IPL::good or bad

The DLF-IPL Tournament as it will be know has sparked off several debates across the globe from New Zealand and Australia to England and West Indies.

One debate is how in an already heavily packed scheduled of world cricket with test matches, one-day internationals, world cup, asia cup and so on can a new entity called the IPL be included? If a window is created for this form of cricket (which benefits just the BCCI and the players who take part in the tournament to earn tons of money) - then what about the countries that will have to make way for IPL and risk losing out their own earning potential for that crucial period which is prime cricket playing time in these countries?

Even if the Lalith Modi the IPL Chairman keeps assuring that no player who retires before he is due for the sake of playing in the tremendously lucrative IPL will be considered for the IPL and that there are several safeguards to protect against this and that he will not encourage cricketers from defying their boards and so on. The same Mr. Modi has also issued threats to CA, Australian players to settle with their board or forget the IPL.

What safeguards exists to prevent open rebellions when so much is involved in one single tournament that a player can earn more by playing a couple of this than 2-3 years of cricket in the best paid cricketing countries of the world.

Typically the noise is more in the western countries than the cricketing neighbors of India like Sri Lanka and Bangaladesh which benefit from the BCCI’s largesse in one way or other.
There was a scathing article in the Sydney Morning Herald where the author is critical of retired Australian players going out with a begging caps to play for ’sahibs’ who would like to be called ‘Sir’. He does not find anything interesting in Adam Gilchrist batting against Shane Warne while Mahendra Singh Dhoni keeps wickets for Warney representing some Indian city team like IPL Mumbai or IPL Kolkata. He does not see any IPL team ever matching the popularity of a Manchester United.

Would you like to join the debate? Leave your comments and we will carry on this intersting debate. Thanks