Tag Archive for ‘IPL’ at Asian Window

Tag Archive for 'IPL'

Back to square one

Published

on January 29, 2010

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There is outrage in Pakistan over the exclusion of Pakistani cricket players from the latest IPL auction. But where was this sense of ‘outrage’ in the aftermath of 26/11, writes Rajdeep Sardesai in the Hindustan Times. Competitive rage is easy to manufacture in the context of Indo-Pak relations.

Indo-Pak cricket, like diplomatic relations between the two countries, suffers from schizophrenia. Rewind to January 1999 when a Chennai crowd gave a standing ovation to Wasim Akram’s men after they had just beaten India. Six months later, the two countries met again in a world cup match against the backdrop of the Kargil war and fans of both sides abused each other. In 2004, we were treated to a Pakistani crowd singing, “Balaji, zara dheere chalo” every time he ran in to bowl. Eight years earlier, I had watched a Karachi crowd hurl bottles on the field when their team lost to India in a dramatic last over. Two years ago, Sohail Tanvir was the toast of the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL). Today, Tanvir and his other Pakistani teammates find themselves unwanted by their IPL owners. more

An even pitch

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on January 23, 2010

in Sport

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Ayaz Memon in Mint-Lounge on India-Pakistan cricketing relations:

My late friend Omar Kureishi (whose crusty voice on radio brought Pakistan cricket alive for millions of followers from the 1950s till his death in 2005) had a simple solution for the subcontinent’s most vexing issue. “Keep the ruddy politicians out, and cricket will keep the people of India and Pakistan together.”

This came shortly after the Karachi one-day match had been disrupted by young men who had run on to the field and assaulted India captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth, ostensibly to advocate the “Kashmir cause”. Like a quintessential cricket romantic, Omar, despite his privileged education and understanding of realpolitik, could be reduced to utter dismay at the volatility of Indo-Pak relations, in which cricket would often become the first casualty.

“In 1961-62,” he related to me, after the Karachi incident, “Hanif Mohammad had his hand slashed by a ruffian’s blade. Why would anybody want to deprive millions of people from watching a master like Hanif, or a young prodigy like Tendulkar (who was making his international debut then) play unless they have been weaned on prejudice?” More

The editorial in Dawn, Karachi: The IPL uproar

It may well be true that reasons of politics sealed the fate of Pakistan’s T20 celebrities. Even so, there is no cause whatsoever for the Pakistani government to question the workings of a private venture in India that is first and foremost a moneymaking enterprise. And even if New Delhi is being duplicitous, as some allege, Islamabad should show more grace and refuse to mix politics and sports. Pakistani fans and players have every right to be outraged. Not so the Government of Pakistan. More:

Also from Dawn: News and comments from the Indian press in the aftermath of the exclusion of Pakistani cricketers from the Indian Premier League.

World’s top earning cricketers

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on September 7, 2009

in Cricket, Lists and Sport

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The Forbes magazine has named Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni as the top earning cricketer in the world last year. Forbes said that Dhoni earns $8 million in endorsements, from the brands like Reebok, General Electric and Pepsi, and the rest from his cricket salary and fees.

With its deep-pocketed owners and global appeal, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has shaken up professional cricket, luring top players from five continents with paychecks as big as $111,000 per three-hour match. That’s a stunning sum in a sport where domestic leagues have traditionally been an afterthought to the international version of the game.

While cricket is one of the most popular sports in the world (it’s played competitively in more than 100 countries), before the IPL launched last year, no domestic league was truly run as a business. But with IPL teams now paying top players as much as $1.55 million for just a five week season, versus $500,000 to $1 million, depending on the country, for an almost year-long slate of national team games, cricket is in the midst of a dramatic shift. More:

[Graphic: HT]

Indian cricket fans: Please read this

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on June 18, 2009

in Cricket and Sport

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Mike Atherton, Chief Cricket Correspondent, in the Times:

Memo to Indian cricket supporters: it is time to grow up. Sport is not about winning, it is about losing. Twelve teams have been taking part in this tournament and only one of them will return winners. The rest will be losers.

They will lose in various ways – some thrillingly, some abjectly – but lose they will. It is what makes the moments of triumph all the more special.

After all, if winning was all that there was, what would there be to celebrate? Indian supporters, the most immature in cricket, cannot seem to grasp this simple fact.

So where once temples were erected in Ranchi to deify its most famous son, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, now effigies are burnt. Once the Army had to be called out because the mob had laid homage to a hair salon where Dhoni was having his luxuriant locks lopped off, but veneration has now turned to vituperation. More:

Night of the screamers

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on May 2, 2009

in Cricket and Sport

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Why the commentators’ desperate hawking of the IPL may have started to work against the tournament. Gideon Haigh at cricinfo:

It’s working. Two weeks of the second season of the Indian Premier League and it’s finally been drummed into me who the damn sponsors are. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Now GO AWAY!

Actually, had I money to invest, I’d be wondering why DLF, presently being squeezed by slumping property values and a share price a quarter of its peak, and Citigroup, insolvent but for Barack Obama’s indulgence, were wasting shareholders’ funds on staking sixes and endowing so-called “success”. As I don’t, I’ll simply vary that old Bob Hope gag concerning the night he went to a boxing title fight and a game of ice hockey broke out: the IPL is fast degenerating into a series of three-hour advertisements through which are sometimes discernible glimmers of cricket.

Cricket, of course, has much to thank television for. How much richer is our appreciation of a Shane Warne legbreak or a Kevin Pietersen cover-drive for the luxury of studying it, frozen in time; when we can hover over each detail of the harmonious human mechanism. But either Lalit Modi is pumping nitrous oxide into the commentary box, or the IPL is bearing out JK Galbraith’s observation that television allows for persuasion with no minimum standard of literacy or intelligence. More:

The ZooZoos

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on May 1, 2009

in Art, Cricket, Design and Innovation

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It’s a series of TV commercials — the best we’ve seen in a long time. O&M created these ads for Vodafone to coincide with the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) Twenty20 cricket matches. These cute little creatures even have a fan following.

From Mint: “There’s also the curiosity factor piquing viewers who wonder, who are the Zoozoos really? Are they alien?” says Prasanth Mohanachandran, executive director (digital) at OgilvyOne Worldwide. On the Zoozoos Facebook page, people can view new commercials, download images and wallpapers, and participate in a “What kind of Zoozoo are you?” contest. In the pipeline are a spot, titled “A day in the life of Zoozoo” on Twitter, and merchandise such as key-chains, mugs, T-shirts, and mobile phone stands. More:

ps: “whoa! words fail. pure *&%#ing brilliance,” read a comment with one of the stories on the ad campaign. And by the way, they are real people in costume. You can see the ads on YouTube.

Old and beautiful

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on April 21, 2009

in Cricket and Sport

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Men written off, men supposedly past their primes, have proved that the IPL, and the world, belong not to youth or any other category. Peter Roebuck at cricinfo:

Only in golf and marathons, individual and easily measured activities, is age not regarded as a handicap. Elsewhere the bright young things are to the fore, with their daredevilry. As much can be told from observing tennis tournaments and leading soccer matches.

Inevitably cricket fell into line. It’s not so much that teams have become younger – Australia haven’t, and India are not exactly overburdened with striplings. Just that there are fewer players staying into their late 30s. Partly it has been desire: the hectic modern touring schedules stretch the sanity of the older brigade. Partly it has been the public’s irresistible urge to find new faces. Perhaps, too, the vintages found Test cricket too hard and 50-over capers too plentiful to be enjoyable.

Recognising the signs, Anil Kumble, Shane Warne, Sourav Ganguly, Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden and others declared their innings closed. Only Rahul Dravid clung to the wreckage, and his end seemed to be at hand.

No one blamed them for taking the easy money to play in the IPL or ICL. After all those years of distinguished service, they were entitled to a last waltz. Moreover, they would bring glamour to the competition and give pleasure to crowds. Of course they might play badly, but a million dollars covers an awful lot of dented pride, and anyhow their records were written in stone.

The rough & tumble of a gentleman’s game

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on March 23, 2009

in Cricket

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The story so far:

On March 3 militants attacked a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricket players just outside the Gadaffi Stadium in Lahore. Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram almost immediately appeared on television voicing his doubts on whether India’s security apparatus was equipped to deal with simultaneous elections and cricket. It wasn’t that India could not provide security for IPL2, he said, it was simply that providing security simultaneously to IPL2 and the general elections would stretch our security forces. A simple solution, he suggested, would be to postpone the IPL dates.

Not possible, said IPL administrators led by Lalit Modi. These dates were set in stone in accordance to the international cricket schedule. Worse, said Modi, failure to host the games in India on schedule would amount to loss of national pride. So, various alternatives were trotted out: IPL would get private security; there was no question of moving the venue overseas and, of course, matches could be rescheduled to be held on dates when there was no polling.

When that failed to materialise, Modi went from state to state asking which ones were prepared to take responsibility for security. Suddenly, IPL2 acquired a political hue: Congress-ruled states (Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi) said they couldn’t provide security due to the general elections. Finally, on March 22 after days of protracted wrangling and speculation, the BCCI announced that the IPL matches would be held outside India — fans could watch them on primetime TV.

The venue hasn’t yet been announced for the matches to be held between April 10 and May 24, though it’s likely to be a toss-up between England and South Africa.

Meanwhile reactions have varied. Sachin Tendulkar has said IPL abroad simply won’t be the same. And Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s chief minister, said the decision to shift the venue outside the country was forced by the government and was a ‘national shame’) to a condemnation of the BCCI and IPL for refusing to understand that security was a priority and that the general elections had to take precedence over cricket.

In BBC, Gulu Ezekiel looks at the pitfalls still ahead for the IPL.

The decision to shift the second season of the Indian Premier League from its home base to either England or South Africa has further clipped the wings of the IPL czar Lalit Kumar Modi, the man with aspirations to rule the cricket world. Mr Modi is credited with conceptualising cricket’s first franchise-based Twenty20 club cricket tournament – though it was preceded a few months earlier by the “rebel” Indian Cricket League, launched in late 2007 by Indian media magnate Subhash Chandra Goyal.

(Image attributed to Hashmil under the Creative Commons license)

Cricket’s new revolution

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on June 2, 2008

in Cricket

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It’s official. The first IPL tournament is a hit and hosannas have been pouring in on how cricket will never be the same again. Mihir Bose in BBC

Twenty20 cricket may teach us very little on the field of play but, off it, the Indians have built a model which will undoubtedly change world cricket.

I must confess that a week ago when I arrived in India I was sceptical as to what the Indian Premier League meant – but its impact soon became clear.

The Indians have now got a tournament that, even before the semi-finals, had been watched by more than 100 million on television, while the final alone was expected to attract some 30 million.

Crowds have packed out stadiums and the final saw 55,000 fill a new stadium two hours’ drive from Mumbai.

And in IHT, Huw Richards on frugal Rajasthan’s big win

The Rajasthan Royals, which had already proved itself the best team over the length of the qualifying tournament, showed that it was also the best in the clutch as it took the inaugural Indian Premier League title in Mumbai.

It beat the Chennai Super Kings in a desperately tense final on Sunday, reaching its target of 164 to win from the final ball of its innings of 20 six-ball overs when Sohail Tanvir struck the single run it needed.

As in last year’s first-ever World Cup in the Twenty20 format – when India’s victory created the excitement that led to the creation of, first, the rebel India Cricket League, and then the officially backed the IPL – the organizers were treated to a final that was everything they could have asked for. Chennai battled to its limit. Rajasthan won because Tanvir and its captain, Shane Warne, both chiefly bowlers, kept their nerve when asked to score the final 21 runs from 14 balls.

On the record: Jeffrey Archer

Published

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on June 2, 2008

in Books

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Bestselling author Jeffrey Archer is a man of many parts — he was captain of the athletics team at Oxford, he ran for his country, and was a Conservative MP at 29. He wrote his first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, in 1976. Since then he has kept producing works that always topped the charts. His stint in jail for perjury saw him write a well-received prisoner’s diary, and, adapting the tales he was told by fellow prisoners, he put together a short-story collection called Cat O’ Nine Tails. Archer was recently in India to promote his latest book A Prisoner of Birth. In an interview with The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24×7’s Walk the Talk, he speaks about cricket, of which he is an avid fan, about politics in the UK, and about getting on in life without being in the dumps over the mistakes one makes.

Wonderful to have you here in a bookshop in Gurgaon, Landmark, in a mall.

Yes, which wouldn’t have been. When I first came to India 15 years ago, there wouldn’t have been a mall.

•You said you never came to India because you were never invited. You need an invite to come to India?

I thank Landmark very kindly. They said, ‘We would like to do a proper tour. We know you have been to India, but we would like to take you around the country because you’ve got a lot of fans here.’ And I said, ‘Well, I have seen the figures from the Kane & Abel days, which is 30 years ago. And they said, ‘Oh, they are buying more now that you are even more popular. So we would like you to come over.’ So I had just done Australia for the fifth time, and I had just done America for the seventh time.

In the flip of a hip

Published

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on May 13, 2008

in Culture

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The art of cheerleading is not that different from Indian classical dance. So, what’s all the fuss about, asks Renuka Narayanan in the Hindustan Times

The furore over imported Indian Premier League (IPL) cheerleaders and that they are ‘indecent’ is incredibly funny, especially because some American foreheads wrinkle exactly the same way when confronted with Indian classical dance. Where’s the comparison between “Rah-rah-rass! Kick’em in the ass!” and “O Appalamswamy Pappadam Perumal, I pine for you, come to me!” you ask? For one, Kansas City Catholics take a dim view of a man dancing Bharata Natyam as a ‘liturgical dance’ to God, especially if the dancer happens to be Father Saju George, an Indian Jesuit. “Ignatius Loyola, founder of the order, would be rolling in his grave,” fumed an offended American on a Catholic blog just a few months ago.

Just as funny are the NRIs at the biggest Carnatic diaspora festival, the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana. Says a Bharata Natyam dancer, back home after a dozen years in the US, “Some parents in Cleveland object to the more ‘sensual’ padams (devadasi love songs) being taught to their daughters. They seem to have retained the mindset of the last century.”

Meanwhile at IPL, yet another controversy: it’s Warne v Ganguly

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on May 2, 2008

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Cheerleaders, slapgate and, now, a showdown between Shane Warne and Sourav Ganguly. Will the controversties at IPL never cease? CricInfo has both sides of the story.

First, Warne is upset at Ganguly’s refusal to walk

The Indian Premier League feels increasingly like the Shane Warne Show. Tonight, after his Rajasthan Royals side made it four wins in a row in front of a partisan crowd at the Sawai Mansingh stadium in Jaipur, Warne launched into a stinging attack on Sourav Ganguly, the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders, for what he perceived to be a blatant disregard for the spirit of the game. He seemed to have a point, but right now Warne could probably tell you the earth was flat and you’d believe him.

Then, Ganguly says, ‘I just want to laugh at what Warne is saying’.

Sourav Ganguly, captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders, has dismissed Shane Warne’s criticism of his on-field behaviour, even questioning his moral right to comment about the spirit of the game. Warne, leading the Rajasthan Royals, first slammed Ganguly for taking too long to come out to bat and then condemned his attitude towards the IPL’s Spirit of Cricket agreement when he questioned a catch taken by Graeme Smith.

No cheerleaders, please. We’re Indians

Published

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on April 25, 2008

in Cricket

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[Updated on May 2]

Namita Bhandare in Mint

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that the moral grandstanding on the Indian Premier League, or IPL, cheerleader controversy has the elements of a pre-written script with the dramatis personae mouthing predictable lines? First, the cast of characters: Siddharam Mehetre is Maharashtra’s minister of state for home. He finds cheerleaders and their performance “absolutely obscene” and out of place in a country where “womanhood is worshipped”.

Maharashtra’s moral police wants to ban cheereaders from IPL matches played in the state for their ‘vulgar’ and ‘obscene’ performance. Some conservative politicians would not like these girls to perform at the Indian Premier League’s upcoming matches in the state’s capital city, Bombay (Mumbai).

Many IPL franchisees have brought in foreign cheerleaders to add a bit of US-style glitz to the popular game. While cricket fans are not complaining, these politicians are not amused. They say that in a country where “womanhood is worshipped,” cheerleaders are “an affront” to Indian culture. And they ask: “How can anything obscene like this be allowed?”

Result? The state government gives in to the moral police. The franchisees will have to apply for permits before cheerleaders can be allowed to perform in Mumbai. If the cheerleaders “indulge in obscenity,” the franchisees will be fined.

However, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, who owns the IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders, does not find anything vulgar about cheerleaders. “I am also a family person, I do not see anything negative in it,” he said

National Commission for Women Girija Vyas said “we should promote our culture by bringing folk dancers and musicians in these matches.”

More here, here, here and here

And as for the cheerleaders themselves, they have some harrowing stories: “It’s been horrendous,” Tabitha, a cheerleader from Uzbekistan, told the Hindustan Times. “Wherever we go we do expect people to pass lewd, snide remarks but I’m shocked by the nature and magnitude of the comments people pass here.” Another cheerleader, Christy, told The Telegraph, Calcutta, “If they want us to be fully clad, we don’t mind.”

More here:

Body politics: bahu okay, others bawdy

From The Telegraph, Calcutta:

From the Indian Politician’s Dictionary, edited by Amar Singh, Amitabh Bachchan’s “younger brother”:

Single standards: If Mumbai bar girls are banned, so should be the Indian Premier League’s pom-pom girls.

Obscene: What the Washington Redskins wear, but not what “bahu” Aishwarya Rai wore in Dhoom:2

[Photos: Left, a cheerleader at an IPL match in Bangalore; right, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in the movie Dhoom:2]

Change for a twenty

Published

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on April 13, 2008

in Cricket

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No one dares argue with the money. But will T20 end up changing the game forever, asks Rohit Mahajan in Outlook

If money is the mortal enemy of the soul, as is believed, then cricket could be in danger of losing its soul. On April 18, when the inaugural Indian Premier League Twenty20 begins in Bangalore, cricket, as purists love it— with its bucolic beauty and quaint traditions—will metamorphose into Tamasha Cricket. The mix could be the newest opium for the Indian masses: adrenaline-pumping sport and heart-thumping Bollywood, gyrating dances and lusty sixes, sporting geniuses and dashing superstars. Sport must intermittently reinvent itself—the lure of money is difficult to resist—but soon a day may come to pass when we even fail to recognise cricket as we knew it.

And, elsewhere in the same issue, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the most expensive player in the Indian Premier League speaks to Rohit Mahajan about the unique blend of cricket and entertainment

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian One-day and T20 captain and the most expensive player of the Indian Premier League, is a man who doesn’t mind speaking his mind. He talks with conviction and frankness, dealing with each question with his customary placidity of mind and work. As we wait for the unknown in the IPL to come to light, Dhoni, in an exclusive interview, shares his views on this novel blend of entertainment and cricket. Excerpts:

What kind of changes will come into Tests and One-dayers as an effect of Twenty20 cricket?
It will depend on what form of cricket you are playing. There were Test matches to begin with, then came One-dayers. There are not too many changes in the basic approach, but yes, people started scoring at a much faster rate in Test matches as well. Three runs an over is considered the benchmark these days–if you score at over three an over, you have the upper hand, otherwise you’re slightly on the back foot.

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