1.When IPL was launched last summer, it was intended to polarize the country into different teams localized to a city/state, a model which is not new for sporting leagues and events across the globe. The franchise owners of the IPL teams, self proclaiming to be lovers of the game, have lost a touch of common sense in equating business with the love for the game among the Indian crowd. Take for instance, Chennai fans, known to be the best behaved and a passionate cricket loving crowd is yet to see any honest attachment of their Super-kings team with their home city “Chennai”. CSK fans are made to witness a promo of their own team in Hindi- “Enna Koduma Saravanan ithu!” (Sorry,Chennai jargon).Most IPL teams have failed to capture the essence of their own backyard. Sorry, but does that make any sense considering the theme of the league? 2Sony Max back in 2003 World Cup introduced a female host on screen, for a cricket analysis show with absolutely no knowledge of the game, as a ploy to attract more women towards the game (or was it meant otherwise?). Needless to say the kind of reaction and attention that female anchor generated, irrespective of all ages.The channel is back again this IPL season, with cricket analysts who analyze the matches most of the time in HINDI. If this was again their ploy to increase their viewer base, then I won’t be surprised to see their analysts speaking in Tamil or Kannada or Telugu or Bengali during CSK, RCB or KKR matches in the future. And why is Arun Lal, a distinguished unlucky commentator for Indian matches, known for his English fluency while commentating, analyzing the game in Hindi? Sorry but did I hear an echo prompting “NO COMMON SENSE”.
3.Lalit Modi, the proud chairman and the brain behind the successful league may have caught attention for his dramatic management skills in making IPL possible in a short interval in South Africa. If an event of this magnitude can be set in a different country in just a few weeks, what prevented him from letting Pakistan players to play in the league? Preventing the players to play on grounds of time surpassed in announcing the final list of team players sounds absurd and is a mockery to the professional standards set by Modi himself in conducting the league.
4.The PAGE 3 IPL owners, are making more news than the Wisden listed top cricketers for reasons which makes lesser sense than saying Mr.Lalu Prasad will be the next Prime Minister of India .- KKR has a owner who doesnt mind a foreign coach bossing his team and eventually ousting his captain,a man who is a demigod to their home city;Sacked from captaincy not on the grounds of performance or ability to lead the team but because of some extra terrestrial theories of their so called successful coach.
- RCB owner Mallya has no doubt raised eyebrows with his highest bid for Pietersen in the recent IPL auction. What went unnoticed was the exchange of Zaheer khan to Mumbai for the Bangalore lad Uthappa. And does this decision make any cricketing sense? Why would anybody trade one among the best contemporary bowlers of a “Batsman’s game” to a mediocre batsman. If it was because, he is a home lad, then I doubt whether even cricket fans from Banglore would agree to that.
- A celebrity team owner ("Big sister") on conversation with their team pace bowler commented- “I hope you spin the ball better this time around!”. Sorry, but it hurts now to be a purist of the game after hearing such comments from people who talk absolutely no sense on the game of Cricket. Thanks to IPL for giving them this platform.
