Under the hammer, over the top

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The market is suddenly agog with discussions about the IPL league. On the surface, the IPL dream of making it as big as the English Premier League Football appears a bit unrealistic. There is an air of absurdity around the way the IPL initiative has kicked off. Absurd amounts are being paid to players who have not yet fully proved themselves on a sustained scale of time. Astronomical figures are paid to a foreign player who till yesterday earned every India’s wrath with his on and off the field behaviour and comments. Film stars, liquor barons, real estate giants, apparel kings, petrochemical giants—all have put in their stakes in this. What brand of cricket is it going to be?

The IPL is miles away from the nostalgic saga of willow and cherry. It is willow in a hurry. Score absurd runs, chase impossible targets, earn unbelievable amount of money. The auction hammer at one stroke leveled many old notions of cricket. It felled the fences of country and cricketing world; it demolished the equity of experience. It obliterated the dividing lines of privileged and underprivileged. In a way, it is a celebration of talent; weighing the worth of talent purely on the financial scale. It added a fresh chapter to the story of cricket—that on cricket retail.

Talents are priced on their estimated expiry dates. Ishant Sharma with longer talent shelf life went under a heavier hammer. A Ricky Ponting did not fetch much because of ebbing talent life and possible unavailability. In this best-before-expiry-date valuation system it is good to see some exceptions for the iconic brands of Indian cricket—Sachin, Saurav, Dravid or a Lakshman.

Questions are being raised whether Indian spectators will empathise with foreign players in these teams. When did foreigners became problem of Indians? For a country lacking in national heroes for years we need a small handle to convert somebody else’s glory as that of ours. Thanks to Bollywood and sports shows, a number of foreign players are seen interacting with invited Indian audiences on myriad TV shows. The day Andrew Symonds was hired for Hyderabad, Indian spectators started flashing welcome banners to him during the match at Australia. Mind you, those were shown in the midst of the Bhajji controversy. The ownership of Symonds has shifted without any fuss from Australia to India.