After a marathon 45 days of T-20 cricket extravaganza, better known as Indian Premier League (IPL), the curtains came down with glittering gusto and fanfare on one of the greatest sporting events of today – the Finals watched by some sixty thousand at the Wankhade stadium in Mumbai and in huge numbers in the many fan-parks specially designed for public viewing on giant-screens and more significantly, the live telecast and related buzz and peppy program contents on Star TV channels, followed by several millions of cricket-loving Indians across the country, all for a game of cricket, surprisingly played by the fewest nations in the world !
If Europe is world’s soccer playground with the various team’s incredible popularity and badminton is major game of China and many of the major South-east nations who wield their domination, India doubtlessly can take the pride of place in the shorter format of cricket as ‘the land of the rising cricketers’ – youngsters, some even under the age of 20, with amazing talents coming to the fore on the biggest stage with confidence and consistency, whom the IPL format is able to unearth year after year !
While the IPL Final winners, the ‘old’ favourites ‘Chennai Super Kings’ ( lead by the unbeatable ‘Captain Cool’, MS Dhoni and making a comeback after two years with many of it’s earlier stalwarts ) took home a mind-boggling bonanza of Rs.20 Crs, the runners-up team also pocketed Rs.12.50 Crs. This kind of moolah and spotlight has turned many of the young IPL heroes into international sensations overnight, some even acquiring the rockstar image and hype thanks to media and fashion houses chasing them.
What happens to ‘cricket’ the game of elegant cover drives and majestic hook shots, as the hustle-bustle, the sledge-hammer shots and bludgeoning sixes becomes the face of T-20 cricket and bowlers struggle on flat tracks. The purists decry this brutal hit-and-run kind of play but the crowds go into a frenzy as batsmen clobber the bowlers all over the park with certain players specially recruited in the team for their big-hitting abilities.
T-20 is carnival cricket which provides non-stop entertainment and wraps it up in about 4 hours, has come to stay. The IPL and its stars will continue to laugh their way to the bank – till another and maybe even shorter, zanier version of the game comes along to replace it with greater dividends !
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