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Firstly, the latest edition will have no role for the now-disgraced Lalit Modi who conceptualised, implemented and ran the T20 league as if it was his private property. But to give the devil its due, the flamboyant administrator also helped the IPL expand beyond one’s imagination. In the post-Modi era, the collective effort of the BCCI, as against one man’s rule, will be put through a stern examination.
Secondly, can IPL sustain the public interest in the aftermath of India’s emotionally draining World Cup triumph less than a week ago? There is no bigger achievement in cricket than the quadrennial title and the mad party that the entire nation plunged into was testimony to that. The feeling of world champions is slowly sinking in and the IPL kicks off on Friday. The timing couldn’t have been better or worse, depending on which side of the fence you are ay. The IPL can either cash in on the euphoria of India’s World Cup triumph or it can end in an anti-climax.
“I think it’s (the World Cup triumph) good,” felt Super Kings coach Ian Fleming. “Because the enthusiasm for the game and the euphoria of winning the World Cup and now to get another dose of great tournament... I think this is the only country that is going to deal with it and this is the only country that can deal with so much amount of cricket.”
The league itself has become bigger with the addition of two new teams – Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Sahara Pune Warriors – whose poaching of several key players from the existing eight teams has ensured that most teams go in with a largely new set of players. To name a few, Royal Challengers Bangalore will be without the services of their last year’s star performers Robin Uthappa, Jacques Kallis and R Vinay Kumar while Delhi Daredevils will have to make do without the likes of Gautam Gambhir, AB de Villiers, Dirk Nannes and Daniel Vettori. India’s World Cup hero Yuvraj Singh, who led Kings XI Punjab for the first two years, is now in charge of Pune while his replacement in the Priety Zinta co-owned team, Kumar Sangakkara, will now be at the helm of Deccan Chargers. The shuffling of players means teams will have to rebuild all over again and strike an emotional chord with their respective fans.
Just how Bangalore fans will react when Uthappa or Manish Pandey (both with Pune now) walk into bat at the Chinnaswamy stadium will be interesting to see. Or, for that matter, when Rahul Dravid and Ross Taylor (both bought by Rajasthan Royals) ply their trade against their previous side Challengers. Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, however, have largely remain unaffected by this exodus by retaining four of their respective key players and maintaining their core group of the last three years.
“We are very happy to have the majority of our team back,” noted Fleming, agreeing that his team had an edge over others in terms of gelling together. “We feel that by maintaining a semblance of the team that was so successful over the last three years, we can possibly gain an advantage by being able to move in quickly into our system, understand what the captain and leadership are all about and that will hopefully help the new players into the side. We got a majority of the players who know how the environment works and it’s much easier to add two-three new players rather than starting from the scratch,” he explained.
While this is a downside of the auction-based league, it’s a reality the players, the team owners and the fans will have to come to terms with in this pro-sport era. What they also have to live with is the untimely injuries in the face of hectic schedules.
Sri Lankan all-rounder Angelo Mathews and left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra (Pune) are out of the IPL as is KKR’s Stuart Broad and CSK’s Doug Bollinger, all injured during the World Cup. The reverse situation would have attracted widespread criticism of the IPL but it just goes on to show that sport and injuries are inseparable.