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Hrithik and Sachin versus Shahrukh and Ganguly |
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| By Behindwoods
News Bureau. |
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April 16, 2008 |
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So
it begins, at Bangalore when Ganguly’s
Knights take on Dravid’s Challengers-
the IPL, the biggest carnival of Twenty-Twenty
cricket with all the glamour that
one can ask for begins in a day’s
time. For the first time since the
days of Kerry Packer, cricket will
be played seriously without national
colors. Sachin will face Ishanth Sharma,
we have not |
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seen that,
Sehwag will swing at Balaji, we have not thought
about that and Ganguly will bat with Ponting,
we never thought that was possible. And all
this will happen when Shah Rukh, Hrithik,
Vijay, Juhi and Nayanthara cheer from the
stands, while billboards, television, Mallya
and Ambani carefully monitor the numbers as
each ball is bowled. The IPL is not just about
cricket, it’s an industry. Maybe that’s
why each team was called a franchise and (how
ever much it is denied) players were treated
like valuable commodities during auctions.
This is has not been seen even in the long-standing
football leagues of the world. Of course,
there’s a lot of money that goes around
during the transfer periods and records are
broken every year but what mattered most was
always the player’s preference. In the
IPL however it is the bosses who decided whom
they wanted, only the ‘Icons’
got their way. The IPL is not selling cricket,
it is selling well packed entertainment capsule
in which cricket is the main ingredient.
Getting back to cricket. That’s a tough
thing to do, especially with all the distractions
there have been a lot of talks about which
team is the most balanced and who has the
edge and so on. But to put things in perspective,
nothing can be predicted here because most
of the big stars going head to head have never
done so before, they have always been on the
same side and have not tested their powers
against each other. So, we do not know whether
Gilchrist will be the same demolition machine
when he has to ace Glenn Mc Grath or Shane
Warne. All these guys have played together
and one can be sure that they know things
about each others’ games and about the
chinks in the armor that others might not
know about. Many things are going to be thrown
open. Ganguly or Sachin might know a thing
or two about setting fields against a rampant
Sehwag or how to deal with Kumble’s
wrong uns. A lot of beans is going to be spilled
and the results one might dare say will be
evident when the first series after the IPL
is played. Players suddenly will realize that
the opposition knows far too many things about
them than they ought to, than is safe, they
will have to find new ways to survive in the
‘Open Era’. In short, cricket
will be thrown open- Indian quickies might
learn to perfect the elusive art of reverse
swing from the Aussies, the South Africans
will learn doosras from Murali and the art
of sledging may evolve to a higher level of
verbal unruliness or dissolve into gentlemanly
conduct, both being distinct possibilities.
Some countries have decided to keep away from
this integration of international cricketers.
They might have their own reasons for doing
so but they are missing the bus on cricket’s
next big global evolution. Its not about the
money, its about the things that will be shared,
revealed or even discovered. For all the money,
injuries and the supposed ‘greed’
that the IPL is said to bring into cricket,
there will also be something good.
From cricket to the other face of IPL- the
entertainment. Well, you are not short of
it and to repeat an oft-used statement ‘it
happens only in India’. SRK sings and
dances his way into the hearts of millions
of fans for his Kolkata Knight Riders, Preity
Zinta ropes in Daler Mahendi and does a Punjabi
number for the Kings 11, Vijay and Nayanthara
join hands even before ‘Singam’
for the Superkings of Chennai and Hrithik
Roshan cheers with all his heart for the Mumbai
Indians. That’s a deadly combination
of stars doing the cheering, the most expensive
cheer leaders on planet earth or are they
as crazy about cricket as you or me, not impossible
as they are also Indians. Maybe no one really
had plans of promoting their teams with music
videos, dance numbers etc…but once King
Khan started doing things in his own way it
was a headlong rush by the others trying to
play catch up. SRK seemed to have things neatly
panned out months in advance: he called Vishal
Dadlani to do the music score, designed some
‘cool’ and ‘knightly’
helmets for every Knight Rider and grabbed
ever bit of news space that was being given
to the IPL. It had become more of the Knight
Riders’ space with even controversy
featuring when the unfortunate ban on Shoaib
Akthar robbed the team of one of its most
deadly weapons. That changed only a day back
when Mumbai Indians dealt a powerful blow
as they uncovered the Hrithik promotional
number, enough headline material in the nick
of time. Down south, the Chennai Superkings
have been doing fine with their target audience;
Vijay is as big a draw as you can get, especially
when he is with Nayanthara.
IPL- the business. Now, if this goes wrong
then we have no IPL next year, forget that
the contracts have been given out for 5 and
10 years. We never knew that big business
houses had interests in cricket that were
deep enough for them to put crores and crores
of money into it, making millionaires out
of teenagers overnight. Pepsi paid no less
than 50 crores to the official IPL drink.
Let’s say that more than 500 crores
have been put into the IPL from various sources
and all that has to be recovered between 18th
April and June 1st. That’s the budget
of 10 Sivaji movies in a month! Now we don’t
know the complex methods in which revenues
are worked out through media rights, royalties,
television TRPs and whatnots but we can say
for sure that the ticket sales at stadium
counters is not going to be nearly enough
to account for that amount. We can trust the
high officials of the BCCI and Lalit Modi
to have the mathematics worked out for a profit,
else experienced businessmen like Ambani and
Ness Wadia would not have ventured into it;
but no one can deny the element of risk at
work here. This is aptly summed up by what
Shahrukh Khan had to say the other day. He
was a bit shocked on the first day of ticket
sales for the matches at the Eden Garden.
Having barred no holds in promoting the event,
announcing great plans and saying that he
will personally hand out every 1000th ticket
purchased, the turn out was least inspiring,
even discouraging. Expecting full houses at
the Eden Gardens is one thing and getting
that done is another, you have to attract
1 lakh people to the stadium. SRK has confessed
that things are not as he expected them to
be, not the rosy picture that was painted
out. But cricket gets exciting as the days
go on and things for sure will pickup. |
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