When the Indian Cricket League(ICL) was poaching away some of the very best talents—and healthy cash—in the game, BCCI had to come up with a plan to stop them. Threatening the future of Indian cricket team is one thing, but grabbing a share of money by using Indian cricket was just something BCCI couldn’t digest.
And it happened. BCCI fought fire with fire, they made their own version of the ICL and named it IPL: Indian Premier League.
What happened after that is almost ancient history. At the very first sign of trouble, the players in ICL jumped ship and joined IPL. ICL was dismantled and couldn’t survive the star power of the IPL. Now, the former is just a forgotten name, only whispered in the shadows.
Trending
This was how IPL began. Despite the origin of the inception of the tournament having competition for its motive, the IPL has certainly been a mixed bag that has given us both the goods and the not-so-good.
And here are the PROS and CONS of the most commercial cricket tournament of all time…
PRO – Exposure for unknown faces
One of the biggest factors for the success of IPL is the huge exposure it gets. Fans from all over the cricketing fraternity collaborate to watch this tournament together. At least that was the case in the beginning.
When your countryman is playing a game of cricket in another league and against top players, the urge to watch the match becomes almost irresistible.
This kind of exposure on a global scale helps the unearthing of talents. As the IPL is a domestic tournament, there will always be unknown faces that get shot to fame. For instance, the likes of Ambati Rayudu and Ravi Ashwin made themselves famous with glamorous performances in the IPL.
And once you perform in the IPL, you automatically become renowned all over the cricket world—which is a small world in the first place.
Most recently, Mustafizur Rahman’s performances in the IPL has made him the talk of the tournament. Now this is a guy who came into this tournament with an already-exceptional track record in the international scene, but is being praised far more now than he was ever before.
CON – Rise in lack of patriotism
The amount of money that flies around in the IPL means that players don’t really have to worry about playing much non-IPL cricket in order to make a living.
Contracts worth millions of rupees are flung around and players find themselves swimming in money even without playing first-class cricket in some cases.
What this does is give rise to a lack of patriotism.
There are some players who would prefer playing in the IPL than represent their country on an international front—like Sunil Narine did when he chose to not join the West Indies training camp in order to play for KKR in the final of IPL 7.
One would claim that the West Indies board treat their players very poorly, but it still doesn’t erase the fact that what Sunil Narine did was wrong. And he is not the only one.
On the domestic front, some players—namely Lasith Malinga, Corey Anderson, Kieron Pollard, George Bailey, David Miller, Dwayne Smith and so on—have been guilty of choosing their IPL franchises over local clubs in the Champions League T20. This is another evidence of how money can buy even your patriotism.
PRO – Comeback chance
The biggest comeback story in the history of IPL would be that of Shane Watson’s. In the first season of IPL, Shane Watson featured for Rajasthan Royals and steered them to their maiden IPL trophy with his brilliant all-round display.
Before that tournament, however, his career with Australia was as good as over as he couldn’t find a place in the team.
However, that stellar IPL campaign brought his international career back on track and he went on to feature in many games for Australia in all formats—becoming a world class player in the process.
This is the advantage of playing in the IPL. Since playing well here can’t be ignored, the international selectors are bound to take a look at players who do well in the IPL and give them a shot with the national team—even if past experiences with that said player weren’t pleasant.
CON – Fading of interest in Tests
T20 cricket was introduced to the world over a decade ago. However, it wasn’t then when the fall of Test cricket began—it was a lot later when the IPL began.
This is not an attempt to claim that IPL has ruined Test cricket. Frankly, Test cricket is the best and nothing will change that. However, when a country with almost a billion cricket lovers begins losing interest in Tests, the graph in general points downwards.
Before the IPL, a lot of Indians found themselves glued in front of the TV to see the likes of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar offer no strokes to deliveries outside the off-stump. Such was the passion for the game.
Now, however, with the rise of T20 cricket’s popularity due to the IPL, fans—especially the younger ones—prefer watching the shortest version of the game rather than watching 5 days of cricket.
This has also influenced players as one can feel the vibe of cricketers wanting to play in the IPL more than in Test cricket.
Finally, due to the rise of T20, players are more slog-oriented and not as temperamental as they should be. Had their upbringing consisted of playing for long hours, we might as well had more players with genuinely good technique rather than compulsive sloggers or mystery spinners.
PRO – Competitive
When the best players from all over the cricketing globe feature in one competition, there can’t be any denying that it is indeed the most competitive domestic tournament in the whole world.
The Big Bash League might be the best T20 league in the whole world, but it can’t challenge IPL in terms of stardom since almost all the best T20 players in the world feature in India’s premier T20 competition.
Since Indian players aren’t allowed to play in outside T20 leagues, the other leagues automatically lose some greatness, since the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma don’t feature in them.
Hence, this gives IPL a full set of world-class players that set the standard of the tournament’s competitiveness to its pinnacle. This, in turn, makes sure that the players featuring in it are actually improving their skills and becoming better as cricketers.
CON – Excessive commercialism
The amount of money squandered in the Indian Premier League almost borders on obscene and oozes a sort of capitalism. There are sponsors for every possible thing, be it 4s or 6s. There are two strategic time-outs as well in a T20 game that have the mark of sponsors dug in them.
And we will refrain from going to the Bollywood angle altogether.
This approach by BCCI has made IPL more of a showbiz than a sporting tournament. As we watch a game, we can’t help but wonder whether this is actually sporting event or an epithet of entertainment.
PRO and CON – Multicultural dressing room
This was supposed to be a pro, and it is—but not completely. Sharing the dressing room with foreigners gives one a deeper understanding of the game from several perspectives. The opportunity to learn tricks from other nationality players wasn’t possible before like it is now.
This helps players improve on all fronts. For example, young foreign players like Jos Buttler and Mustafizur Rahman are learning a lot from their senior team-mates—something that will help them a lot with their respective careers.
However, the main disadvantage is that as you take, you also give. There are some things that shouldn’t be shared, but this kind of environment doesn’t allow one to keep it that way.
Tomorrow, when everyone gets back to their respective national teams and play on an international front, the IPL teammates-turned-international-rivals will share that crucial information with their international team-mates, taking away the X-factor from the game altogether.
Looking for fast live cricket scores? Download CricRocket and get fast score updates, top-notch commentary in-depth match stats & much more! 🚀☄️
