Five gifts IPL has given to us

Vodafone Zoozoo dancing with the cheerleaders at the IPL

IPL-Indian Premier League! The BCCI’s “golden-egg laying hen” has knowingly or unknowingly given many gifts to Indian cricket, which are surely noticed by the fans but with closed eyes and cotton-plugged ears, that is what I have seen. It all started with the controversies between BCCI and Zee Network Ltd. upon the broadcasting rights which resulted into ICL – a rebellion effort against the most powerful sporting board in the world (at least in the monetary terms).

As soon as ICL came on field, the talks were on for a big ticket come back from BCCI, as ICL was a direct attack on the supremacy of the board in India and so was born the Indian Premier League. Lalit Modi came up with a blueprint of a cricket league based on the English Premier League format and it surprisingly drove the cricket crazy nation crazier. It was launched with promises to take Indian cricket a level higher and indeed it did, here are the five gifts that IPL gave to Indian cricket

1. Increase the revenue of the Advertising Industry – Whether the upcoming cricketing generation was benefited or not is a different scenario altogether, but the amount of opportunity that has been on offer for the advertising world is definitely a strong statement in itself. The amount of different mediums that the advertising world was presented with, were surely high in no. as compared to those provided to the upcoming cricketers. Being an advertising professional myself, I should not be commenting against my own daily bread, but I can definitely write another blog dedicated only to the benefits, that IPL has given to the advertising world, rather than the cricketing world.

2. An awesome World Cup winning celebration – It took a 28 year long wait for us to see India lift the cup and it just took one IPL season to take all the celebrations away. For many of us, including me, it was the first and may be the last chance to see India lifting the cup in its own backyard and when I was waiting for that grand celebration that should have been happened in Mumbai, it was the IPL fever which kept the players away from their well-deserved felicitation.

3. A Chunk of Injuries- I don’t think that you will deny the fact that a lot of back to back cricket has taken a toil upon the bodies of our cricketers and all credit to the board for giving a new money making fish to our boys. It is obvious that if you flag off chunks of money to people they’ll surely go after it, isn’t it? Big corporates paying good money to the players make them neglect their body fatigue and play. The most recent result being the shameful loss in England because of the unavailability of our top performers.

4. A list of upcoming cricketers who are already running after money and glamour – Rather than focusing on their performances, the upcoming so called bench strength of the Indian Cricket Team is already addicted to a lifestyle filled up with leisure and fun. I am not contradicting that Indian cricketers are not working hard, they surely are, and the likes of R. Ashwin, Varun Aaron etc. cannot be ruled out but there are also players who are addicted to the glamorous and monetary benefits of the league and have shifted their focus from the national side.

5. Degrading the importance of our domestic trophies – IPL has completely taken over the scope of making the likes of Ranji, Irani or The Duleep Trophy popular. The board gave a commercialized look to cricket which could have been done with the Ranji or any other domestic series, in turn refurnishing the lost glory of the Ranji Trophy or the Irani Trophy.