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April 28, 2008
Posted 2 weeks, 2 days ago in IPL
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Shane Watson - 'blown away' (file photo)
© Getty Images
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Will Swanton writes in the Sydney Morning Herald on the galvanising effects of the IPL which is bringing global harmony:
The IPL was supposed to divide the cricketing world. Instead, it's bringing an end to racial hostilities. All they need to do now is get Harbhajan Singh to stop slapping his fellow Indians around.
Shane Watson has been “blown away” by the IPL and thinks it will be good for future international matches. He tells the paper:
“It's like a celebration of cricket. You have Indian players playing with Australians and South Africans and Pakistanis and you get the chance to know blokes you didn't really know before. There's such a different range of players in every team, and it's going to break down a lot of the bad feelings or bad communication there might have been before. There will always be strong rivalries when we go back to having countries playing each other, but this is bringing a lot of people together.”
April 23, 2008
Posted 2 weeks, 6 days ago in IPL
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.
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 4 weeks ago in IPL
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.
March 6, 2008
Posted on 03/06/2008 in IPL
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.”
February 26, 2008
Posted on 02/26/2008 in IPL
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 17, 2008
Posted on 02/17/2008 in IPL
Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane were probably the greatest footballers to play for France. Eric Cantona holds a French passport but won fame and fortune at Manchester United. Is the IPL going to create cricket's Cantonas, asks Ashok Malik in The Pioneer.
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