May I use this platform to raise a rhetorical question: Is the Indian Premier League as popular as portrayed by BCCI?
They have craftily inculcated a suggestion: “If you are a cricket fan and you don’t support IPL or T20, you are anti-Indian.” This ploy is effective in manipulating the impressionable masses. For Indian fans in particular, the fear of being ostracised or branded as unpatriotic triggers an obligatory concession for IPL.
Do Indian fans really adore IPL? Inherently, Indians watch cricket to support their country rather than IPL’s franchises — it does not surpass international cricket. Can IPL match the buzz of Pakistan’s tour of India in 2005 or the 2011 World Cup? Surely IPL draws crowd to the stadiums but the television ratings have plunged in the last two seasons. Watching IPL matches at grounds is like a picnic for the spectators, for it’s a short T20 format; it’s an outing, a deviation from their dreary routines; it’s a use-and-throw, watch-and-forget entertainment for them, like an intercourse without foreplay with a streetwalker. Indians are losing interest in “real” cricket, let alone the vaudville of IPL. But BCCI and its agents continue to flaunt a story of success. At times they open gates to let the indolent, ticketless throng fill the stadium. The dearth of T20 international matches — except for the frequent world cups — can be imputed to depriving people of T20 cricket so that IPL remains the flagship brand. Repetition is the key: the agents, in the form of media and commentators, keep hammering IPL’s tremendous stature, till it permeates the psyche of the peer-pressured consumers.
BCCI’s scullions crow and snigger whenever a foreign cricketer chooses IPL over his country. If an Indian cricketer chose Big Bash or county cricket over India, would they extend the same tolerance?
They have craftily inculcated a suggestion: “If you are a cricket fan and you don’t support IPL or T20, you are anti-Indian.” This ploy is effective in manipulating the impressionable masses. For Indian fans in particular, the fear of being ostracised or branded as unpatriotic triggers an obligatory concession for IPL.
Do Indian fans really adore IPL? Inherently, Indians watch cricket to support their country rather than IPL’s franchises — it does not surpass international cricket. Can IPL match the buzz of Pakistan’s tour of India in 2005 or the 2011 World Cup? Surely IPL draws crowd to the stadiums but the television ratings have plunged in the last two seasons. Watching IPL matches at grounds is like a picnic for the spectators, for it’s a short T20 format; it’s an outing, a deviation from their dreary routines; it’s a use-and-throw, watch-and-forget entertainment for them, like an intercourse without foreplay with a streetwalker. Indians are losing interest in “real” cricket, let alone the vaudville of IPL. But BCCI and its agents continue to flaunt a story of success. At times they open gates to let the indolent, ticketless throng fill the stadium. The dearth of T20 international matches — except for the frequent world cups — can be imputed to depriving people of T20 cricket so that IPL remains the flagship brand. Repetition is the key: the agents, in the form of media and commentators, keep hammering IPL’s tremendous stature, till it permeates the psyche of the peer-pressured consumers.
BCCI’s scullions crow and snigger whenever a foreign cricketer chooses IPL over his country. If an Indian cricketer chose Big Bash or county cricket over India, would they extend the same tolerance?
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