IPL Saga continues

As IPL reaches its fag end of its season 2, more than the cricket it is the other things that have taken the centre stage, first and foremost whether one agrees or not, defnitely it is this blog - http://fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com/, which has made all the noise that is required for the marketing, there are many people who are watching just to see what the fakeplayer is mentioning in the blog, well to me it has certainly been a very entertaining affair.

I sincerely feel even now that the IPL could have been held in India by working out with the goverment, IPL boss thinks he and IPL and bigger and better than India and its democracy, well he is wrong and it would be proven. To ensure that spectators are present in the stadium there are so many stupid things IPL is doing, like choosing bollywood queen, sms game to predict the score in the over, giving money to schools (well I have nothing against it, my only grudge is what was done to schools here during last year season, nothing!!!!, this is purely a master marketing stroke by IPL to have more SA people come to ground for emotional reason)

I had written an year back during the last year about how IPL will change cricket and I see it happening, other thing that has struck me is the sheer lack of control on IPL by ICC, IPL is governed by its own law and whatever they may argue I believe that this is nothing but minting money and not cricket talent development. The owners have the right over the team, they can force anyone to play or drop and thus shackling a upcoming players confidence and BCCI cannot do anything, with less than 2 months for the t20 world cup, there is no effort done to keep our prime players fresh and they would be worn out (take Ishant Sharma for ex, he is playing for a lost cause, BCCI could do itself good to ensure that he gets the right break). 

I wish ICC has more control on IPL and rather leave it to just BCCI, else cricket wont be cricket.

IPL - Cricket, Money, Fame, Name and the Game and Localization

Cricket has been the mantra this year and last for most of the sports lovers in India, what with ICL - Zee's cricket venture headed by Legendary Kapil Dev completing its first tournament with a moderate success and thereby shackling the foundation of BCCI to sit up and take a note of the rebels (ICL is called though).
Cricket has money, it has fame, one can make a name if they are success in this game, but was BCCI willing to share the booty, yes to an extent but not that much what ICL was offering, but then hats off to Lalit Modi who is the brainchild behing IPL and the way it has been marketed.
It was good to see players being auctioned, big names investing in the local cricket teams and hence proving there is no dearth of money for talent and also thereby allowing other sport bodies in the country to learn how to market themselves.
I see IPL heading the same way as how the Football league is played in the west, moving ahead I see players performing more dedicated to the league than thier country (I am not jumping the gun, but how many times has Ronaldo/Ronaldinho/other top players turned out for thier own country when they have a league game), the reason is obvious, your talent is paid more in the league than turing out for ones country (I maybe be proved wrong, but only by an handful of players), even if the top players turned out, it would be interesting to see if the public would watch them with the same vigour as it is now, because what IPL has done is that it has localized the cricket and now fans would cheer for thier local club which would include players from across the globe and hence taking away the charm when two nations meet to fight out, but I firmly believe that during the world cup the passion would rise again as the stake is more.
The onus is on ICC to ensure that they still are commanding force and dont budge to this money game and make sure that players do turn up (I mean top players) for thier respective countries with the same passion it was before the birth of IPL.

Welcome to the world of localization :)