The Indian Premiere League Twenty Twenty Cricket match series, organized under the chairmanship of Lalith Modi, has begun spectacularly on 23rd April, with all pomp and glory, with the first match beginning at Bangalore between the Bangalore XI and the Kolkata XI, won by the latter comprehensively. At present the 19 th match is in progress between Hyderabad XI and the Punjab XI,V.V.S.Laxman, dropped on 4 by Sangakara, has scored 48 runs in 34 balls and the Hyderabad XI is 67 for 3.
Of the Eight teams under the fray, Mumbai XI, Punjab XI, Rajasthan XI, Hyderabad XI, Bangalore XI, Kolkata XI, Delhi XI and Chennai XI are captained by Sachin Tendulakar, Yuvaraj Singh, Shane Warne, V.V.S.Laxman, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguli,Virendar Sehwag and Mahendra Singh Dhoni respectively.
Sachin Tendulkar could not participate in all the four matches played by Mumbai XI due to injury problem and Mumbai XI lost three matches winning only one.Perhaps in the next match played by Mumbai XI, it is hoped that Sachin may become fit and play. Chennai XI won all the four matches it played under the dynamic and inspiring leadership of M.S.Dhoni. Rajasthan XI , Kolkata XI, Delhi XI, Hyderabad XI and Punjab XI have somewhat fared better and Bangalore XI and Mumbai XI have so far won only one match.
All hype and glory associated with the foreign players like Andrew Symonds, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Brendon Mccullum, Smith, Gibbs, Mahila Jayavardane, Sangakara, Jayasuriya,Bravo, Brett Lee, Styne, Shane Warne,Nuvan Zoysa, Muttaiah Muralidharan,Sarwan and Chris Gayle only a few players like Symonds, Mac cullum, Gilchrist and Sangakara have shined and proved their worth and all others are only mediocre in their performance.Chris Gayle did not play due to injury.
IPL match was also marred by an ugly controversy involving Harbajan Singh and Sreesanth, in the course of a match played between Mumbai XI and Punjab XI, won by the latter and at the end of the match Harbajan Singh slapped Sreesanth making the latter crying profusely in the public on the ground.An enquiry was ordered by IPL under the match referee Farook Engineer,who imposed a ban on Harbajan Singh for 11 IPL matches besides forfeiting 100 % match fee.In addition to that BCCI has also ordered an enquiry under a lawyer known as Nanavathi,to have a fulfledged enquiry by summoning the respective players and officials.
The slapping episode involving Harbajan and Sreesanth actually indicated that still Harbajan considered Sreesanth as his team mate only and could not cross over the national barrier and behave sportsman-like.
One more point that needs to be mentioned is our Indian stalwarts and old horses Saurav Ganguli, Rahul Dravid,V.V.S.Laxman, and yet to play-Tendulkar have not played any spectacular innings and they were not part of the Indian Twenty Twenty team which won the World T20 cup in South Africa. V.V.S.Laxman, who never gets selected in the India’s one day squad, because of his lethargic running and not known for fast scoring, is the captain of Hyderabad XI. Likewise we can blame Dravid and Ganguli, who do not find favour with our selectors.
To put it in nutshell, the IPL series is so far good only in patches, due to its selection policy, more relying upon the players names and past fame than their current form, not imposing any restriction in the selection process on the basis of players age, selection of players who were already retired and discarded in their own country, despite of spending millions of dollars for the IPL series.Let us hope, that the chairman of IPL Lalith Modi will streamline the selection process in the forthcoming series and will give more teeth to the tournament. Despite of the recognition accorded to it by the ICC, the IPL in its programme,content,in terms of players, quality of play, package offerred etc etc, IPL is akin to ICL and there is no any marked or significant difference between the two, except the recognition it has got from the ICC.