Saturday, May 03, 2008

IPL - The mad rush

IPL is just another way to fool people and create a mad rush among them, who were gradually losing the interest from Cricket. Specially, targeting audience are the youths, they are those people, who least bother; what’s happening the world outside the Cricket ? Since, now it is much focused to the excitement brought by Bollywood, media and business personalities. Well, if Cricket is only played for the money then the days are not far away from bolloywood’s sequences, where things are well scripted and pre-determined.

Someboby need not remind again, what happened in the last World Cup. What people must understand that at the end of the day they are losing valuable time, money & the spirit of the game cricket (Indian players have already started setting great examples).


In News :
- IPL brings in big money, but can it change cricket?
- Bhajji Pleads Guilty Banned For 11 IPL Matches
- Slap row: Mumbai Indians' coach Rajput guilty too
- Ganguly, Warne fined, reprimanded


I don’t see issues or objections with the new version of this game called T20 but certainly with the way it is promoted, organized and broadcast. Why to compare cricket with some other games ? and can't Cricket be played with it's actual forms or somebody is planning to creat a new game out of it ? I don’t know the life time of this re-mixed version of Cricket but I wouldn’t surprise to see the Cricket Grounds as the future ‘Dance Bars’.

Well, this mad rush for IPL T20 will lead Cricket nowhere but surely make the business (called Cricket) in India to find its ways to the hollowness of the game. And for sure, the media, some bollywood personalities and business men have another option to loot money from you in the name this game. What Rajdeep from IBN Says - Page 3 cricket must not be allowed to become page one sport.

You make Cricket and Cricketers popular, just because you love them. And they try to sell this popularity back to you and make a business out of it by bring all short of non-sense. Whether the Cricket crazy fans will ever realize this mad rush ? or it will remain unchanged with all those bruised changes.

Also, politicians please stay away from Cricket, I know you are gradually catching up with some issues of IPL T20 and waiting to get your share from it (I don’t know whether you already got). But hey don’t you think you have lot of better jobs to do; there are thousands of issues in the country that needs your attention and actions. So please !

I am a fan of Cricket who is not supporting this damn IPL T20 or any such gimmicked things of Cricket. In the end, I left it on the millions of other Cricket fans to decide the future/fate of such tournaments and nevertheless the game of Cricket, because you love it and pay for it and give them options.

6 comments:

Himanshu Sheth said...

Hey Alok,
I completely agree to what you have written....To add to your comparisons like Page 3 cricket, Dance Bars; I would add that "IPL is nothing less than the Saas Bahu serials"... Same head eating stuff, but yet people find it interesting and yes, not to forget, they are made dramatic.

I guess you can also add that "The camera has never captured Bhajji slapping our Doodh Peeta Baccha Sreesanth" and this is where the catch lies...Add Fire and increase the TRP of IPL...IPL is not related to cricket but is pure BUSINESS.

If you might have seen on TV, just after the press conference, Sreesanth was happily listening to his IPOD and told press people "Bhajji is like my brother and hence he can hit me" , than why was he crying [I guess Bhajji might have kissed him and hence he cried :)]

AS you have written, IPL is mad rush and nothing else...and once Glamour enters cricket, it does not remain a game....

I can curse more and more but than my comment would be longer than your article :) so need to stop....

-Himanshu Sheth

alok said...

@ Himanshu - Hey, points noted and good comparisons too. Its all fake and surely a new way of business.

Buddy ! you can keep on cursing ... no limits for such things ;)

Cuckoo said...

It is called glamourized cricket. I wonder if they forgot what was original purpose. Just to be one up than ICL, this IPL had to come.

BTW, That song 'Mann ki lagan' is one of my favourites.

P.S.- Can you pls enable the Name/URL option for commenting ? This id will take you to my old blog.

alok said...

@cuckoo – IPL is counter for ICL. But I don’t know how much craze was there for ICL ?

The combination of the song is too good ... I mean music, lyrics, singer and nevertheless the video :)

Hey, please bear with me, do you mind ? there is a purpose for not enabling name/url option for commenting, thanks for understanding it.

SMRITI said...

Yeah I used to be a cricket fan a while back, and after 2007 WC, I lost a huge amount of interest. Not just cause we weren't there, but the whole WC seemed tainted..Bob Woolmer and all.

Then came 20-20 WC. I started watching it mid-way coz my dad likes company while watching matches. He gets all excited and perked up at the sight of a batsman hitting a six. Watched the remaining matches, and to be frank the final did seem like pre-determined. I'm not saying it was fixed or anything, but for some reason it felt like as himanshu has said, "A saas-bahu serial". It was nail-biting till the end and a team unfancied before the tournament doing well, coming home and greeted like kings. I hated all the brouhaha around them when the team returned.

About the biz minded celebrities taking over IPL, I had major major issues with SRK. He made a movie about Hockey. The movie's song was used for cricket and he owns a cricket team now. I have nothing against SRK. But other sports are suffering at the cost of cricket..and we are still mad about this sport and watching sreesanth cryin on the field is making the headlines in this country.

Dunno if i made any sense, but no point in discussing on and on and on on this topid. In the end, BCCI is laughing all the way to bank and we are still getting fooled.

P.S--Seen a major regional divide with people going "My Mumbai Indians will thrash your Deccan chargers"...Hell when did I say i supported Deccan chargers or anyone else for that matter?? I was jsut discussing IPL's fate with an "Intellectual..

alok said...

@smirti – I am glad to see you here. And thanks for sharing your thoughts here. It is disappointing seeing the way whole IPL is projected and more than that where is that cricket ??? It’s all become so hyped that we don’t even know whether still a bit of cricket left or it all that matters money and nothing else …

How we can forget, in India people are dieing because poverty ? And here in IPL, payments are made in crores of rupees to players (forget about foreign players). Where these people taking our country and what we are doing ??? I guess it’s a never ending discussion and the best thing I can think of is just not to support such tournaments.

Oh ! do I need to mention how other sports persons are discouraged ? forget about SRK, he is just another bloody biz man; may be government need to take some strict actions to make other games alive. Otherwise; this 100 crore + population country will always dream for a single medal in Olympic. Probably cricket is just a shit game in other countries.