IPL 2013 is on, and like a classic fart, its smell is everywhere. More ads are featuring the teams, the players and the celebrity owners. Shah Rukh Khan, Kolkata Knight Rider, Dhoni, Delhi Daredevils, Chennai Super Kings, SRK again, Mumbai Indians, Kings XI Punjab, Pune Warriors and so on. Live updates of IPL, match details and schedules are on a bunch of websites hoping to draw people to them. Media is never tired of showing IPL folks. Raging debates between KKR lovers and Delhi Daredevils fans, Shah Rukh fans and Sourav Ganguly fans, Kohli and Gambhir, T-20 lovers and cricket puritans, I-T officials and franchise stakeholders are taking place. So we here can’t just ignore the drama.
Who has the IPL roped in? Cricketers, of course, but also celebrities, politicians, corporates and finally the public, the last category being the only one that isn’t getting any money out of it. We haven’t forgotten the involvement of law enforcement agencies, and the stakeholders surely haven’t as so many of them are getting constantly raided by I-T officials. Allegations of proxy stakes of politicians and offshore money in the franchises have got a lot of hot people bothered. And tax benefits are cute but not to all, and some are making quite a fuss over it.
And the cricket part? Yep, there’s that, amid the money, glamour, corruption, quarrels, racism and sexism over cheerleaders and cries of the water-electricity-crisis-facing states. This one thing of the IPL is that post-IPL, there have been more opportunities to local cricketers. New cricketers are getting recognition through the IPL. Money and stardom are becoming accessible to a few more. The number of foreign players has been raised from 8 to 10 per team, and the foreign players that are roped in are usually off their launchpads, so we’ll see how the IPL goes for non-celebrity players in the coming seasons.
So for now, be entertained, because that seems to be about all we’ll get out of it.
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