The IPL League ...Cricket's New Avatar

With the first round of biddings for the players completed at The Hilton's in Mumbai the game of cricket has entered a new era . Without any doubt this is a path breaking move and the game of cricket will surely enrich from this format although its to early to say the magnitude of success that this league may get in India and the whole world.

The reason for IPL

Its an open secret that the only reason BCCI pushed for thsi format was to thwart any attempt from Essel's group lead ICL to uproot the former .The November event of ICL was an eye opener for BCCI .Although that tournament was far from being called a success .. BCCI knew that unless something is not done quickly enough there may be more rebellion , and the small menace may become a big problem in the near future.So BCCI pulled a coup of a sort by announcing IPL and flexing its Muscels in order that ICC recognises the event and a new International 2020 Championship has been proprosed as well.

As of now this move is looking like a big success and the BCCI without much of a trouble are laughing all the way to the banks as its account swells exponentially.

The Format

The DLF 20 20 will be played on a home and away basis similar to the way EPL is played.So the 8 teams based on major city will compete and fight for the covoted trophy . The purpose is to generate city based passions among the people their and soon cash on that feeling. Already the television rights , series sponsorships and teams have been finalised and with the major players already put under the hammer its clear that there's a copius amount of money flowing in .So what is the logic behind this mad rush ,why are the industrial goliaths so much interested in this game . Let's find out.

What the franchisees gain ?

Or rather say hope to gain from this whole procedure. The strategy is clear if we look the way the players were chosen. The Indian players even though less on skills were bidded at much higher price while the estabished foreign stars with their superb record were favoureda s second choice when c ompard to Indians, except a few ones .This is because of the following reasons :-

1. The Indian players will be able to create a great fan following among the people and their mass appeal will keep the ticket counters busy.




2. The Indian are very passionate about their players and trate them as demi gods so even one big performance will mean that the craze for that player remains till the end of the tournament.




3. The biggest reason which these men and women in coats may not tell you is that the Indian players will be utilised to feature in ads of the company and thus money spent here may be recovered elsewhere.

So this again puts one big question in front of us .. Will this attitude help them in the long run. The answer is both yes and no .. the reason is that yes the teams will be able to garner instant support and thus create a market for them and if they use it properly their fortunes may rise in the verticles they are operating in.For example a good performance by MS Dhoni may make the Indian Cements the owner of Chennai IPL team a national name and this will put them a step ahead of their other rivals .

The answer is no as a string of poor performance by these stars may mean people going to other brands . So from my view a team which is able to strike out a balance between these two will win the long drawn battle. I am not talking about this year alone but the whole psychology and the hidden agenda behind participating in this tourney.

The players

What ever is done off the field will be forgotten once the real action begins on 19th April as finally its the performance of these players that count. The international players are certainly richer now and their accounts have swollen by sums that have never been seen before in the cricketing world .

But this has put them at crossroads. Not many months back most of them were shouting of the cramped schedule of ICC and were crying for some rest. April happens to be the off season in many of the cricketing nations and the little time they had for rest will be consumed by this event.

So the players wil lhave to much fitter as the preasure to perform will be there and they will always be the danger of picking up injuries and detiorating the niggles and minor ones that most of teh players suffer from .

The biggest problem may be of that the senior players of many teams will contemplate retirement much earlier in order to take part in the game as it provides them the opprtunity to collect quick bucks by playing just for 44 days .

The biggest advantage that may come out is that the Indian domestic players which must not be forgotten will form the voluminous part of the team will gain a big exposure which is rarely seen on Ranji matches and this will be a big platform where if they perform well would be catapulted to the national level .

The advantages

There are certainly few big adavantage of this tourament which cannot get unnoticed .

1. The fact that the indian domestic players will get international sxposure and a once in a life chance to rub shoulders with some of the cricketing legends .




2. The Indian grounds will get a big facelift particularly in terms of value addition and basic eminities like the toilet facilities , refresments , better seating facilities , and certainly the chance to see live performance by some big Bollywood names in between the matches.




3. The pitches of the Indian ground may get some life as the BCCI is looking for truer ptches that have the ability to have good bounce and have uniformity, also the teams may look at their own intersts for eg. Kolkatta may give the Eden Garden's pithc a green flavour so that Ishant , Shoib ,Gul and co. can utilise the conditions well enough to put a shockwave in the opponent 's side.




4. The ground's condition may improve further in order to provide quick and lush green outfield .So the often seen patchy outfield of Jaipur may soon be replaced by lush green one like the Lord's .




5. This will be an opportunity to spread the game further as it can be shownto the eorld as a showcase event and many associate countries may get the adrenaline to prduce a competative team in the near future.

The problems

An old Russian saying goes ,"Hope for the best but prepare for the worst".The organisers must be carefull of not counting the chickens even before the eggs hatch.The reason is obvius , the Indians are not a big fan of club culture as inspite of their massive efforts the football clubs of India have been unable to get a nationwide popularity.

Second, with the amount of money involved there may be a case where it may ot be recoverd in the initial phase.

Third , which should concern the BCCI is that in there effort to make IPL a success they may further alienate Ranji and other domestic games which are certainly poor cousins as compared to IPL.

Fourth and final one is that the 2020 although seen as a teh next destination of cricket may well be unable to produce great batsmen like Sunny Gavaskar and Allan Border .The case of bowlers is even more pityful as the era of fast fiery bowlers like Walsh , Ambrose , Donald may well be a thing of past.

The final word

Criket is charting a new fight in terretories hitherto unknown and the jury is still out whether this tournament will be a success or not.But one thing is clear this is a revolution of a sort and may out cricketers at the same place with other world reknowned players like Federer , Woods , Beckham etc. and it will be a mouthwatering clash to see Ponting being bamboozled by a Warne delivery or an Ishant bouncer taking a wind out of Sachin Tendulkar.

We are all waiting to see!