It is noisy and brash. It turns up its nose at the game’s traditions. It shamelessly auctions off players to the highest bidder. If they ever played cricket in Las Vegas- – this is how they’d do it.
Welcome to the all singing, all dancing world of the Indian Premier League.
In the IPL, entertainment is king. The blaring music, the cheerleaders, the colourful clothing is all designed to whip the crowd into a frenzy. Games are done and dusted in three hours and every one must have a winner. Traditional ties simply do not exist in this form of cricket.
The League’s fifth season, more commonly known as IPL5, features nine teams from across India, one fewer than 2011. The Kochi Tuskers’ franchise was terminated after just one season amid reports its owners had defaulted on payments to the Indian Cricket Board.
Nonetheless, a full schedule of 76 matches will take place in the space of just 53 days. The top four teams will advance to the Championship playoffs with a series of eliminators leading to the final itself on the last Sunday in May.
The Chennai Super Kings are the team to beat. Led by the inspirational M.S. Dhoni, Chennai have won the last two editions of the IPL and have added the multi-talented Ravindra Jadeja for 2012. The 23-year-old all-rounder was available following Kochi’s expulsion and the bidding war reached $2 million at the players’ auction.
As Chennai targets a hat-trick of titles, the Mumbai Indians are still searching for that elusive first championship. Any team that includes the legendary Sachin Tendulkar in its line-up is always going to be competitive but the Little Master has yet to taste IPL success with his hometown club.
Tendulkar has stepped down as captain for IPL5, handing the leadership role to the vastly-experienced Harbhajan Singh. The decision could be a masterstroke. Singh led Mumbai to the Champions League T20 title in 2011 while Tendulkar was sidelined through injury. Freed of the burden of captaincy, Tendulkar can focus on what he does best — scoring plenty of runs in a short space of time.
Nobody does it better than Chris Gayle. The giant Jamaican is back with Royal Challengers Bangalore following his outstanding performances in 2011. Gayle eclipsed all other batsmen last year despite arriving late to the party. A series of match-winning innings got Bangalore all the way to the final of IPL4 but the Kings were duly crowned after Gayle’s big bat for once deserted him.
Twelve months ago, fans in Kolkata were up in arms. Protesters were incensed by the Knight Riders’ decision to drop local hero Sourav Ganguly. The former Indian captain had led the franchise from Day 1 but results were less than impressive.
The revamp worked and the protesters went home. Kolkata made the playoffs for the first time under Gautam Gambhir but the 30-year-old opening batsman will need to improve his individual contribution if the Knight Riders are to contend again in IPL5.
In Twenty20 cricket, there are simply no guarantees about anything. Any team can beat any other on its day but one thing is for sure: The action is fast and exciting and there’s nothing like a last ball nail-biter under the floodlights to get the pulse racing. Strap yourself in and enjoy the rollercoaster.