The advent of television in India approximately 28 years ago has brought out a tremendous change in our lives. Our focus changed on various issues and now our concepts are clearer. I am not mentioning here the lies that also float in the ad industry – the girl will become fairer (gori) in two weeks by using a particular brand of cream or a baldie (tackloo; like me 🙂 ) will grow hair – on the head of course – by applying a specified oil. But concepts in general have become clearer.
More than two decades ago I watched World cup soccer tournament. It was a treat to watch how the top teams in the world vie for a place in the finals and eventually one day hold the trophy. After watching the world cup and Euro cup matches – the Indian soccer league looked like watching a world cup match in slow motion.
I used to think that nobody will watch the local team matches except that sometimes I used to watch the Ranji Trophy final. Who would have thought that one day Bollywood-glamour-cricket would amalgamate into one beautiful scenario and create a multi million dollar extravaganza that will be watched by a billion people all over the globe? Even the England’s County cricket matches were not so popular.
And this has been made possible by none other than the genius called Lalit Modi – the Chairman of IPL. The names of the towns Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Punjab are now globally famous and on every one’s lips. IPL 2 has twice as much viewership as compared to that of IPL 1. Lalit Modi in my opinion is a man par excellence and deserves a diamond studded gold medal for his expertise in management. He is cool – does not buckle under pressure keeps his options open. There was a lot of hullabaloo about provision of security at the venues of all matches – 59 in all – and that too during the National elections. There is no denying the fact that elections are very important. Lalit Modi flew to Johannesburg. And then, lo and behold, came the announcement that IPL 2 will be held in South Africa. The arrangements were made within three weeks and the tournament began on 18th April instead of 10th April.
To the public at large it doesn’t matter much whether the matches are played in India or South Africa because only three to five percent of the public get a chance to view the matches from inside the stadium with a bottle of beer in their hands. The rest ninety five percent watch them in the confines of their bedrooms and of course tea and snacks are always available. But every cloud has a silver lining. In addition to watching cricket we also get a chance to watch beautiful earings – goggles – dresses etc. I am surprised to see Mandira Bedi the cricket presenter – who is now looking much younger by her short hairdo. Hubby Raj Kaushal must be a very happy man.
Preity Zinta and Yuvraj were visibly very happy over their first victory in the tournament on 24th April over Royal Challangers Bangalore. Prior to this they both were singing the duet –‘baaki sab thik tha – barsaat maar gayee’ (rest everything was going well but rain played spoil sport). During this match I was shocked to see a man carrying a placard which was scribbled by -‘Preity I want to marry you’. How does this fellow have the guts to say this in South Africa when millions of her fans are already in the queue And perhaps he has not seen her hefty body guard who would smash him to pulp.
And may I ask what this ‘ strategy break ‘ is? What strategy can the coach-captain-team evolve in seven and a half minutes which could not be discussed five to six hours prior to the match? Please don’t spoil the beauty of the tournament. During this break the line and length of the bowlers goes haywire and the batsmen loose their concentration. Why? Why can’t a twenty over ONLY match be played in one go? Just for making a few extra bucks in a couple of ads during this highly ‘strategic’ discussion. Na, please stop this distasteful break. It won’t help you much.
Last but not the least I would like to ask the organizers and my readers that for a three hours of cricket do we need TWO HOURS of extra innings? Na Na . You are badly mistaken. During that period we are , instead , watching some other program rather wait to see the ads in between your extra innings. And by the way what do you three learned gentlemen do there? Here is an example – “There is grass and moisture on the wicket and the ball would bounce and is not conducive to spin – There is little grass on the pitch and it will help the spinners – The ball will come on the bat and there are lots of runs in this pitch – This match would go down to the last over as a live wire – The outfield is very fast. – Hatrbhajan will havw a lot of work to do etc etc”.After listening to all this for two hours do you want to know what really happened?
It rained.
Ravi Matah