Roth Regatta

For starters this is not another article written after an Indian cricket team loss. This article wants to go beyond the criticisms about the IPL and wants to look into the aspect whether the IPL is really benefiting Indian Cricket? Is it worth any of the millions of dollars spent in the name of cricket meets entertainment? Because for every Indian, cricket is not just entertainment. Cricket is life. We have seen people die of heart attacks because of close cricket matches. In India, for

entertainment we have Bollywood. And that’s the way it should be.

What has this IPL frenzy has done is, it has taken cricket out of the sanctity of the hallowed cricket grounds to utter nonsense of advertisement revenue. IPL is nothing but a platform for advertiser to pay absurd amount of money to the television channels. Players are paid humongous amount of money, are made demi-gods overnight and they go into tournaments like the world cup all tired and exhausted but with huge sums of money

in their banks accounts.

It’s true that IPL has provided great opportunities to young Indian domestic players to come into national limelight and rub shoulders with the best players in the world, which would not have been possible otherwise. But that does not take anything away from the silly bid to commercialise the sport. As if it was not before.

Indian cricket had always been subject to commercialisation but IPL has just sounded the death knell. Young Indian cricketers who have never see

n so much money so early in their playing careers are allowing this temporary success getting in to their heads. Clear example from the present situation can be given of Murali Vijay. A fortnight ago, he was the man in form, trashing bowlers to all corners of the park. A fortnight later, in Indian colours he has no idea how to connect bat with ball.

Another reason for this dismal performance in the T-20 world cup can be the IPL burnout. After all, our cricketers are also humans. And human body is just like a machine, the more it works the more it wears. The very sight of someone as tired looking as Zaheer Khan explains this. IPL has taken every sap of energy and enthusiasm from our players.

So the answer to the question that, has IPL Damaged Indian Cricket, is that using the word damage is not right. But it has certainly hurt Indian cricket. And hurted Indian cricket it in a very big way.

But what is the way ahead? And that is a very important question. Because there is no point, pointing out something wrong, unless you suggest ways of correcting it. I am no expert in devising ways but as an Indian cricket fan, I believe that the easiest way would be to control the amount of money being poured into the IPL. The cricketers should learn by heart and repeat it every night before going to sleep this line that the Aussie great Allan Border once said, “Take care of the runs, the Dollars will Flow”. Sadly our Indian cricketers are running after the dollars and their runs are drying up.