To start with, who am I to write such a piece and even believe that someone can read this. Here goes my biodata. I am a cricket enthusiast, whose wife thinks he is a bad influence for turning children into couch potatoes. She wonders if I had so much passion for cricket why I got into corporate India instead of being another Harsha Bhogle. Here is more, I have two sons, who love MS Dhoni when he wins for India and hate him when he plays for CSK. What? All of this doesnt sound anything special about me? All of this is very typically Indian. OMG, I give up.
Wait, I am one of few Indians who watched India play and win all their World Cup knock out matches in the stadia. In January, I also said that investing in Cricket World Cup merchandise is a better idea than investing in IPL merchandise and finally in the second week of April I stuck my neck out and said that IPL 4 is going to have lesser rating percentage compared to the previous edition.
As I stuck my neck out early in the season and now am laughing myself to the bank courtesy some wins made over the office lunch table (bad debts not yet provisioned for). Question remains as to why I said what I said. I guess some of you who know me will call it plain, vanilla contrarian approach which has come true. Others who don’t know me will now have a nick name for me, Paul the Octopus. But the reality dawned on me when I read the following piece in cricinfo today relating to preview of a match tomorrow. Pl note that the parenthesis have my comments and not the original piece.
“In the last three years, Kolkata provided moments of hilarity, a chaotic management model, and a sense of pathos. (No such excitement is there this year. Though some say that Pune is the new KKR. But where is the Fake IPL player, where is the sulking SRK) Everything changed this year and here they are hovering at the top. Their batting was solid in the first half of the tournament and their bowlers have won the last two games for them. Brett Lee (What is a Punjab player doing) has sizzled, L Balaji (Isnt he a Dhoni man) has almost turned the clock back to his past, Iqbal Abdulla (which country does he belong to) has continued his form from the last domestic season, Jacques Kallis (the Mallaya man) has continued to be solid and Yusuf Pathan (the guy Warne discovered) has been steady and the bowling department has prospered. Three men - Gautam Gambhir (the Delhi local boy), Kallis, and Manoj Tiwary (dont remember his team)- have tallied over 220 runs, and Yusuf Pathan and Eoin Morgan have not been really required to flex their muscles yet. Things are looking good for Kolkata.”
As things look good for Kolkata, the same is not the case with IPL 4 as far as ratings are concerned. Ratings are down 22% over last year. The situation gets worse as the ratings are down 27% over last 10 matches.^
Player recognition is the biggest issue. Some illustrations are given above, We have 5 foreign captains amongst 10 teams. Last time it was 3 out of 8. The star players dont play for their own cities. Gambhir is a Bengali gentleman, Yuvraj is not a Punjabi munda, Dravid is not a Bangalorean, VVS now belongs to Kerela. Dada has been forced to take a sabbatical. Who is T R Birt and Klinger (names I heard in the DD and KTK match on 2nd May). And then to top it all we have ten teams. It is beyond simple human ability to configure all these changes in one’s head without the use of a computer. These new teams even seem to have somewhat funny names, Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Pune Warriors India. Incidentally both eams changed their names post the initial announcement.
Unpredictability makes the game more interesting. All of us agree with the same. Isnt there a limit for everything. If the points table is like a deck of cards getting shuffled after every deal (match), you obviously dont have any favourites. You actually start calling the game a lottery. Do you remember the days that online lottery used to be telecast “live” on television. I never liked watching the same.
And where is the Razzmatazz and the chutpatah flavour of the past. Shilpa thinking that Warne is a fast bowler. Harbhajan slapping Sreesanth. The joke is still that Sree cried because he did not get a hug from the franchise owner. SRK sulking and not watching the match. The IPL commissioner’s charismatic presence at almost all the matches and the well talked about parties with the Fake IPL player adding his two bits. What we now have the Pune Cheerleaders doing Bharat Natyam on a cricket stage.
After the high of India winning the world cup, it is not a great thing to watch the stars battle against each other. Cheering for Malinga is now very different from last year. Do we also have some tired players around. To avoid controversy, I will not name them. But your guess will be better than mine. Beyond criticim we do have some constants though. The richest lady’s presence at the games. Sachin’s hunger for runs and the CSK team which barring Murli looks the same. But these constants are not enough for IPL 4 as the ratings are down about 20% over last year. BCCI and Sony may be laughing their way to the bank but this is not good omen for IPL franchise. This is not the way that you would treat the hen that lays golden eggs.
PS: you can also connect with me on twitter @agrawalsanjeev
^ As per article in Cricinfo dated April 28th. http://www.espncricinfo.com/indian-premier-league-2011/content/story/512936.html
Nicely written...your wife may have to give you another vocation of a writer if she feels you failed as a cricket buff dressed in a corporate suit.I stuck my neck out too and even predicted that IPL 4 will be even less exciting if we win the world cup. Though now I feel from now on IPL with all 10 teams will catch everyone's fancy as we near the semi finals and finals. The ratings may well be higher then.
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