IPL Quirks

“Violence between players? Scantily clad cheerleaders? Toss in a rant by Charles Barkley and three minutes of commercials for every 45 seconds of actual game time and cricket may finally be ready for a mainstream American audience” – Los Angeles Times

If you need to learn how to commercialize sport, all you need to watch are the games from across the Atlantic. They never miss out on a chance to miss out on advertising, what with the timeouts, happening every now and then. Most games that you can find on TV are discontinuous (except may be for the car races), so that the sponsors can make best use of their time. I’ve never seen an ad happening in between a football match though, expect at the half time. May be that’s why it hasn’t succeeded in US. When it comes to selling a game to the public, US are the best. I used to be a frequent follower of NBA when I was home, and always used to curse the intermittent breaks for the sponsors. Basketball, normally a game played in two halves, is played in four quarters in NBA and with an abundance of timeouts so that the coaches can pep their crew and strategize, a basketball game is never short of commercials.

From this perspective I can understand, the comment in Los Angeles Times about IPL. With the break in over happening every six balls, it provides advertisers the manna they need to cement brand recall in the minds of their customers. Listening to the commentary, you will see the extent to which the broadcasters are stooping to accommodate the advertisers. Every sixer hit has the title sponsor DLF’s name on it. Not to mention the game being filled with Citi moment of success. As soon as you see a sledge or a cheer for the opposing team, the commentators will remind about the all important Spirit of the game award.

But, I have to say, these hidden adverts have brought up few humorous instances. More often that not, Citi Moment of Success is sponsored by their banking rivals, Standard Chartered. Stan C has sponsored the replays shown on the tube, so every time there is a Citi Moment of Success, it is inevitably accompanied by a replay reminding us about the 150 years Stan C has been in India. Bangalore Royal Challengers seems to be the staunchest supporters of the the Spirit of the Game award, not because they are owned by Mallya who’s sponsoring the Spirit award, but because they have shown a lot of respect to their opposition, one of the chief criterion for the spirit. They have shown too much respect that they have let their opposition win out of respect.

Pretty soon, we will have i10 sponsoring the perfect drive, cover drive that is. Max New York Life will sponsor the best Under-19 performer in each game as a part of their Small Steps Schemes. HCL will sponsor the technical failures, like the ones in Bangalore, saying “Kaash HCL use kiya hota?”. Or may be Havell’s will “bachao” the “bijli” of the Eden Gardens flood lights. Ford Ikon may consider sponsoring the icons, but since only Sehwag and Yuvraj have clicked so far, they may not fancy it that much. May be Frenchie can sponsor the best supporter from the crowd, who is ready to do anything for the team (That’s probably a bit derogatory) or Vodafone the best cameraman for staying with the ball, when it is being helter skelter through out the ground (like Vodafone stays with its customers, except for the geeky kid that Hutch used to show in their ads). Even, Mallya’s Force India may start sponsoring the all the fours that are hit (fours – force, get it? Okay, that was a bad one).

Afterthought : Chennai and Rajasthan have so far stood out in the league. They also have been led by example. The other captains are still to perform when the team needed them. End of the day, Chennai’s on top of the league. So, good. But, they kicked out Nayantara for her no show in their first home game. Shocking, I say. So, I’ve decided not to go for any of Chennai’s home game till she’s reinstated.

An IPL Night

” I think Twenty20 is a decadent, dumbed – down, third – rate formula for sub – prime cricket” – William Rees-Mogg, former Editor of Times.

Once, there was a game called cricket. It would go on forever, not unlike a Quidditch game where the seekers weren’t good enough to get hold off the Golden Snitch. Nobody played this game, except for counties of England. This was an age when people could afford to sit around and do nothing (Hmm, that sounds like Utopia). But it was also an era before computer, anti biotics, radio, telephone, television, aeroplane and probably even the electric bulb (Well, doesn’t sound like Utopia now, does it?).

Slowly, the game changed. It was no longer a timeless test of patience. They cut it short to a limited number of days. It grew popular in the English colonies. Slowly, it spread its wings around the world. But it struggled to gain popularity outside the English colonies.

Two World Wars came and went. The super states that ruled the world for two millenia finally made way. A hundredcountries broke free from their colonial masters. The baby boomers repopulated the world. It marked an unprecedented societal and technological boom. But our dear game failed to catch up. It remained in a previous era, decadent and behind the times. The game made some progress. It changed to a single day format. It ventures outside the former English colonies for the first time. But it still had the tag of being too long and the longer version of the game still aspired to remain.

Welcome to the twenty first century. The world moves on at a pace never seen before. the four minute mile is a thing of the past, so is the sound barrier. It runs on a high overdoze of adrenaline resolved to jump any hurdle in the way. The good game has finally caught up with the times. We greet the latest entrant to the cricketing stable – Twenty20.

Twenty20 can do something that a century and a half of test cricket could not bring. It can bring world wide popularity for a game that lacked substance. It may not satisfy the puritans, but it is choice of the people that counts. And people want T20. It is entertaining and has met all the hype it has promised. The only critics of the game live in a bygone era. The time has come to move on and live with the times. Taking a cue from club football, it raises the level of the game. The investors pay to win. We will have teams that can attract the best talents and nurture even better ones. Real Madrid or Man U have a better line up than any national side any day. Nation based teams become stagnant, because they can not leverage on synergy of talents. Clubs with an unlimited pool of talent can bring together the best of talents.

Then, there is the part of discovering talent from obscurity. Dwight Yorke and Andrei Shevchenko are among the best examples of talents brought to the fore front by club football. IPL, in its nascent has brought up some potentials. Would the public have seen the likes of Manpreet Gony, Ashoke Dinda and Dinesh Salunke in action had it not been for IPL.

Last week, I went for the match between the Super Kings and Indians. The first time I had ever ventured into a cricket field. To be perfectly honest, I just went to see Nayantara, who was one of the brand ambassadors for the Super Kings. Unfortunately, she didn’t turn up. That’s six hundred bucks down the drain. But seriously, the whole experience was great. Hariharan and Sivamani enthralled the crowds. I lost my voice cheering with crowd well before the game. And game itself was spectacular. Went down to the wire, thanks to an inspirational innings by another future star, Abhishek Nayyar. Thankfully, Chennai held on. I’ll be rooting for Chennai, my pseudo home for the past year.

On the whole, the first week of IPL has been simply amazing. Shane Warne’s batting heroics and captaincy adds on as a perfect adjunct to the career of the master of spin, who missed out on captaincy and test century by a whisker.

Bring on the cheerleaders

Afterthought : On a lighter note, the IPL teams have come up with the most creative names u can find, not to mention the craziest naming convention. Most teams had the sanity of sticking to the well accepted formula of having the place first and the name second, commonly seen in NBA, MLB, NFL & NHL. But then, there is the team from Bengaluru, which pushes it. Worst of all is the team from Punjab. Why do they an XI in their name is beyond sense.

Now to the names themselves. There are the Punjab Kings and the Chennai Super Kings, the Rajasthan Royals and The Bangalore Royal Challengers (Oddly enough they both identical Royal Challenge logo on their shirts. A colleague tells me one belongs to UB and SABMiller the other). Too bad, we don’t have the Delhi Sultans and the Hyderabad Nizams. Then we can call IPL, the Royal Premier League. We do have a Lahore Badshahs, but that’s in ICL. Then, there are the Mumbai Indians, which is the height of nerve, considering all the cities are Indian. Going by the record so far, it has only tarnished the name of the country. Three straight defeats and a captain suspended for slapping a player of an opposing team. I hope they are styled after Clevelend Indians, which refers to the Native Americans of USA.

And finally, the men in gold, the Kolkata Knight Riders. I recall a Knight rider TV series featuring David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight and a talking car called KITT, which was the title character of the series. Knight rider referred to what the knight rode. Well, does King Khan consider himself to be the Knight to ride the Kolkata Knight Riders? That brings into play some queer, I mean weird connotations.