Kolkata: Summers for the last nine years in India have been quite gleeful, cheerful and exciting. Yes, it is that time of the year when the Indian Premier League (IPL) is held. It is that time of the year when the iconic trumpet tune plays on all television sets. The IPL turns 10 today, and the cash rich tournament has had its ups and downs. Right from the first match of the IPL in 2008, it was all about thrill, glamour and entertainment. But has anything in these 10 years changed? To find an answer to this, SportsCrunch decided to do a survey.
S Vignesh, a student of Media Science says, “I feel this year, which is the tenth edition of the tournament has a different feeling about it. Yes, some really crucial players like Virat Kohli and R Ashwin would miss out, but all the teams are well balanced which would call for an even competition.” Another student Nairik Dutta opines, “This is not the usual IPL hype we feel. The main reason for this is the backing out of players due to injuries. Also, of late the Indian cricket audience has been exposed to a lot of cricket and thus it might want a break from the game for some time.”
Sanjib Kumar Basu (46) is of the view that the IPL simply isn’t about cricket. It’s about business and entertainment. He says, “The entertainment, glamour and business parts have taken over the game. It’s not something that ardent cricket fans love.” Another 54-year old cricket fan says, “It’s enjoyable and I love to watch it because it’s the only format of the game my wife and daughter like to view.”
But what about sports journalists? One of them says, “The IPL hype has mellowed down drastically over the years and most fans who fill up the stands are not cricket lovers, but entertainment lovers.” Another journalist says, “This year, it’s a big challenge for the Committee of Administrators (COA) to ensure that the IPL is scam-free. Speaking of the hype, people are not talking about it as of now, but once it starts, the hype will build up.”
At a time when issues like spot-fixing and match-fixing are affecting global cricket, if the Lodha Committee appointed COA fails to combat these aberrations, officials like Anurag Thakur and N Srinivasan who are part of the opposition camp, will leave no stone unturned to take the committee to task.
Another factor which is keeping the fans inquisitive is the chemistry between the Indian and Australian players. During this year’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia, war of words hogged the limelight both on and off the field. But in the IPL, some Aussies and Indians will take the field in the same jersey and it remains to be seen how their chemistry works.
The IPL’s opening ceremony is scheduled to be hosted in 8 cities this year! We expect a steep rise in the hype once the tournament starts. Of course, fans will miss players like Kohli, Ashwin, M Vijay and others, but the tournament is definitely worth watching, especially since, “Yeh dus saal, aapke naam!”