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    Indian Premier League

    Yesterday's rather remarkable inaugural match took over the County Championship thread, but I think this experiment deserves one of its own.

    Highlights of McCullum's 158 not out.

    The Kolkata "anthem"

    A Kolkata advert.

    The IPL homepage (with catchy league theme song).

    I'm not sure that "it's cricket", but it is without question interesting on a host of levels.

    #2
    Indian Premier League

    I don't know if it is only available in regions that don't have television coverage, but we have been able to follow live streaming of all of the weekend's matches on the IPL homepage.

    Kolkata are currently giving Deccan Chargers (Gilchrist, Symonds, Laxman, etc.) all kinds of trouble (65 for 5 after 14 overs) on a very dry (and rather dangerous) wicket at Eden Gardens.

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      #3
      Indian Premier League

      The problem I have with the IPL is that I can't think of any reason why I should want any of the teams in particular to do better than others. And without the partisanship, it all seems a bit pointless. And then next year all the teams will have completely different players, so they won't even build an identity.

      I can see why it could work in India, but I don't see much appeal beyond that.

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        #4
        Indian Premier League

        That Kolkatta team does look good. Were they the bookies favourites before it all started? And who picked that Bangalore side? For a test team you could hardly get a better middle order than Dravid, Kallis, Chanderpaul. But for 20twenty?

        Looking at the line-ups, something that strikes me is how many sides seem to have too short a batting order: the all-rounders / bits n pieces players* are coming in very early (as high as 4, say). There seem to be few dedicated batsman, which is a surprise in a tournament that celebrates the art of big hitting.

        * delete as appropriate

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          #5
          Indian Premier League

          This experiment so far has yielded one of the only articles on Cricket in the Washington Post. In fact, it was on the front page of Saturday's paper. Admittedly, this was a result of the Washington Redskins cheerleaders being there, but still - aside from the Cricket World Cup, I can't recall an article about cricket in the last 10 years or so. And certainly none of them were on the front page of the paper.

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            #6
            Indian Premier League

            Etienne wrote:
            The problem I have with the IPL is that I can't think of any reason why I should want any of the teams in particular to do better than others. And without the partisanship, it all seems a bit pointless.
            Quite. Any ideas?

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              #7
              Indian Premier League

              I think that if you watch a couple of matches, you will find at least one team you have positive feelings for, and probably more than one that you have negative feelings for. Kolkata, for instance, are so ridiculously over the top in seemingly everything that they do that it is hard to be completely neutral about them (plus they have Ponting). I am currently favourably disposed towards Mumbai, which is of course the reason why they lost last night.

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                #8
                Indian Premier League

                The commentator on the first clip ua linked to said "They say cricket's a funny old game."

                Do they?

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                  #9
                  Indian Premier League

                  http://iplt20.com/einstein-napoleon.html

                  What a name!

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                    #10
                    Indian Premier League

                    I agree with Ursus- we foreign fans can find plenty to like and dislike in the Indian teams. Although I feel more sympathy than anything for Punter as he morphs into a younger Dubya.

                    There are too many games in the circus and the interest and hype may not sustain. On the other hand, unlike at Derby it probably won't snow during the season.

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                      #11
                      Indian Premier League

                      I thought that Lawrence Booth's take in Today's "The Spin" email was typically balanced and insightful.

                      "Six matches in four days is not the kind of sample any self-respecting scientist would rely upon to draw Nobel-prize-winning conclusions, but the Spin is not a self-respecting scientist and its Nobel can wait. So far, the Indian Premier League has supplied two truly outstanding innings (Brendon McCullum and Mike Hussey), one world-class opening ceremony, one last-over finish (and even then the Bangalore Royal Challengers only needed two off six balls to beat the Mumbai Indians), one floodlight failure and at least one minor lathi charge (the Spin was almost caught up in the stampede outside the Wankhede on Sunday night but bravely fought its way out of trouble/stepped neatly to the side).

                      The fiasco at Eden Gardens, where the embarrassment over the temporary darkness was made worse by a minefield of a pitch, has been the one obvious clanger. But you do not have to delve too far beneath the surface to discern more subtle discord. Top of the agenda in some quarters is the extent to which the IPL is in thrall to celebrities and politicians, who regularly dominate the front pages every morning simply because they were good enough to make an appearance at the game the night before."

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                        #12
                        Indian Premier League

                        I think the counties thing is what stuffs it up. It should be done along the lines of the football teams.

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                          #13
                          Indian Premier League

                          Or at least copy the Baseball System.

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                            #14
                            Indian Premier League

                            Tell me, do you come from a minor county?

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                              #15
                              Indian Premier League

                              Gideon Haigh wrote an interesting piece about the IPL on cricinfo

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                                #16
                                Indian Premier League

                                An unjustly overlooked part of the IPL experiment: Cheerleaders.

                                This is huge. Considering there's plenty of time for them to get in a quick routine between overs, I would say cheerleaders could be busier in this league than they are in any other.

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                                  #17
                                  Indian Premier League

                                  Heard a story about this on Public Radio International's show The World (US public radio news show), only talking about the cheerleaders. Like scotian said, cricket is almost never talked about in the US--before it was only when a coach was killed, but now that Indian pols are upset about cheerleaders, more attention.

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                                    #18
                                    Indian Premier League

                                    So, Harbhajan has now been banned for the rest of the "season" for slapping Sreesanth.

                                    I found this piece on the two of them to be spot on.

                                    "one thought kept going through the mind: that if and when this happened, Sreesanth was the prime candidate for being hit, and Harbhajan was the most likely offender.

                                    Cricket, Indian cricket in particular, had it coming. What an irony the BCCI, which has so long indulged these two, may now have to ban one - it has already suspended Harbhajan pending the inquiry - and sanction the other. That sound you hear is of Australians chuckling at what has come to pass."

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                                      #19
                                      Indian Premier League

                                      I spoke to Pete last night who had been talking to mates and former team-mates who are playing in the IPL. He says that organizers are now starting to worry at the lack of crowd interest and involvement.

                                      Tickets are being given away free, and fans are having to be bussed in from the sticks to provide some kind of crowd atmosphere. TV ratings after an impressive start have tailed off this last week.

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                                        #20
                                        Indian Premier League

                                        Why is this such a big deal? Did India not have a league before? Or is it just that this is 20/20?

                                        How did the Redskins' cheerleaders - "The First Ladies of Football" - end up in India? That seems very random.

                                        Knight Riders, heh.

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                                          #21
                                          Indian Premier League

                                          Yeah, the terrible name has been commented on, Reed. Gideon Haigh suggested that the Mysore Melrose Placers will be next.

                                          The difference between the IPL and that which has preceeded it is that it is the richest and glitziest league in the world, which has paid collossal sums of money to the world's most exciting players.

                                          There has never been a similar concentration of talent in a domestic league, even the County Chapionship in it's hey-day as a destination for overseas cricketers in the 1980s.

                                          Secondly, the 20-20 format is a big thing, as you say. India is the biggest cricket market, and the richest one. If their fans decide they like this and they aren't bothered by the Indian Test team, then test cricket has real problems.

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                                            #22
                                            Indian Premier League

                                            Oh. I didn't gather that they were attracting non-indians to the league.

                                            I figured Australia would be, pound for pound, the richest and glitziest cricket market in the world.

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                                              #23
                                              Indian Premier League

                                              Not at all. Australian domestic cricket is the highest standard, but basically no foreigners take part in it (and only partly because not many would be good enough) and it's further devalued by the fact that the Aussie test players don't play much of it.

                                              The County Championship is historically the only domestic league to be able to afford to bring in significant numbers of foreign players, but that's only because it's subsidised by England national team revenue. It also has the advantage that the English season has little overlap with the domestic season of almost any other major country, but that has been whittled away by the extension of the cricket calendar over recent years.

                                              However, it still offers a decent living and another problem that faces world cricket is the growing number of players (particularly South African) who are choosing to play county cricket ahead of representing their country.

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                                                #24
                                                Indian Premier League

                                                Is being on the national test team a full time job? If you can be dropped at any time, it would seem like a good idea to have a regular gig to fall back on.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Indian Premier League

                                                  Being a regular on the national team is pretty much a full time job, and most countries now have central contracts for their top players. If you get dropped, there'll almost always be a place waiting for you in your domestic league. The problem is when a non-English player wants to play in the county championship as well as their domestic league.

                                                  There's a limit on overseas players who can play. However, cricketers from certain countries, and particularly South Africans, qualify under the so-called Kolpak rule (named after a Slovakian handball player who took the matter to court, Bosman style) to play in county cricket, if they declare themselves unavailable to play test cricket for 3 years. So players like Jacques Rudolph and Martin van Jaarsveld who might not be at the top of the international ladder, but who South Africa nonetheless might like to have available for selection aren't becuase they've chosen the financial security of county cricket.

                                                  And when players make that decision early in their careers, then they can qualify to play for England, in what is a pretty blatant abuse of England's economic power advantage in the game - and makes criticism of India's abuse of its own economic power advantages ring rather hollow.

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