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The IPL Aftermath
The IPL got over early in June after almost a month and a half of cricket frenzy. IPL will be liked by many, disliked by the purists; but there is no doubt that it has changed the course of the game forever. Like any change, the IPL comes with its pros and cons.
Pros
- Cricket as a Career: Sports has never been a career choice for majority of the Indians unless they are super talented, and cricket is no exception. Bar the top 16 who found their way into the National team, the remaining hundreds struggled for a decent living. The IPL ensures that the select 16 are no more the ones who make all the money. In the current IPL at least 100 Indian cricketers made money. With more IPL versions, the number of teams is sure to increase and I foresee a B division of IPL as well in the near future. This ensures that youngsters in India can look at cricket as a serious career option even if they do not make the select 16 of the Indian team.
- New Talent on display: IPL serves as a great platform for youngsters and out of favor cricketers to showcase their talent and stake a claim to the Indian team. Typical success stories include Yusuf Pathan and Manpreet Gony. Also a part of the list are the Asnodkars, the Shikhar Dhawans, the Abishek Nairs, the Amit Sharmas and their likes. Good performances in the IPL provide good leverage to these cricketers, which was hard in the pre IPL days where the domestic matches suffered from low viewership.
- Shortened format: The shortened T20 format is not an IPL innovation per se, but the IPL has used it as its core value prop for the non hard core cricketing fraternity. Families, Ladies, even House Wives now watch the game that was earlier viewed as the hardcore fanzone. This increases the spread of the game and has added the fun aspect to it.
Cons
- Commercialization of Cricket: Cheerleaders, Franchises, Sponsors, Bidding of cricketers; like every sport, cricket is now a victim of commercialization. The purists will strongly detest the way the game has been scarred permanently. But sadly, the purists are few and the majority have loved the so-called commercialization; leaving the purists, a dejected lot. Its the same in all fields, be it Theatre, Arts, Media, Soaps; the purists suffer everywhere and so be it with cricket.
- Regional loyalties vs Country Loyalties: The entire IPL success hinges on how much regional loyalty it can generate among the people in the long run. After a few initial IPLs, people will stick to their teams and if the IPL is not able to generate interest, people will move away from it. It is the loyalty that makes people watch Team India or their favorite clubs in the English Premier League or the NBA. To cite an example, I was supporting Mumbai Indians in the IPL. Mumbai Indians played 4 close matches which were decided in the last ball\over of the match. I survived those, but if India had played those 4 matches in such a short span, I surely would have needed an appointment with a Heart Specialist. This is what IPL has to strive for.
- Heavy Workload on Cricketers: The current format of IPL is too demanding for the cricketers and will not be sustainable in the long run. This could lead to exhaustion, injuries and shortened career spans. The only solution is to lengthen the IPL time frame that then conflicts with the International Calender, leading us to the next important point.
- Will it kill International Cricket: I would say yes in the long run. Looking at examples from European football, where footballers retire from International arena but still continue playing for the clubs, it seems highly probable that the same will happen with cricket. Cricketers outside of India earn more than 10 times from IPL that they get from International cricket. So why wouldn't they elongate their club career at the expense of their country. We can talk about patriotism but that is just good for talks but not in reality. Right now the IPL is searching for some space between the jam packed International schedule, but I foresee International Cricket looking for a space left by the IPL calendar in subsequent years.
IPL has changed cricket forever, be it good or bad. I am a purist and still a fan of International cricket that has given be great memories. But I see future generations remembering the city heroics rather than the country heroics. What do you think?
Also look at Jumping on the Bandwagon to see a totally different viewpoint, the converse of the way the purists see the IPL.
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Not just for the players, but IPL has opened up numerous other career opportunities also.. Most notably are the jobs in sports management.. with the sacking of BRC CEO and also some of the players of KKR. we know that these teams are being run just like corporates.. so surely they will need people who are experts in managing people and businesses..So, I hope we will see a lot more Harsha Bhogles who would forego their corporate jobs for a career in Cricket..And more importantly, i hope to see more and more youngsters taking up courses like Sports Management as opposed to the standard MBA
hehe .. nice idea .. sports management .... I am game for it ...
i wish yeh IPL kuch 3-4 saal pehle aaya hota.. ab to yaar bahut der ho gayi hai..
thoda aur details do naa is dost ke baare mein.. yeh to fundoo hai!!!
check your private message
thanks..
With the young players showing their talent in front of millions of viewers, there will be an added pressure on the 11 players playing for Team India.. so nobody would be able to take his place for granted and players will give some more respect to the indian cap..
A typical example is Robin Uthappa who had to sit out in the recent kitply cup and Raina, Yusuf Pathan etc started cos of IPL form.
if yusuf pathan can improve his bowling.. we will no longer need harbhajan.. (at least in ODIs)..
Harbhajan has been useless for quite some time now. He is in the team because of his controversies than his performances. Piyush Chawla is a good bet as he is a handy bat as well.
ab to mujhe bhi yahi lagne laga hai.. i have been harbhajan's supporter for quite some time and i still think that he is one of the best off-spinners from India.. lekin last 2-3 saal se ek dum barbaad ho gaya hai.. and on top of that itni saari controversies...
Today in the newspaper i read that Business Standard has awarded the award for Most Innovative Company of the Year to BCCI.. How can they call some thing to be innovative if it already exists.. IPL was a copy of the format introduced in the form of ICL.. just because IPL proved to be more successful than ICL, does not mean that BCCI was the first to come up with this idea.. so, this shows that all its the money that decides where the award goes...
1% of the IPL revenue must have gone to Business Standard.Apart from ICL, the entire format was taken from NBA. No innovation, but yeah the award fro execution can be deserved by BCCI.
I think by commercializing the game, we are able to generate more money, which in turns encourages more players to take cricket as a profession, which leads to more talent and competition in the game and ultimately the level of the game improves..this exactly is the case of major football leagues in Europe and American sports like NBA..so, in that sense commercialization of good for the game.. but yes, this might kill the more traditional forms of Cricket (Test Cricket), which the purists are not going to like at all...
Comemrcialization never pleases the purists in any field
if this commercialization can help cricket in becoming the global game (in terms of viewership) like NBA and European football.. then i dont think even the purists would mind anything..
Agreed. But then forget Intl cricket.
This reminds me of another article that I read a few days ago..The article criticized the players for their hypocritical behaviour. For a long time now, the cricketers have been complaining about heavy workload resulting from too many matches and too much travelling that they have to do. But quite surprisingly not even a single cricketer complained about being overworked when he was asked to play a minimum of 14 games in the span of around 2 weeks in 8 different cities in India. And please note that IPL was played during the time which was supposed to be “rest period” for the players… So, for me, IPL has exposed the true face of these cricketers… for whom playing for the country means an over-burdened job. While when it comes to playing for money, they are almost too eager to yield.
Yup, precisely ehy I feel that Intl Cricket is going to go for a toss. IPL has more money and cricketers will stick to club rather than their NTs. look at how Basketball is in the USA, nothing at Intl level.I think sone of the cricketers raised the issue of too much cricket, the others are there for the money.
going foward that is the only way to survive.. all the popular sports are played at the club level and the national teams come together only to play a major tournament like World Cup or Olympics.. take the example of Hockey.. which used to be a hugely popular game un till a few years ago.. but now we know where it stands in terms of popularity..
but it was not because he was playing for mumbai, it was because of the format of the game.. i think even if he plays for india in a 20-20 game, i wont care whether he scores a century or a 0.. in fact i have stopped caring in ODIs too.. but whenever he is playing in a test match, thats when the tension starts
Could be as T20 still is not very serious criccket and the wicket of one person is not that important. Any batsman can score a quick 30-40 to make up for it.
It sure will.....But I reckon that this club cricket will not confine only to India..(there already is another tournament being started by a West Indian billionare in West Indies)... and also, it will not be only 20-20.. but a mix of 20-20, ODIs and test matches...the difference will be that instead of countries, it will be clubs who will be playing...