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indian premier league
The IPL at the Chinnaswamy
By Will 2 days ago, late at night, No Comments; be the first!
An informative and enlightening piece from my Cricinfo colleague, George Binoy, on the experience of watching the IPL. At Bangalore’s newly revamped Chinnaswamy Stadium, it’s all a bit good it seems. The IPL might make your lip curl, but the benefits to India’s stadiums alone make it worthwhile.
Don’t bring your own, we’ll give you some: The list of items spectators are forbidden to bring with them is long and all encompassing. You wouldn’t get in with a large flag, or something to create a din with. But the organisers were handing it all out. ‘Cheer kits’, Royal Challenger flags, inflatable noisemakers and more. The props were everywhere and the fans used them. The result was a sea of waving flags and an awful din.
F&B: The last time around, even expensive seats at IPL games witnessed an unseemly rush for food, a shortage of water and fights at the wine and beer counters. There’s no liquor on sale this time but plenty of food and beverages – even pizzas delivered to your seat, fairly warm and tempting – and, crucially, lots of free bottled water. That may seem trivial to cricket fans elsewhere but a huge step up from the regular in-stadia food and drink in India.
No Comments »IPL on Youtube
By Will 6 days ago, mid-afternoon, 3 Comments »
Anyone else able to access the Indian Premier League on Youtube? Seems to be broken for me:
Who to support in the IPL
By Rich Abbott Wednesday, last week, 8 Comments »
One of the problems people have with the IPL is a lack of natural affiliation with any side. I enjoyed the competition’s second incarnation all the more for backing the Delhi Daredevils, for no better reason than I quite like AB de Villiers. I’d advise any IPL-sceptic to do the same, after all, most franchises offer a quirkily enticing reason or two to merit your support. Here’s a quick guide:
Chennai Super Kings
Star: MS Dhoni. Look out for: SK Raina. Good pedigree – reached the final in ‘08 and semis last year. Boosted by the absence of Flintoff this year. Plenty of firepower (Matt Hayden averages 54 from 16 IPL games), but could be light in the bowling department – all eyes on Murali. If they were a boxer they’d be Ricky Hatton – big hitter, questionable balance.
Deccan Chargers
Star: AC Gilchrist. Look out for: MR Marsh. Adam Gilchrist-inspired reigning champions. Embodied the nature of T20 by being hopeless the first year and winning it last time around. Spent $720,000 on Kemar Roach at the 2010 auction – he shouldn’t struggle to be half as good as Kevin Pietersen, but might pull up short of being five-and-a-half Eoin Morgans. If they were a footballer they’d be Peter Crouch – used to be derided, before somehow suddenly becoming good.
Delhi Daredevils
Star: TM Dilshan. Look out for: WD Parnell. The chokers of the IPL? A little harsh maybe, but so far they’ve failed to back up strong group-phase performances in the knock-out stages. Packed with destructive batsmen, the bookies make them favourites – which probably means they’ll finish last. Paul Collingwood can often be found holidaying in Delhi around this time of year. If they were a tennis player they’d be Tim Henman – perennial semi-finalists.
Kings XI Punjab
Star: Yuvraj Singh. Look out for: YA Abdulla. The ones who look like they’ve been sent onto the pitch by Arsene Wenger. Any team that offers an injured Sreesanth a role as a ‘fan mentor’ must be worth keeping an eye on. Ravi Bopara starred in IPL ‘09 and will want to use this year’s tournament to cement his place in England’s World T20 squad. If they were an international side they’d be New Zealand - not good, not bad, easy to overlook.
Kolkata Knight Riders
Star: BAW Mendis. Look out for: AD Mathews. ”Last year we learnt how not to be losers,” says Shahrukh Khan in an introductory video on the KKR website. It’s a sentence which would be more accurate minus the “not”: at IPL 2009, KKR lost ten times and finished last. Their campaign was dogged by a captaincy rift and a phantom blogger (how do England players not feature for this franchise?), and this year they boast, in Rohan Gavaskar, the son of a man who once carried his bat for 36 from 174 balls in a World Cup match. If they were a tennis player they’d be Anna Smashnova – great name, but a bit rubbish.
Mumbai Indians
Star: SL Malinga. Look out for: AM Nayar. Can name a fielding God in their support staff (Jonty Rhodes), God himself in their batting line-up (Tendulkar) and a bowling God in the leading wicket-taker in T20 cricket (er, Graham Napier), not to mention a plethora of exciting allrounders. Arguably too many bit-part players, but at least with Harbhajan Singh around, dull moments should be in short supply. If they were a bible story they’d be Noah’s Ark – random bunch of species thrown together but with God on their side.
Rajasthan Royals
Star: GC Smith. Look out for: SW Tait. Warnie’s boys have gone from rags to riches, and now have their sights set on world domination. Despite a relative lack of star names, the Royals possess a well balanced roster as well as that guarantee of success, Jeremy Snape, who lurks in the background administering his Derren Brown mind tricks. Michael Lumb could prove a snip at $50,000 too. If they were a cricket administrator they’d be Lalit Modi.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Star: DW Steyn. Look out for: V Kohli. Named after a liquor brand – how can you not love that? – they’re the ones who waited for KP to leave last year before becoming really quite good. Have been accused in the past of resembling (and playing like) a Test team, and with the likes of Dravid, Kallis and Boucher they’d make a rather good one. New signing Eoin Morgan should add some T20 urgency. If they were a football commentator they’d be John Motson – bit slow, but gets the job done.
8 Comments »The 2010 IPL
By Will Sunday, last week, 4 Comments »
You up for it, then? Excited or unbothered? I’m at 60% at the moment, which is surprisingly high – my interest probably peaked at 6% last year – though I’m mainly interested in seeing how successful the YouTube venture goes.
I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Anyway, I want to garner your reaction to this year’s Modi Party, so wibble away to your hearts’ content.
4 Comments »Modi lures football to take over the world
By Will 1 month ago, 5 Comments »
Lalit Modi has risen from seemingly nowhere. Unlike us sleepy Englishmen, with our excellent ideas but reluctance to ever commercialise them – or, perhaps more fairly, our endemic resistance to change – Modi’s timing was spot on. He saw Twenty20 as the adrenaline kick cricket needed, a drug for the fans and moreover for television executives to crave. The ICC, like the ECB, were caught off guard yet Modi spotted his chance and got the international board on side, brushing off the Indian Cricket League – and doubtless others – with a disdainful arrogance not readily afforded to someone who had, apparently, appeared from nowhere. Remarkably, he calls the shots.
That, ladies and gents, is the man we are dealing with. There is a distasteful arrogance to the way in which he announces some of his latest ventures and his name does not attract great affection or joy, rather a looming fear. But that’s only because the rest of the world is envious, shaking their heads disbelievingly at the ease with which he has transformed the game, occasionally showing an insouciance of self belief in his vision not seen since Steve Jobs first took to the stage wearing loose-fitting jeans and grubby trainers. Modi knows he’s nailed it. The IPL is his iPhone, a game-changing device applauded by the world.
The rest of the sport and her clubs are fawning for his attention, and not just cricket teams. Modi might havs snared football into the bargain now, too:
“There is a football club, a very famous football club in the UK, very interested in bidding,” Modi said. “[They are] probably one of the most famous football clubs – that’s all I can say. Probably top three. They are interested in taking a stake.”
Responding to speculation in the Indian media, Modi later said on his Twitter page that the club in mention was not Chelsea. A report in the Sun named Manchester City as the team looking at buying a franchise although the club told Cricinfo they were not involved.
The IPL will include two more teams from the 2011 season and will auction the franchise rights at a base price of $225 million ahead of the third season, which starts in India on March 12, and will invite potential investors this week. That figure – double of what the most expensive franchise was sold for in 2008 and more than four times the base price in that first auction – is, in an uncertain market, a sign of the league’s confidence in itself and the Twenty20 format.
According to Modi, the MCC would be a value addition to the IPL and open up the possibility of taking the bandwagon overseas to Lord’s. “I have talked [to MCC] last night and they are quite interested,” he said.
When will he have his iPad moment?
5 Comments »Indian Premier League live on Youtube
By Will 2 months ago, 3 Comments »
This caught everyone by surprise. The IPL will be streamed live on YouTube, a feat which could revolutionise the way sport is broadcast and consumed. If that’s too bold a statement, it will certainly have TV executives shifting uncomfortably in their leather-upholstered swivel chairs. Google are game-changers, and so is Lalit Modi – like him or loath him – so it’s a fascinating partnership. As a fan, I am over the moon and excited by the impact it could have on TV’s monopoly. This could open up the industry, certainly for live sporting events.
The only question which remains is whether they’ll run pre-roll ads or rely on Google Adsense.
3 Comments »Broad shuns IPL. Again
By Will last year, mid-December, 8 Comments »
I imagine Stuart Broad’s ears have been burning today, not by the South African sun which has oddly gone into hiding, but by a probable outpouring of admiration at his second decision not to go to the IPL.
And that, as an Englishman, I’m afraid, remains the instinctive reaction. Well done, Stuart. Nice one, Broady – balls to that conservatory-and-new-car-providing frolic in India. And balls to you, too, Mr Modi. And in fact anyone else planning to overtake the sport. Grr, shakey fists and all – damn you foreign, successful people and damn you for thinking of it before us!
An instinctive reaction but also a naive one. Broad will cave eventually, as will others who have initially feigned interest to further their embryonic international careers, and he shouldn’t be lambasted for chasing quick cash. I find the concept, and the money, of the IPL at odds with the game itself, but I know others – friends and colleagues whose opinions I respect – who rave unequivocally about it.
But it remains a tournament without true identity. It’s perceived by some as the place to learn international cricket, or certainly Twenty20 cricket. By others, it’s a goldmine, and they can’t sharpen their picks fast enough. Some think it’s a brief foray into what the wider sport might eventually become – short and rich, like Alan Sugar – while others, many of them English, are still flabbergasted that India beat them all to it. But many, like Broad, still choose country over cash.
As long as it divides opinion, for all Modi’s cash and investment – and, indeed, impressive promotion and swagger – the IPL is the shiny new apartment block with porters in an ancient city revered for its tradition…albeit one whose foundations are beginning to crumble.
8 Comments »IPL an “entertainment circus”
By Will last year, at the end of April, 17 Comments »
Neil Manthorp has found the nail and hit it resolutely on its head.
The IPL is a fun tournament and will make excellent wallpaper in sports bars around the world in years to come. But South Africans are already beginning to see it for what it is, rather than what it portrays itself to be. It is an entertainment circus, rather than a sporting one, designed primarily to enable a very small number of fabulously wealthy people to become even wealthier.
A full page newspaper advertisement appeared nationwide last week depicting Sachin Tendulkar against Saurav Ganguly above the caption: “Whose side are you on?” The problem was, Tendulkar was alongside the Rajasthan Royals logo with Ganguly smiling next to the Delhi Daredevils motif.
The IPL. It’s an Indian thing. And will forever remain so until the owners and administrators who so desperately want to become a “global brand” actually stop and think about what that means and how it can be achieved rather just splashing cash and blowing kisses to themselves in the mirror.
The one caveat for IPL’s dissenters is this: yes, it’s not cricket as we know and love, but the very fact this sport has managed to spawn such a beautifully bonkers tributary almost from nowhere deserves some acclaim. I have always been drawn to the game for its eccentricities – the rigidity of the laws, the absurdity of the fielding-positions’ names, the length, the breaks for lunch and tea – so before I write the IPL off in its entirety, for now I’ll accept that it’s a wacky branch off a particularly wacky tree, growing in a meadow of ridiculousness.
In time, someone will probably lop it off…else it’ll grow into something else entirely. Enough gardening-related analogies (I’ve just cut down a tree, as it happens).
17 Comments »IPL coverage
By Will last year, at the end of April, 4 Comments »
Like it or loath it, the IPL is here with us, like a particularly excitable canine nuzzling your feet for attention. So we might as well welcome him in and, if necessary, give the dog a bone. I am utterly biased, but I do think Cricinfo’s coverage of the IPL has been monstrously excellent thus far. So go here for the series page, here for the RSS feed, or here for IPL Page 2, which might be precursor to something we’ve got cooking up for later in the year, containing cartoons and other wicked whimsy.
4 Comments »What do we make of the IPL?
By Will last year, at the end of April, 3 Comments »
So, we’re about a week into IPL 2. What do you think?
I saw a couple of matches on TV in South Africa and, as expected, was struck by the brilliance of the concept and the ugliness of its commercialism. On the one hand, I was watching Shane Warne continue to defy age and physics with unplayable legbreaks. The same can be said of Anil Kumble. Kevin Pietersen was captaining a side containing Dale Steyn against an Indian team led by Warne. The whole idea is mad as a box of frogs.
It’s especially bonkers this year because it’s being held in another country. That very factor alone ought to help the IPL; the stadiums in South Africa are all magnificent from what I’ve learned, and although some cities are considered dangerous, there is less of a terrorist threat than Asia.
The Indian Premier League in South Africa. It just sounds so wrong, so incongruous and unlikely, doesn’t it? To see some old-timers still prove their worth is undoubtedly thrilling, yet why do I not give a flying toss about it all? Perhaps because I refuse to pay the absurdly overpriced Setanta fee (I’m in the UK now). Perhaps I abhor the amount of money. Maybe it’s that, and the combination of the format.
Or maybe it’s just Lalit Modi ingratiating himself with the South African president, Kgalema Motlanthe, who looked about as interested in proceedings as my mum. Modi’s modus operandi. Yes, I’m afraid that’s the other nail in the IPL coffin for me.
Anyway. What’s your name, where do you come from and do you like the IPL?
3 Comments »Flintoff and KP record-breaking millionaires
By Will last year, at the start of February, 10 Comments »
Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen have both broken the IPL record, each netting a cool US$1.55million. Holy moly.
Owais Shah and Paul Collingwood were sold for a frankly pathetic $US275,000 while Luke Wright and Ravi Bopara remain unsold, unwanted – the runts of this latest litter of shame.
So Hampshire and Lancashire will both be getting US$155,000 for Pietersen and Flintoff’s involvement in the IPL – a factor which the players are a bit peeved about. But, still, England’s most marketable and successful players can nevertheless eye up a new house, or car. Or a farm perhaps. Small off-licence selling cheap whiskey, wine gums and sellotape? It’s surprising how people turn to local shops in a recession – these are the things Flintoff and Pietersen will have to consider very carefully in the coming months.
What should they do with their loot? I have a feeling Flintoff’ll be sensible, after drinking 1% of it, whereas Pietersen will invest in a Humvee for tootling around town.
10 Comments »Test cricket in serious danger
By Will 2 years ago, mid-October, 10 Comments »
I have accepted Twenty20. I even like it. But watching how powerful the newly-formed tournaments have become is like witnessing a teenager push a pensioner over on the street. It’s rude, wrong and has an air of danger. You want to stop it; you don’t quite know how.
The pensioner, if you’ll allow me to extend this frankly ridiculous analogy, is Test cricket. OK, so the doddery old bugger hasn’t yet been floored by IPL’s gang, but the news this week that Sri Lanka could be sending a second XI to tour England next year is the most significant effect Twenty20 has had on the game as a whole. The Twenty20 World Cup has been a success, and will eventually replace the ageing 50-over wreck, but Test cricket has so far remained swaddled in its own security blanket of tradition. Until now.
The reason, if you’re not aware, is that Sri Lanka Cricket has proposed a US$70m deal with Lalit Modi, the oligarch behind the IPL. In addition, Sri Lanka’s sports minister has said that his top players are therefore committed to fulfilling their highly lucrative contracts with Modi – at the expense of Tests. The teenagers are jeering at the old pensioner. “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough,” they rant.
By 2010, almost half the County Championship fixtures will be done and dusted by about May 15, to accomodate the English Premier League, the Twenty20 Cup and whatever else the ECB’s bean-counters decide upon. Where does this leave four and five-day cricket? The Championship remains the most coveted title in England. Test cricket remains the atlas of most cricketers’ aspirations. And yet they could soon be marginalised by the unsavoury appetite for money.
Once dollars are involved, it’s very hard to stop the rift widening. Who can blame players when they’re being offered life-changing sums? Happily, the ICC president, David Morgan, has brandished this decision by Sri Lanka as deeply worrying, so there is still hope that his organisation can stop the rot. But if Sri Lanka do decide not to tour, their relationship with India thus strengthens, and the BCCI’s clout over world cricket becomes even more encompassing. Even more worrying.
The whole face of international cricket could be about to change very dramatically.
10 Comments »Performance-based bribes for England
By Will 2 years ago, mid-June, 5 Comments »
England’s players netted a bonus of £180,000 for their series-win over New Zealand a few days ago. It’s a fair chunk of money, on top of their already comfortable salaries and extra advertising deals with the likes of Adidas. The Indian Premier League, however, has blown salaries and players’ monetary expectations out of the water, which has prompted the ECB to raise the series bonuses to £2m. It is effectively a performance-based bribe: do well for us in Tests, the ECB say, and you’ll be handsomely rewarded. Don’t worry about that silly Indian thing: beat the South Africans and we’ll buy you all iPhones and cars.
It’s a fair old whack, and a reasonable gesture by the ECB, but the newly sized pot surely can’t dissuade players from considering the IPL, can it? Over in India players are promised hundreds of thousands, even if they fail abysmally. Money talks, as that awesome AC/DC song says, but can Test cricket genuinely hope to match the new money offered by Indian leagues (and the new Champions League)?
Your thoughts?
5 Comments »The worth of Pietersen
By Will 2 years ago, mid-May, 9 Comments »
Kevin Pietersen, one of cricket’s most marketable assets, is on the verge of signing for an unnamed Indian Premier League franchise for a record-breaking $4m. That is quite some u-turn.
Before (February 29, 2008):
“There’s no way in this world I’d turn my back on England,” he told BBC Radio Five Live. “I know there is interest and, yes, there have been offers, etc etc, but it’s not something I’m particularly interested in. Money’s not really too important, it’s not as if I need money right now. I’m really enjoying doing what I’m doing.”
After (April 5, 2008):
“It’s silly to think that you’re losing up to a million [dollars] over six weeks.”
The comparison is a little unfair: Pietersen did justify his stance later by saying “You want your best players playing both for their country and for the IPL. You don’t want them choosing between the two”, and that’s probably the way it should go. If Pietersen or Andrew Flintoff or any other England player wants to make some quick money, they of course should be allowed.
The big concern for cricketers is whether the IPL goldrush goose will, in their minds, deem Test cricket the ugly, cheap duckling. Worse, Test cricket could lose even more quality players if other leagues spawn, such as Allen Stanford’s, thus diluting the format’s very essence.
9 Comments »City, county, region
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of April, 8 Comments »
So Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, doesn’t believe a city-based franchise system would be workable in England’s attempt to challenge the Indian Premier League. In fact, Clarke said that “franchise sport has simply never worked in the UK”, which comes hot on the heels of county chief executives voicing their own concerns over the latest Twenty20 developments.
Clarke was speaking at the ECB’s AGM, but some of what he says concerns me. He was full of praise for India’s tournament, but insisted “much of the look and feel of the tournament was taken from the ECB template”. Valid sentiments, but it only makes the ECB look even more daft, short-sighted and bitter that they didn’t think of it first. There is still no clear idea of what the English Premier League will amount to, and the relevant parties – ECB, Professional Cricketers’ Association and the counties themselves – all appear to be at loggerheads with one another. Meanwhile, Allen Stanford is waiting in the wings, licking his lips at what he believes could be a huge earner. But how? And when?
We can forget 18 counties being involved. That much we know. And I’m not in favour of city-based franchises either as this will inevitably lead to some cities and towns being left out, or merged with a neighbour. For example, thinking purely geographically, Gloucestershire and Glamorgan would presumably be combined…but as what? Bristol or Cardiff? Exclude one and you’re effectively ruling out 50% of the England and Wales Cricket Board.
Regionalisation seems a fair and simple solution:
North Yorkshire, Lancashire, Durham
London Surrey, Middlesex, Essex
South Hampshire, Kent, Sussex
Wales and West Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Somerset
West Midlands Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Northants
East Midlands Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire
Fascinating to think of the teams these would put on the park, too, and who would captain them. Your thoughts?
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