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“No cricket team in the world
depends on one or two players. The team always plays to win’... Virat Kohli
“Cricket is not everything, not by any means,
but it is a large part of who I am’... MS Dhoni
“Nothing is easy in cricket. Maybe when you
watch it on TV, it looks easy. But it is not. You have to use your brain and
time the ball’… Rohit Sharma
“The assumption now is that the interests of
the brand and of the game overlap to the degree that cricket need hardly be
mentioned.” ―
“Cricket may be the game of gentlemen but now it’s the game of businessmen” … Me
Three quotes by three greatest names from Indian Cricket (and IPL too) while Haigh is sports critic. And then my outcome from these great’s wisdom, to set the tone of sharing & needless to say it’s about cricket!
Last year in this month (IPL Month) I came across a meme where there was a screenshot of an IPL match & inset ad featuring Ranveersing & Deepika Padukone & the line says. “Ranveer Deepika ke adse time mile to bich bich me IPL ka match dekh leta hu”! The meme showed the kind of importance of commercial break (which were very often) during the matches of IPL & on that background this year there are reports & murmurs & posts about how the viewership of IPL has dropped & the popularity of the event (can’t call it tournament) has been on downslope. This can be part of the media war from those who aren’t sponsors of IPL or beneficiary but you can’t fool all people all the times, is true even for the biggest event in sports in this country, is also equally true! And among all these media wars there is a sport named cricket which is worshipped by all religions & caste, is my subject of sharing! I have written a lot about cricket & personalities’ but rarely have I shared my views about IPL & the reason is not many take it seriously but just as an entertainment is a fact, how much so ever we deny it! If you call IPL a serious game or sport then you can compare some club singer with Raffi or Lata’s (plz google) concert also & I am not disrespecting art or performance of the club singer, just telling you the difference! Indeed, everybody can’t reach where Raffi, Lata had & even the club singer also does his job sincerely & sing & entertain us, but that’s all what is common between them!
Btw if you don’t know IPL then it's ok if you stop reading here though you can for the commercial aspect as well the way the game is played (cricket) & how it can help us in our respective field, so be it! Imagine a test match cricket game where you have four slips, silly point, gulley, mid-on, midwicket & just one or two fielders on boundary & the bowler running with the ball menacingly aiming for the head of the batsman with 140 km/hr plus speed & the batsman helplessly tries to get away from the path & in the process ball takes edge of the bat & travels in the hands of one of the closing fielders! Or, the batsman is surrounded by fielders in such a fashion that except from plumb front side you can’t even sight him & the spinner spins web of the flight with till end you don’t know where the ball will turn & making batsman unsure whether to defend the ball or attack & result is catch in the hands of closing fielders or the lone fielder on boundary! Now look at this, IPL match, world's best bowler marching towards the unknown rookie batsman with no slip as field restrictions are there & target is to save runs, & the batsman swings the bat fearlessly (or desperately) & the ball sails in to the ground for six in the direction which even the batsman doesn’t know! The same thing is with the best spinner, there are no closing fielders to make the batsman think how to play, all he has to do is hit the ball as hard he can hit & send it in stand! The bowler has only four overs, the pitch is dry & dead without any spin or bounce, the bowl can’t be getting old as its only twenty overs match as well the pitch also isn’t going to deteriorate as entire game is going to be finished in mere four hours, means two sessions of a test match! So, all bowlers can do is control as many runs by bowling safe & in the process if can get a few wickets then its bonus!
If you are cricket watcher (I am not even saying fan) then earlier scenes are from test matches or one day games & later is from IPL & no wonder the predictability of the game in the later types is the reason for reduction in viewership as well from sponsorship! Yet IPL remains the biggest money-spinning event of the country’s sports world is a fact but high time to make it more better or else in the era of twenty seconds (reels) it won’t take much time to fade up whatever money is there for now, a reminder for us also for our products whatever they are, is my subject of sharing! I do watch IPL, two things, I love sports & second it used to be good entertainment without any violence or sex or coarse language which seems to be three-legged script for any series or movies in recent times. But what any sport needs most is, uncertainty & equal opportunity for all players to excel & exactly this year’s IPL is lacking it! Nearly seventy percent matches have been where both teams are making two hundred plus runs & still batting first team end up losing the game & the only reason is, the team’s bosses (read as franchise owners) are killing the sports aspect of the game by making it too much batsman friendly! We love to watch sixes just the way we love to watch tigers in the forest but imagine what will happen if every day & on every safari you are seeing the same tiger at the same spot, you will lose interest from the safari as it won’t be a jungle but a zoo, right? This is what happening in this edition of IPL; as even when first team has scored two hundred plus runs, we know other team is going to make it in nine out of ten times, then we lose interest from the match as it’s no more a match but a routine & that’s boring, high time for our country’s cricket bosses to know this truth about games, if the still consider IPL as game!
Indeed, the event has given a platform & opportunity to make careers to many new players & once in a while there will be wonder-boy Vaibhav Surywanshi (plz google) to brighten the fans but look what quality players we are getting in through IPL! And if we are taking the star performance of IPL players in the national team for test format & one-days, then while IPL is in full bloom (going on) our ranking in the test match format has gone down to sixth place, even Bangladesh is above us, is my subject of sharing! As even in football where league tournaments are popular & makes money yet they don’t deviate from the basics of the game & players still consider playing for nation above everything & FIFA world championship has highest regards of every football player, is the difference here! And the timing of the IPL is another aspect as merely one month after Indian team became World Champion ins T20 format, IPL started & outcome was barring two names ( Ishant Kishen & Sanju Samson) who themselves were a surprise entry in Indian team, all the super stars of team India made a big flop show in IPL as fatigue of playing an international championship tournament is too much & it has taken toll on most of team India’s players yet the bosses made them to play in IPL as here money is the stick not some cup or trophy! This is why greatest names like MSD or Rohit are paraded like Disney Parade just to make people (Janata) i.e. fans happy that their Superstars are alive & kicking though one of them didn’t play a single match & another who has won India a world cup has been made to play as a substitute under name of impact player, what an insult of the game, is my subject of sharing! Full marks to Virat though as he has put-up great show yet defeating his age till now in every IPL & everybody in respective fields must learn from that! But trust me, this won’t go for long however successful the IPL event may seem today. In nineteen years from the time IPL has started for the first time, there is a drop in viewership, the hype on media is less which is visual & there are no heated arguments in public places (read as bar & pubs) over the team’s performances, all are indicators of the downfall of IPL. Rather in one of the restaurants where we were having dinner the screening of IPL was made to go mute by the patrons as nobody was interested in watching, this I myself witnessed but our BCCI (plz google) & cricket bosses are turning a blind eye on it! I am not saying IPL is dead but we need to revive or it will be dead & run it as a sport & not some event like a big fat wedding where everything is orchestrated by the hosts as the public is fool but not that fool!
Then comes the quality of the game, as indeed IPL has given our country’s talent a big platform as well money no two minds about it but look at the career of players who have come from IPL platform & where they stand now. On one side players from football premier leagues all across the world are making way in their country’s respective teams & doing great for the country while barring one or two players like Rinku Singh & Abhishek Sharama rest all can’t stand the opportunities on international level. Sai Sudarshan is the best example of it as he is piling runs in IPL but in England his approach as well technique got exposed on pitches which are not prepared keeping IPL outcome in mind & same is happening with other players too. While our genuine talent like Rushabh Pant & Jasprit Bumrah gets bashing for poor performance in IPL just because they can’t keep up with the way this circus is being played. But again, there is different dynamics of team owners as more the players from the respective team are part of the national team, that takes your team’s ratings high in the eyes of sponsors & so-called fans, so getting entry in national team by any way becomes a priority & that’s why Ranji Trophy winning team’s names doesn’t even come in media but you bang four sixes in some IPL match & you are a national hero, is something we must think about! Coming back to quality of game, this IPL must be the poorest on fielding aspect as so many catches are dropped by every team that BCCI should star Best Catch Drop award than best Catch award, is the scene & we saw the same repeating by Indian team in the T20 world cup also, which costed us nearly the cup! Why nobody is speaking anything about it, again the answer is money factor, in nutshell you can’t say any bad wort about IPL as that’s taboo, you may be a legend like Sunil Gawskar or Sachin Tendulkar but you need money, so keep you mouth shut is the mantra which is prominently been felt while watching & reading about IPL this edition! Guys, this country warships two things, Cricket & Cinema, but you can’t keep taking the new genre granted as here even King Khan’s picture can flop if he doesn't deliver & IPL too is not an exception for this rule. This principle of philosophy is needed to be understood by every profession & business (even politics) as don’t take our patrons for granted. Today your business may be making money & looks super successful but if you don’t change & deliver what people really want & try to dilute your originality then one day you will be doomed for sure, is my subject of sharing!
To conclude about future of IPL I will share a story from Panchatantra about a whimsical King, long long ago there lived a King who likes to entertain weird things (well, that’s what Kings do) & one day he announced he will pay handsome reward to anybody who will make him invisible but if that guy fails then his head will be chopped off! Obviously, nobody accepted a challenge till one day a smart man (read as con man) came & told the King that he can make him invisible but on two conditions. One is he will be rewarded after the rituals have been completed which are necessary for invisibility & King will follow all his orders till then. King immediately agreed & the man made some Puja & such thing & told the King that from next day morning he will be invisible but only to his well-wishers’ & friends & not to his enemy’s eyes; means those who can see him will be King’s enemy & he asked the king to make this news public! King’s men did that & next morning King woke up thinking he is invisible & decided to parade the city naked. He rode on his horse naked & as it’s been announced the one who can see the King will be considered as King’s enemy, nobody acknowledged Kings’ presence & the King thought he has become really invisible, he handsomely paid the man who made this possible & the man happily went off! While people were looking at the King & pretending they didn’t see him, one small kid who had come to the city with his father, asked his dad, “father, who is that man sitting naked on the horse? His father said, he didn’t see any such man & walked away, but the King heard that Kid & realized his foolishness & from that day he stopped doing such weird things! Well, the King learned his lesson the hard way, I only wish our IPL Bosses had read this Panchatantra folk tell & they too learn from it or else one day the IPL itself will vanish, adios with this note (warning)!!
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Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
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