What will IPL 6 be remembered for?

They say with every good, comes bad – otherwise, how can you appreciate the good? But what happens when the bad overshadows the good to such an extent that there’s no essence of the good left? Another season of the IPL has come to an end, and like almost every season, there have been controversies that have been a major part of this season.

When the season began, however much everyone criticized the IPL and the tournament, people flocked the stadiums in large numbers and watched and supported their teams. It began with the excitement of watching Ponting and Tendulkar walking out to bat together for the same team, and watching two of the world’s best batsmen together was the ultimate spectacle for any cricket fan.

Then we saw a defiant Rajasthan Royals – once again – shrug off the tags of underdogs. They sat pretty at the top of the table with some fantastic performances by the captain, Rahul Dravid, himself. We saw the hapless Pune Warriors throw away games and from a winning position, end up losing. The Delhi Daredevils were a complete killjoy who put up no fight whatsoever; nevermind winning, they lost 13 of their 16 games. The best of all, however, were the Sunrisers, who were written off even before the tournament began. They did extremely well as a unit to get to the playoffs. Their team spirit – as was quite evident – was impressive and made the difference ultimately as they all played as a unit and all of their players made a contribution.

When we talk of the spice and the controversies, the Gambhir-Kohli spat was ugly; the Watson-Pollard confrontation was cooled off by Dravid himself; Yusuf Pathan’s spat with Dale Steyn – this was all exciting for fans to watch because the players fed off them and the competitive spirit in them was brought to the fore.

We had Gayle’s 175 which was a freak moment that every cricketer across every team applauded in awe. Mike Hussey’s consistent performances with the bat for the Chennai Super Kings were special. Bravo’s dances and his winning of the purple cap, Darren Sammy’s baby-dedicated celebrations, Dale Steyn’s aggressive and astute bowling, Amit Mishra’s third IPL hat-trick, Sunil Narine’s first hat-trick, Adam Gilchrist’s retirement and him picking up Harbhajan Singh’s wicket off his first ball in the IPL, followed by his Gangnam Style celebration will go down as the most incredible moments of this IPL. Ricky Ponting’s superman catch, closely contested by the likes of Pollard, Dravid, Ross Taylor, Rahane, Gurkeerat Mann etc was incredible. Suresh Raina’s century, Shane Watson’s destructive knocks, RP Singh’s no-ball moment against CSK, RCB’s super-over games, Yusuf Pathan’s ‘football’ dismissal, Brett Lee picking up a wicket off his first ball in the IPL and so many others are being remembered fondly, second to the competitive cricket being played.

And then, the spot-fixing scandal rocked every cricket fan. Everyone was watching and following the news updates ahead of the cricket updates. Nobody cared about the teams anymore; suddenly, who Gurunath Meiyappan was and what his involvement with the Chennai Super Kings was, mattered more. Will this IPL be remembered for the month and a half of spectacular cricket or have the last two weeks of controversies marred the good? I’m afraid, I reckon the latter.