Scene 1: Requests for IPL tickets come from unexpected quarters. This was a few years back at the neighbourhood liquor shop. The person on the other side of the counter appeared unusually polite that evening. His question explained why. “Dada, ekta ticket hobe (is it possible to manage a ticket)?” It had become a common question by then. But still, the place made it memorable.
Scene 2: There is a clinic in south Kolkata, with three-four TV sets hanging from the walls of the room where patients are dialysed. It’s a long process, which takes about four hours, and involves no anaesthesia. The TV helps kill time. During those months of the year, for persons suffering from kidney ailments, IPL becomes a comprehensive winner over Bangla soaps.
Scene 3: Long before AI became the in-thing, people in India got used to using their own intelligence doing multi-tasking. Those who had evening office hours would steal time from work and get busy making fantasy XIs, shortly before the start of an IPL match. The bosses excused them and even offered a tip or two when in good mood.
Beyond thought barriers
The Indian Premier League (IPL) has not only changed the game of cricket and its commerce for good, it has broken thought barriers. It has taken the game to pockets it didn’t exist, created new fans who didn’t know bat and ball, entered sections of the society where sports wasn’t a popular pastime and converted occasional enthusiasts into hardcore T20 junkies.
Its impact on cricket is immense of course. The proliferation of weird strokes like the scoop started in the IPL. A bread-and-butter shot now, it has led to more bizarre techniques and questioned the fundamentals of batting. The mentality has changed into concepts like ‘Bazball’ in Test cricket. In white-ball cricket, teams believe they can chase down any total.
Every facet of the game underwent innovations. Bowlers came up with the knuckle ball, invented ways of varying the pace, bowling wide yorkers and slow bouncers. There was a revival of leg-spin and after the ban on doosra, certain types of spinners turned to finger as well as wrist-spin. Fielding standards rose exponentially and a summersault at the boundary doesn’t surprise anymore.
While causing these landmark changes in the way the game is played, the IPL and T20 have also transformed the way cricket is consumed. It’s not just watching on TV, reading in newspapers or websites. This grabs attention 24×7 and creates a bonding with the fan by drawing him and her into it. There are games and shows and a cavernous Internet space to keep them tuned in. They are not merely following an event, they are under its spell for two months and in hangover after it.
Rough ride to dizzy heights
This didn’t happen overnight. After that Brendon McCullum mayhem on the opening night in Bengaluru in 2008, the cricket-circus cocktail in South Africa in 2009, countless dizzy nights, scandals including fixing, doping, drugging, betting, which led to police and court interventions and an eventual upheaval in the Board of Control for Cricket in India — the bosses have cracked the code.
There are professionals at every step to make sure that the IPL remains what it essentially is. It’s a business commodity with unforeseen financial potential. Through image building, clockwork management of a packed schedule, ensuring efficiency at every level of functioning —and it has to be said teamwork — the IPL is among the top five leagues in the world.
This has happened because through this $6.4 billion enterprise, cricket has permeated into corners hitherto unseen and made addicts out of the already-interested crowd. Their expression changes in anticipation before the start of a match. No sociological research needed to know this. A look at the drawing room audience on a match day in the house or at the neighbour’s will tell you what and why.
Also Read: “The sound of the ball on the bat is something we long to hear”: Sachin Tendulkar