Dear Friends;
This article is from the NY Times this morning (03 04 2012). This is the full version and has escaped the usual block. -bhuban RICKET Cricket's Juggernaut Returns to Action By HUW RICHARDS Published: April 2, 2012 RECOMMEND TWITTER LINKEDIN SIGN IN TO E-MAIL PRINT REPRINTS SHARE We already know that the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League,cricket’s most lucrative competition, will start and finish in the same place — Chennai. Nor will anybody be too surprised if the final May 27 is a repeat of the opener Wednesday, when the Chennai Super Kings begin their pursuit of a third consecutive I.P.L. title at home against the Mumbai Indians, the titleholders of the Champions League — the global competition among Twenty20 teams. Nine teams, down from 10 last season, will play a total of 76 Twenty20 matches — sixteen apiece, on a home-and-away schedule, to decide which four will proceed to the four-match playoff stage. In the process a lot of players will become considerably wealthier — notably the Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, who secured a $2 million contract from Chennai in the rotisserie-style player auction on Feb. 4. By turning many of the world’s leading cricketers into millionaires, the I.P.L. has also transformed the landscape of the game globally. At the same time, though, it faces business challenges of its own. Since last season, India’s national team has fallen from its position atop the world rankings for test cricket. And television ratings for the I.P.L. in 2011 were lower than those of the previous season. “I.P.L. is a different tournament. Twenty20 is fun for fans, and India’s performance will not have an impact on the tournament” was the confident prediction last week by Rajeev Shukla, a vice president with the Board of Control for Cricket in India who took over as I.P.L. chairman last year. He attributed the lower television ratings to the bad timing, with the I.P.L. tournament taking place immediately after India won the Cricket World Cup in the 50-over format. “Last year there was cricket fatigue,” Shukla said. Still, a few incidents over the past few months have raised questions about the commercial strength of the I.P.L. One franchise, Kochi Tuskers, was expelled from the competition after failing to pay a bank guarantee last September. Another club, the Pune Warriors, seemed likely to follow in February when its owner, Sahara, an Indian conglomerate that also sponsors the Indian national team, had a temporary falling-out with the cricket board. But there are signs the tournament still is growing. One proposed deal would let another conglomerate, the Jain Group, take control of the Rajasthan Royals in a move that values the franchise at $226.5 million, more than three times the $67 million paid by the current owners when they set up the club only five years ago. With the tournament’s major sponsorship deals, notably with title sponsor DLF, up for renewal after this season, the I.P.L. needs to make a splash. It is certainly starting confidently enough, with an opening ceremony in Chennai on Tuesday featuring the singer Katy Perry and a wealth of Bollywood film royalty, notably the legendary star Amitabh Bachchan, who will take the oaths of the nine different team captains. The real test, though, will be the quality, and above all the entertainment value, of the cricket itself. Shukla made it clear that the organizers think that means high scores, saying that groundskeepers had been instructed to ensure conditions in which scores of 160 or more from a 20-over innings are the norm. It was no surprise, then, that the Bangalore Challengers worked hard during the off-season to secure the return of Chris Gayle. The flamboyant West Indian was the highest scorer in the 2011 tournament despite missing the first few weeks of the season. His string of ferocious assaults transformed his team from also-rans into the eventual runners-up, with the team losing the final against Chennai. “The expectation is high, based on what happened last year,” Gayle said last week. “But last year is history and we don’t know what the future holds. “I’m not a person to predict and say, yes, I’m going to better 600 odd runs. We’ll have to wait and see. The start is going to be crucial.” Could the South African Richard Levi be the Gayle for this year? Levi attracted no interest at the auction, but he then played the fastest ever-innings of 100 or more in a Twenty20 international, hitting no fewer than 13 sixes against New Zealand, and was snapped up by Mumbai. “You are not going to score 100 from 40 balls every time. The trick is to keep everything as simple as possible and play to your strengths,” said Levi, well aware that most eyes at Mumbai matches will be on his opening partner, Sachin Tendulkar, the Indian legend. “The crowd won’t be cheering for me, they’ll be cheering for their Little Master, but I think it is going to be amazing.” Other players likely to generate serious attention include Pune’s hugely gifted but troubled New Zealander, Jesse Ryder, who will be accompanied by his personal clinical psychologist as he deals with alcohol and other issues; the Australia captain Michael Clarke, who will be paid a reported $1 million by Pune for six matches; and the veteran Australian Adam Gilchrist, who will be the tournament’s busiest man as captain, coach, opening batsman and wicket keeper for Kings XI Punjab. Chennai will be tough to stop, so where is the challenge to come from? Mumbai will threaten again, but if there is to be a new name on the trophy come May 27, it may just be that of the Kolkata Knight Riders, who have astutely added to the nucleus of the squad that finished fourth in 2011 and made its first playoff appearance. Among those recruits is the West Indian Rudi Webster — not to play, since he is 72, but as the first mental skills coach for an I.P.L franchise. That move might just be a masterstroke in a game that, despite its flashy trappings, demands thinking cricketers above all else. A version of this article appeared in print on April 3, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune. Try a Times Digital Subscription - just 99 cents for 8 weeks! Get Free E-mail Alerts on These Topics Cricket (Game _______________________________________________ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
