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IPL – changing the face of cricket
Monday, Jun 02 2008
Truth to tell, the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament has been rather addictive and over the past six weeks, it has had hundreds of converts who had initially viewed the supposedly slam-bang stuff with some skepticism. But with daily telecasts, plenty of sixes and fours, thrilling finishes and some memorable individual performances, the IPL did catch on and how!
And now, it would take some getting used to spending the evenings without the IPL action. On April 18, there was justifiable apprehension about the success of the tournament when the Kolkata Knight Riders took on the Royal Challengers at the M Channaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.
But then, Brendon McCullum provided the kind of start that had all the eight teams salivating and the Kiwi opener dished out fireworks in the course of his century that set the ball rolling in the IPL
On Sunday, June 1, at the DY Patil Staidum in Mumbai, the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals scripted a near-perfect finish to the IPL with the Jaipur team winning the trophy on the last ball of the match.
The IPL brought together top players from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies to play alongside their Indian counterparts in a fantastic mix-and-match environment. To top it, the rules requiring the inclusion of home grown talent in the form of Indian Under-19 players besides those from the region of the franchise lent a different dimension to the IPL.
Thus, in more ways than one, the IPL has been a trend setter, taking cricket to a new level while offering a platform for the cream of World’s cricketing talent to showcase their ability. Of course, there is scope for further fine-tuning as the 2008 edition was a learning curve for just about everyone, including the organisers themselves.
Even as the IPL showered riches on the players, given the unprecedented salaries, there are strong indications that other cricketing nations are keen on launching their own leagues. In this context, the IPL has been a trail-blazer.
It is still early days yet and it remains to be seen whether other nations would be as successful as India or even able to match the IPL in size and financial backing. There are already talks about having two IPL in a calendar year, but the IPL commissioner Lalit Modi was spot on when he rejected such thoughts saying the league needs to be nurtured and developed before it could be expanded by way of additional teams or frequency.
For the Chennai Super Kings, it was a memorable run to the final after suffering some shock defeats along the way. However, when it mattered most, the Super Kings got their act together, especially in the semi-finals against the Kings XI Punjab when the Chennai outfit, ably led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, turned on the heat with a brilliant team effort.
If anything, on the basis of performances in the 2008 IPL, there is bound to a revaluation of players as the franchises themselves would be keen to revisit their decisions on player choice. This year, just about everyone was racing against time and mistakes do happen when decisions are taken in haste.
However, at the end of it all, it was one big party that attracted unprecedented viewership and that in turn provided the final seal of approval to the IPL.
Lalit Modi, during his speech on the eve of the final, admitted that mistakes were made, but then these would be rectified for the next season.
The purists might remain unconvinced that T20 is the way forward, but for the huge paying public and the cricketers themselves, the IPL was a manna from heaven in more ways than one.
- A.R. Ramakrishnan
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