The IPL is a strange animal. Behind the glitz and glamour of the IPL, there is an inside story of people working day and night to make the tournament happen. And for these people, fairly substantial in number, the IPL is a very difficult job that needs to be accomplished.
One such job is the pressing need to overcome the traumatic experience of having to deal with the modalities of entertainment tax. Under a new legislation, even online ticket sales cannot move on in India unless the entertainment tax authorities are satisfied. And at the mantralaya in Mumbai, the entertainment tax department is a ghetto not many would want to frequent. With a solitary individual invested with the task of stamping 70,000 or so tickets, the nightmarish experience he/she is subjected to is palpable. And then you have the sponsors? demands. Having spent their hard earned money, each sponsor wants his or her share of visibility.
The situation has been further complicated by the underprepared nature of most teams. With just days between the World Cup and the IPL, hardly any team is going into the tournament as a well-oiled unit, a sentiment best expressed by the Chennai skipper M S Dhoni at the inaugural match of the competition. On being asked whether he had the opportunity of meeting his teammates, the man of the moment replied in negative. That he managed to pull off another stunner is a different matter altogether.
With the World Cup having eaten into the monies kept aside for cricket, most teams have struggled to get sponsors. Max has run away with a substantial corpus as the host broadcaster and ESPN-Star made a killing thanks to India?s stupendous performance in the World Cup. The trickle down effect has in turn forced team managements to revise their estimates and last minute scramble for sponsors have seen more and more instances of distress sale. While the sponsors have attempted to squeeze the franchises dry in an attempt to make up for the huge spends in the first three seasons of the IPL, teams have in turn forced apparel manufacturers to spend sleepless nights because the logos have all been supplied to them last minute to be put into the jerseys.
Coming to the players, the central attraction of the tournament and the only constituency that can propel it forward in a positive direction, one is forced to spare a thought for their bodies. Yes, they have been bestowed with all the riches by the league and now have luxurious lives, but when one thinks of the grind they will be subjected to for more than a month in the post-World Cup scenario, one is forced to feel for them. Motivation, more than anything else, is at its lowest for someone like M S Dhoni in the aftermath of the World Cup. He has won the IPL in the past, has nothing to prove as captain than to carry forward the legend of Dhoni. To expect that he will be at his best in franchise cricket within a week of the World Cup is to be unrealistic and foolhardy. He may well be the coolest cricketer on earth but to expect him to not want a respite after the toil of the World Cup is silly. For some like Gautam Gambhir or Yuvraj Singh, the lure of captaincy may still force them to give their best, but for Dhoni the IPL is perhaps the most difficult challenge he has faced. If he can psyche himself up yet again, the legend around the man will only mount up making him the biggest folk hero in the echelons of Indian sport.
Finally, to turn to the least important constituency of Indian cricket? the spectators. They have just soaked in the World Cup, witnessed an unprecedented high and have seen history being scripted. They are now expected to forget the World Cup, restructure their entertainment needs and go and queue up for IPL tickets.
Yes, the World Cup has ensured that the IPL benefits from the momentum generated, but to expect people to embrace all games with the same vigour is to expect a bit much from even the most ardent of fans. Once the World Cup euphoria finally dies down in a week or two and the IPL is firmly into its stride, can one expect crowd interest to pick up. Till then, the ghost of Lalit Modi will continue to haunt the new management.
?The writer is a sports historian