Saturday, February 23, 2008

Coming this summer, the biggest circus of them all !!!!

So its official now. The game of cricket, certainly the 44 day circus called the Indian Premier League, can be safely classified in the category of 'Sports Entertainment', alongwith with the likes of WWE. Each cricketer has been valuated, just as equity research houses throughout the world value stocks. The difference, of course, is that the cricketers valuation is lacking any fundamental analysis (and some would say, also lacking rhyme or reason). But today, every cricketer worth his salt has a price tag attached to him and is avaliable for being bought and sold, just like any stock, commodity, toothbrush and toilet paper. Most of the reactions to the auction last week have been extreme. Some have lamented the 'death of cricket' while others have written that 'it was pathetic to see Rahul Dravid sitting besides Vijay Mallya like his secretary'. The best quote comes from Andrew Webster in the Sydney Morning Herald and it goes '"While a cricketer's value can be determined by a salivating squillionaire, a man's worth can only be determined by his actions," . After all this outburst, the stage now will shift to the grounds where the eight franchises (note that I refuse to call them 'teams' because this motley formation is an insult to that word since I cannot see, for example, any common objective being shared by Brett Lee and Sreesanth while playing for Chandigarh) will 'do battle' against each other. But I am terribly sceptical about the level of competition that will be on display. The reasons are many:
1. At 44 days, the tournament is too long a la the World Cup last year. Each franchisee playing 14 games is a bit too much. And even though they will be playing at night, it can be terribly hot and sweaty during summer evenings here.
2. So many games can also bring in spectator fatigue which in turn can affect the players' level of intensity.
3. But most importantly, is there going to be any pride for which they will be playing for. A large of part of sports thrives on pride (whether it be local, state or national) and the emotions arising out of that pride is what drives true sportsman more than being employed for a million dollars by an industrialist/Bollywood superstar to do a job. In the absence of this pride, how will this galaxy of stars motivate themselves ? We all remember the terrible cricket dished out by the ICC World XI in the super series a few years back.

To add to this, what about the spectators ? The onus of the success of the IPL (and other leagues of its ilk) depends on the support by the fans, both in terms of attendances as well as television eyeballs). But the majority of spectators in India watch the game only because of national pride which is why reactions are so extremely good or extremely bad. Now I live in Mumbai but will I support the Mumbai franchisee ? Atleast I have my talisman player in 'my' franchisee but what about someone living in Chennai ? Will he support the Chennai franchisee and the likes of Dhoni and Hayden ? On what grounds should he ? As of today, there is not even a single local player in that franchisee. To make matters worse, a Rohit Sharma is playing for Hyderabad. Now if he is playing against the Mumbai franchisee at the Wankhede and is leading a run chase, do i egg him on or pray for his dismissal ? A point also made by Kunal Pradhan in the Indian Express. The least that they could have done is to remove the cities from this whole mess and called them simply "Reliance Industries XI" or "King Khan's Superstars" or "Priety Zinta's Heroes" !!!. Spectators are going to find it hard to support their franchisee. and It is all going to be quite confusing. But inspite of all this, and inspite of the fact that I am not a great fan of this whole concept, I find it unlikely that the IPL circus will fail. Alas !!

Amit

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