As is common with most good things, CLR James, too, has become a clich? in the context of modern cricket writing. Any utterance of ?what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?? is almost certain to provoke a sigh of ?oh no, not again?. However, even at the cost of sounding archaic and stale, it must be asserted that this cardinal and also proverbial folk lore continues to ring true for the IPL. The only certainty about the IPL is that it continues to be a game of uncertainties. That you can?t predict or suggest that the doors are shut for the experienced and less agile, as has been done by many critics, is part of the games folklore.

With the advent of T-20 cricket, the mantra for Indian cricket had changed from experience to youth. Gradually, all the experienced hands, except Tendulkar, were given a shove. Kumble, the nation?s single-biggest match winner in the 1990s, was hardly shown any respect in the first season of the IPL. This unfairness persisted despite repeated urgings by the veteran that he was/is mighty keen to play a lead role for his side. The Ganguly saga in season two is all too well documented and does not merit repeating.

The youth was preferred, in all fairness, with a look at the future. What this policy failed to anticipate is that a sport as intensely passionate as Indian cricket, is, and will be, dominated by its ?present?. If the present is rosy and India is winning and our icons are performing, a futuristic policy has all the prudence attached to it. But if for some reason the present is tough, as happened with the 2009 T-20 World Cup, the futuristic policy takes a severe beating. Not without reason has the saying been coined that in cricket you are as good as your last innings. For the Indian cricket fan, the past and future of his memory all ends with the performance of the team in that one last match. Thus experimentation is great when India is winning. It becomes the bane once India starts losing.

Yet another thing that the return of the veterans to limelight draws attention to is the fact that, however, political Indian cricket can be, public opinion and ?nationalism?, in turn stimulated by the strength of public engagement with the sport, continues to reign supreme. Punjab may be down and out in the IPL, but none would dare to ignore the brouhaha created by the fans.

This realisation, that cricket is what matters in the end, helps to reinforce faith in the nation?s only loved passion besides Bollywood.

Interestingly, in IPL season three, age and experience have done as well as the youth. While Tendulkar and Kallis are the top two run getters, Murali continues to be the highest wicket taker as this column is written. What this rather bizarre statistic points to is that skill-based physical agility, and not simple physical agility, is the utmost requirement for the modern international cricketer. Cricket, an atypical international sport, is perhaps the only arena which allows men over 30 to continue to dominate. The difference is what makes cricket the sport it is, different and distinctive. And it is this distinction that has allowed us Indians to remain afloat as a powerful international cricketing nation. With hockey and football going down the physical route, India has gradually given way to the West and other Asian superpowers like China, Korea and Japan. Cricket, which will still make a star out Yuvraj, paunch or not, is well and truly an Indian sport accidentally discovered somewhere else. Not without reason that Greg Chapell found it almost impossible to comprehend.

This unique flavour of cricket allows players like VVS Laxman to declare proudly that it doesn?t really matter whether he is the fastest Indian cricketer on view. Implicit in this declaration is cricket?s cardinal truth?the fastest don?t always perform; the skillful does. Now we know why the sensational performances of Kallis, Murali and Sachin have a tone of the inevitable attached to them.

?The writer is a cricket historian