Blogs Too much of anything is good for nothing - Comparing Traditional Cricket, ICL, IPL
March 21st, 2008 by marauderCricket happens to be one of the most exciting sport atleast in India. The passion for cricket in India is immaculate. This goes to show the credibilitiy fo the game. T20 form of cricket seems to be the latest mantra and it threatens to challenge the 50-50 form of game. The first time i remember following the T20 was during the recently concluded WorldCup which India won. Oflate a lots of T20 ICL matches are going on.
Well its all nice to see so many matches happening day in and day out. But having said that, dont you guys feel its a bit of too much dozage now ? Im slowly beginning to lose interest and i can easily sense that. Well this is bcos of the too much dozage of T20 cricket these days. And what makes it worse is, the Bollywood stars performing on the stage after each innings. To me, that looks as cheap as it gets. This is a sport and not a midnight party wherein people come to see glamorous queens shaking their hips all round. Well this should never be encouraged. I can foresee a future which is taking cricket nowhere. As a cricket fan,im now concerned of the future of the game. IPL is about to begin, and i have no doubts in my mind that the Bollywood intervention iz just gonna be more, and its really not gonna be the Cricket we wish to see. I am not sure if all you guys align with me on this regard, but to me this is not the way to go 
Its time the ICC steps in and do their bit to have a check on all thats been going on and make sure Cricket lives. If this continues, sooner than later people out here would slowly and surely lose interest in the game. Lets also not forget, with so much money in the reckoning, the players would no longer be destined to always play for their country. Even a player is dropped from the squad, he ll feel happy cos’ better fun and better money awaits him in IPL n ICL respectively..What say guys ?
March 21st, 2008 at 9:26 am
I agree with you completely. Bollywood item girls shaking their booty is the last thing I want to see in cricket. I strongly feel IPL and ICL will not find any takers in the long run, as it will just kill the novelty of the game.
Just think about it. An encounter between Australia and India is so fascinating because we see it once in a year or something like that. Now thanks to IPL and ICL, we will have players everywhere - swinging their bats to send the ball out of the park. All the time.
Especially, T20 is a great format and is a sure money spinner, if used wisely. Once in a while, a T20 game will be very interesting and will attract a lot of people. But with IPL and ICL, people will see T20 stuff almost regularly, and the expectations will be skyhigh.
Just imagine, what made the India - England game special in T20 world cup? Yuvi’s six sixers in a row. Now imagine, if he were to play a T20 match ten or fifteen times a year, will he be able to do that every time? And with every match, people’s expectations will go up like anything. The reason is, T20 is not quality cricket where a player’s aesthetic ability is appreciated. It’s a dartboard. Whoever hits the target a lot of times, will be considered the better entertainer. So, with so much of expectations, players are bound to have burnouts and sooner or later, it will affect the international calender.
If good players burn out in this trashy IPL and ICL, then we will have people sitting on bench playing international matches, which will affect regular, oldschool cricket fans.
Just check out the matches played in ICL now. Horrible is the word that comes to my mind. May be it’s just me, but I don’t see how anyone could enjoy it. Right from the commentary to the quality of play, everything is average, to say the least. And the amount of spectators they get is appalling. I wonder if this could be the fate of IPL as well??
March 24th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Oh gosh… you find the quality of games in ICL horrible? Maybe you saw the wrong games!! Did you see the Mumbai - Delhi match? Or for that matter, the Mumbai - Chennai match earlier? Real nail biters! Lahore’s games were also amazing. I am so happy to see Inzy still at his best taking his team to victory.
For me, ICL is a good time pass from 7pm to 10 pm at night, when the only other thing you get on TV on weekdays is the saas-bahu serials
Whether ICL as a concept is good or bad for cricket is an entirely different discussion and deserves a different blog
March 24th, 2008 at 10:53 am
@Jatanr : ICL is a good time pass now, but im sure u ll not say the same after a couple more series of ICL. MARK MY WORDS !!
March 25th, 2008 at 12:52 am
All right. We will revisit this issue a year from now
March 25th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
an year from now ? u may not hafto wait that long to revisit, cos im sure u l get fed up pretty soon
March 27th, 2008 at 1:51 am
you said ‘a couple of mor eseries of ICL’. which automatically means a year!
I havent got bored of this series at least. I do not think I will get bored by the end of the next series either.