we, the public made IPL above India

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100528/edit.htm#7


IPL gain is World Cup loss
by Jupinderjit Singh

We all cheered the sixes and fours in the IPL. We sat up late in the night to watch Hayden, Dhoni and above all Tendulkar and turned up late and dizzy in offices to do work that mattered. None of us complained about the IPL and none of us bothered to ask would the players be fit for the T-20 World Cup and would we also be fit to see so many cricket matches?

I had to visit an ophthalmologist to get a lubricant for my dry and tired eyes strained by the IPL. I am sure many others must have complained of the same and I know some in my immediate circle. I also gained weight sitting like a couch potato, munching food and watching non-stop cricket.

I and millions of viewers can get tired but how can players complain of that? When watching cricket can tire just one sensory organ of the body, we should have spared a thought for the players whose whole body and mind is taxed 24x7.

No, we did not think of that and we don’t want to think of that. Players for us are robots, life-like animated heroes, who will keep on performing day in and out, like the ones in video games. How can they be tired? We question once they start losing.

And then our favourite time-pass is to ask for blood. Let the heads roll, we demand. And the heads sought are of those who are the actors on the stage of cricket, not those who direct the shows, organise the matches and fix the itinerary that leaves no breathing space for the actors. They seem to be put in a mill, supposed to churn out one brilliant performance after another. Those, who don’t, need to be hacked.

We make the IPL a success by paying for tickets and cable TV. We give them time and energy and pack the stadiums. We raise the TRPs and hence more advertisements and more money for the game. We, the people, don’t realise we need not fill the stadiums as that should be reserved for Indian cricket team matches.

We looked and marvelled at the cricketers hitting one sixer after another without realising the boundary in IPL matches is less than the boundary earmarked for World Cup matches. That was not true cricket but we, the experts, don’t realise that.

The five wise men at the helm of selection affairs will not realise in T-20, a bowler who goes for 10 runs an over and doesn’t score, would also be inferior to an all-rounder like Irfan Pathan, who may go in for 12 runs an over but would score quick 30 or 40 and take bouncers chin up.

The five wise men will not realise that a so-called great bowler would continue receiving the ball in front of wickets for donkey years instead of behind the wickets to affect a runout. They will also not enforce the cardinal rule for the players that one has to dash straight to the other end for a run and not go diagonally increasing the distance and losing the wicket.

Such things would not be told and talked. Instead, we make the gladiators bleed and turn our back to them when they need nursing and care. We don’t talk about re-formatting the IPL matches in such a way that players get time to recover.

Let this be the opportune time to decide the issue once and all. Let us, the public, vow, not to make IPL matches a huge success that it overshadows competitions like the World Cup.

Let us tell the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI) that IPl matches need to be reduced by half or fix no player would play more than eight matches in the entire tournament. Let us boycott those matches and schedules which can have a direct conflict with the international prestige of Indian cricket. It starts with the public and it ends with the public only.