Bored with the IPL yet? The tournament is at the halfway stage and it's become apparent that it's all a tad formulaic. Seeing sixes flying out of the ground is a lot of fun until you've seen it 220 times - then it just becomes ho-hum.
And that's what the IPL is now. Of course Lalit Modi knows that, which is why he hired all those Bollywood types to get involved with the tournament. Problem with that is, after a while, seeing Shilpa Shetty and Preity Zinta flick their well-made-up hair becomes dull too.
There's just too much of it; nobody cares for 59 games of 20-over cricket in five weeks and you can see it in the stands. Durban's Kingsmead, where all the teams wanted to be based when the tournament was switched to South Africa because of the large Indian population there, was barely half-full for Tuesday's double-header.
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The Wanderers over the weekend attracted crowds of 18 000 on Saturday and 14 000 on Sunday. Sport-mad the South African public may be but gullible they are not and Modi is finding that out.
| Subtlety and the IPL are about as compatible as oil and water |
He hasn't helped himself by slavishly kow-towing to the corporate entities who have poured money into the tournament. Sponsors are thanked endlessly, parts of the game now have sponsors' names attached, and the TV commercial breaks, renamed "strategic time-outs", are an embarrassment.
Sponsors might be happy to be thanked as often as they are by the IPL's team of spokesmen - they can hardly be called commentators any more, so much have they sold themselves to the corporations - but there comes a time when it wouldn't be a bad idea to employ a little subtlety.
However, subtlety and the IPL are about as compatible as oil and water - the two just don't mix - so we'll have to put up with spokesmen screaming about a six that's no longer a six, but a maximum sponsored by an Indian property company whose finances have taken a hit during the credit crunch, and a catch that's a success backed by a bank that needed bail-out money from the Obama administration.
As for Modi - why does he need to be at the toss and in the presentation party and then be seen for half the match talking or typing into his mobile phone?
If the tournament is so much about the cricketers and the game, why the need to constantly have his face on TV? We all know he's responsible for the event but we don't care to see him all the time.
| The event has been soulless |
The cricket itself, when it's been shown between the commercial breaks and scenes of Modi chatting away on the cellphone, has thrown up some interesting matches; a number have been decided in the last over and some off the last ball but there's little that's memorable about it.
Did the Chennai Super Kings or the Rajasthan Royals win at Centurion last week? Don't remember? Don't care?
It may have been a coup for South Africa to have landed this tournament to show off the country's organisational skill, particularly in light of next year's football World Cup, but the event has been soulless. Hence the need for gimmicks, like the Miss Bollywood competition - which was supposed to be about finding unknown girls and putting them in a Bollywood movie but has instead offered prizes to an ex-Miss South Africa and a former Sports Illustrated swimwear model.
Even the attempt to give R15 000 to children to pay for their school fees has left the IPL with egg on its face with a rather large number going to kids in expensive private schools.
It's all become too much and too many, including some of the commentators making a fair penny out of the event but are counting the days to May 24 - when Modi can go off and find some other TV camera to film him as he makes another call.
- This article was originally published on page 21 of The Star on May 07, 2009
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