More thoughts on IPL 2.0

Following up the previous post, here are some more thoughts on the IPL second season,

• Charity really should begin at home. As honorable as the intentions may be, handing out money to schools in South Africa will only buy temporary goodwill and cheap publicity. If you are really serious about making a difference for the stakeholders of the game, please start by using that money to improve some of the pathetic facilities that spectators have to put up with at most Indian cricket grounds.
• I could not talk about commentators and not mention Rameez Raja. He has to be confined to the bins for the sheer banality he brings in terms of cricket acumen and sorry for the snobbishness, for the fact that he has got all the phonetics of the English language completely wrong. Notice the next time you hear him say ‘air’ and ‘there’. Also shaving your moustache and trying to be retro-cool with that 1970’s Amitabh Bachchan hairstyle blowing in your face is not going to make you a better commentator. Its going to make you only more unbearable if anything.
• A few owners have shown that they have more money than sense. Case in point Shahrukh Khan trying to outbid Preity Zinta for Mashrafe Mortaza to US$ 600,000 so he can sell some more shirts. Who then goes on to concede 26 runs in a final over to lose a game the Kolkata Knightriders should have sleepwalked to victory. Also Pietersen and Flintoff, for all their reputations, were not worth to be the most expensive players in the auctions largely because they are untested and unproven in the T20 format. It was also a travesty that Shakib al Hasan, the no. 1 allrounder in the world as per the ICC’s rankings, could not find a buyer at the auction. He could have potentially been the bargain of the season.
• Also owners must learn to separate ownership from management. Wanting to sleep with all your players (SRK), hugging each one of them (Preity Zinta), throwing alcohol, parties and models at them (Vijay Mallya), publicly admonishing your captain (Mallya last year), cozying up to them in the dugout (Deccan Chargers owner and Nita Ambani), calling a fast bowler a spinner in a press conference (Shilpa Shetty) amongst others is not going to help your team win. What will help them is a clearly defined leader, strategy, unity in the dressing room and the hard yards on the field. Simple
• T20 as a format has enough action packed in itself to form an entertainment package. So the traveling circus and sideshow comprising of Lalit Modi himself, larger than life owners, incessantly loud commentary team, PR people and performers must know when to step aside and let the cricket do the talking. I would add cheerleaders to the list, but thats only a personal opinion.
• Strategic time-out. That great novelty under the pretense of innovation must be done away with. Modi might even convert each innings into 4 quarters should the credit crunch really start affecting the IPL. But its only a hindrance. T20 is about constant flow of play and action. The super over seems to be even worse that the penalty shootout from football. Nothing to spoil a hard fought drawn contest between 2 equal teams than batsman/bowler who loses his marbles in one ‘super over’. A draw not only can be a satisfying contest some times but also adds another dimension to the league table through the splitting of points.
• Some of the team branding from the franchises has been pretty poor. Mumbai Indians! Geographically my closest franchise but one I refuse to support because of the name they have. Kings XI Punjab! To put it simply, WTF. Royal Challengers Bangalore is merely another platform for Vijay Mallya to further his brand of whiskey. But then they could have done worse like Force India F1! Rajasthan Royals have got it right in terms of geographical representation of culture and Kolkata Knightriders for sheer innovation and wackiness. The rest are ok, neither here nor there.
• Change the second game start time from 8 pm to 7 pm. I just cannot conjure up the energy to stay upto midnight watching cricket anymore, as much as I want to. And the strategic timeouts don’t help.
• The great innovator that he may think he may be but Lalit Modi must not forget that he was beaten to the city based T20 franchise concept by the Indian Cricket League formed by Zee. It helped that the BCCI is a law onto themselves who then awoke from their slumber and banned the ICL so that their blue eyed boy could steal a march over them to go on and hastily create the IPL. This was all conveniently helped by the fact that India also managed to win the first T20 World Cup in 2007. All this ironic since it was the BCCI who pooh poohed the T20 concept in its infancy and was the last take it up seriously amongst all the playing nations.

To be concluded......