times that it's important someone ensures that players are given the right kind of advice, that there are professionals around to help them cope with fame and handle the money it brings.
Players need to learn to respect the opposition and most importantly, to gain the respect of everyone. It's very important to understand what you should not say instead of what you would naturally say.
At the same time, just because you're a cricketer, it doesn't mean you hold back constantly and suppress your normal character. But because people watch, learn, imitate you, it’s vital to find a balance. Which is why perhaps, we need to be educated on how to handle success and failure…
In the Indian Express, Kunal Pradhan asks how the Indian board and media would have reacted if Harbhajan had slapped a foreign player?
As we sit in judgment over Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth, it would perhaps be prudent to evaluate our own attitude. There is no denying that the off-spinner is out of control and the fast bowler is no saint. To put it bluntly, they have both got what was coming their way for a while now. But weren’t we standing and cheering as these players became emboldened with every misdemeanour they committed?
April 29, 2008
Posted 2 weeks, 1 day ago in Indian Premier League
While the BCCI probes the Harbhajan-Sreesanth controversy, Amiesh Saheba, one of the on-field umpires, offers hints as to what instigated Harbhajan to slap his opponent. Saheba says Sreesanth relentlessly abused the Punjab players through the match, despite being warned twice by the umpires. However, he condemns Harbhajan's reaction. Mumbai Mirror has the full story.
"Sreesanth was sledging Mumbai's batsmen right from the start. He was over-the-top throughout the match and was acting like a petulant schoolboy."
On the topic of infamous altercations on the field, Mid-Day caught up with Rashid Patel, the left-arm seamer who was banned by the Indian board for 13 months in 1991 for chasing Raman Lamba with a stump during a Duleep Trophy match. Patel advices Harbhajan Singh to keep himself occupied and work on his spin variations and forget he's serving a sentence.
During my ban period, I supervised Baroda’s Ranji Trophy preparatory camp. Harbhajan can help his teammates too. I firmly believe that a cricketer can continue to learn by observing others at play and there is a lot of action that Harbhajan can watch.
Meanwhile, Andrew Symonds, who was caught up with his all entanglements with Harbhajan in Australia, says he is "much better off" after his IPL stint in India. Sandeep Dwivedi of the Indian Express caught up with him on the sidelines of an ad shoot.
Posted 2 weeks, 1 day ago in Indian Premier League
A day after the theft of power cables at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, there are signs of a larger controversy brewing, with the Cricket Association of Bengal chief Prasun Mukherjee fearing that yesterday’s thefts and the April 20 floodlight fiasco are “linked” and part of a “larger concerted effort to sabotage” the IPL matches in Kolkata. Expect a thick security cover when Kolkata take on Mumbai on Tuesday. The Indian Express has more.
While Kolkata Police Commissioner GM Chakrabarti has deployed policemen in huge numbers at the stadium — almost turning the ground into a fortress — the CAB has hired a 25-member security team from Group-4 Securicos for round-the-clock vigil. The city police chief, meanwhile, briefed that a few people were being interrogated over the power cord thefts at the Eden Gardens.
April 28, 2008
Posted 2 weeks, 2 days ago in Indian Premier League
Harbhajan Singh has been temporarily suspended from the Mumbai Indians side for his on-field altercation with Sreesanth and the Hindustan Times editors wonder if they were wrong in presuming the new professionalism among Indian cricketers would actually spur IPL rivals to egg each other on when it comes to playing for India.
According to the Indian Express editorial, the BCCI should be concerned about the iconisation of its cricketers.
It was obviously felt that an Indian icon was required by the squads for a sense of city loyalty to coalesce around each of them. Without the stars, it could be said, the IPL as a summertime entertainer would not be possible.
Harbhajan’s outrageous — though unsurprising — behaviour shows the dangers of nurturing the star system.
In the Times of India Sanjay Manjrekar writes that the clash has given the IPL governing council and excellent opportunity opportunity to show the cricketing world and especially its skeptics, that underneath all its million dollars and the glamour, the fanfare and the uninhibited commercialisation of the sport, rests a pure cricketing soul.
Mid-Day, a Mumbai-based tabloid, carries an account of an on-field brawl between Farokh Engineer, the match referee in the Mohali game, and team-mate Abid Ali in a Prudential Cup match in 1975.
The Engineer-Abid scrap did not get physical but water was thrown at each other much to the disgust of late manager G S Ramchand whose expensive suit was more than just damp.
Also read the letters to the Hindu editor from readers disappointed with the incident.
April 27, 2008
Posted 2 weeks, 3 days ago in Indian Premier League
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The volatile Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh
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Harbhajan Singh is involved in yet another on-field controversy and Times of India's Bobilli Vijay Kumar wants to know how long have these wounds been festering between these two highly volatile players, what riled Harbhajan so much that he couldn’t keep his fist to himself and whether he has become a chronic case?
Despite having played international cricket for a decade and being one of the more experienced players in the side, Harbhajan is never referred to as one of the senior players, writes Anand Vasu. Kadambari Murali, meanwhile, writes that its difficult to think of Sreesanth and think cricket. What comes to mind is an attention-seeking problem child. Read them in the Hindustan Times.
Posted 2 weeks, 3 days ago in Indian Premier League
In this great attempt to make the IPL appear the biggest success of the century none of us is being told how the organisers, except perhaps in Kolkata, are struggling to sell tickets and most of the full houses we watched are courtesy generously distributed passes, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
That the media too has lapped up this concept is evident from the amount of space being given to in newspapers and TV channels. What I found baffling was that when the news channels were discussing the issue of cheerleaders, they only harped upon the wrongs of moral policing and how our politicians are 'spolitsports'. No one focused on the fact that the cheerleaders themselves are feeling harassed by the crowd and find themselves the target of appalling, shocking and disgusting comments.
Deccan Chargers are still to win a game and their captain VVS Laxman is copping a lot of flak for their poor show. Sandeep Dwivedi writes in the Indian Express:
When VVS Laxman entered Eden Gardens to play his first Twenty20 game, it was akin to a maestro turning up for a boy-band on a stage that had witnessed his timeless classic.
The IPL’s entire structure rests on the TV ratings advertising generator for which it is critical that on TV it continues to look like it has host cities agog— for the next five weeks, writes Sharda Ugra in India Today.
April 25, 2008
Posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
He’s been the ‘Sheik of Tweak’ and ‘Hollywood’ for years, but now Shane Warne is the ‘IPL King’, according to the Australian’s Bruce Loudon. Warne is not only the captain, coach and match-winner, but he has also picked up some Hindi.
There can be no minimising the reality that the Hollywood ending and high drama of the match against the Chargers shows that Warne is king not just of the Rajasthan Royals but the entire event.
Ron Reed says in the Herald Sun he can’t watch more than 12 overs of an IPL game because there is no emotional attachment, which is “pretty much a must-have ingredient if sport is to be meaningful”.
Who cares if the Deccan Chargers beat the Rajasthan Royals? Not this column, that's for sure. The fans in India might, but if it is Australians doing most of the heavy lifting - as has been the case in most matches so far - does that dilute the dynamics?
Jamie Pandaram, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says there is no telling what character the one-week-old IPL will develop. In the Age Chloe Saltau takes a look at Andrew Symonds’ form.
Posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago in Indian Premier League
Harsha Bhogle, in his column in the Indian Express, says the IPL has worked after its first week.
The ads have been good, some of the anthems have been excellent; the fireworks have gone off and the dancers are showing a lot of energy. But cricket is winning, as we always knew it would. The first week of the IPL has worked. Now it must draw repeat crowds, it must be a success in its fourth week. Chances are it will do more than just that; I sense we are seeing a lifestyle change, like the personal computer, broadband and digital music.
The sceptics abound and that is not bad because success must be challenged; new thought must stand up to scrutiny. The first people who said the world was round took a long time convincing others. This will be a much shorter journey towards acceptance. Maybe it has already happened .
Meanwhile, the Hindustan Times' Arjun Sen has blamed the Indian Cricket League for the poor turn out for the IPL games in Hyderabad.
April 24, 2008
Posted 2 weeks, 6 days ago in Indian Premier League
The Indian Premier League (IPL) may think of the Indian Cricket League (ICL) as a rebel without a cause and the feeling may well be reciprocated but, when it comes to hiring technicians, cheerleaders and even Bollywood stars, they seem like brothers in arms, writes Anam Arsalan in the Hindustan Times.
Two Russian cheerleaders, Katrina and Maria, who put on their dancing shoes for the ICL, are now busy entertaining supporters of the Jaipur IPL team. Their choreographer, Sylvester, said: “They are freelancers, so when they were performing at the ICL, they got an offer from an IPL team. So, now you can see them performing there as well.”
In more ways than one, Warne is an ambassador for the IPL, writes R Mohan in the Asian Age.
April 23, 2008
Posted 2 weeks, 6 days ago in Indian Premier League
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.
Posted 2 weeks, 6 days ago in Indian Premier League
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!
Posted 3 weeks ago in Indian Premier League
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Spotting talent: Shane Warne has shown faith in the unheralded Dinesh Salunkhe
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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
Posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago 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 3 weeks, 1 day ago 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
Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago 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?
Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago 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
Posted 3 weeks, 3 days ago in Indian Premier League
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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
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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.
Posted 3 weeks, 3 days ago in Indian Premier League
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Brendon McCullum can now have his pick of adverts and endorsements in India
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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
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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Fireworks before the game and plenty from McCullum too
© Aneesh Bhatnagar
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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.
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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.
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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No cold vibes between Dhoni and Yuvraj
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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.
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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.
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago in Indian Premier League
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 3 weeks, 4 days ago 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.
Posted 3 weeks, 5 days ago 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
Posted 3 weeks, 5 days ago 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
Posted 3 weeks, 6 days ago in IPL
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
Posted 3 weeks, 6 days ago 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 t |
