Cricket in IPL is like Alcohol in Beer

Cricket in IPL is like Alcohol in Beer!

Cricket is more than a sport in the Indian subcontinent. The fad for cricket in this part of the world is just enormous. Cricket has seen a dramatic change in the last decade. A new version of the sport has evolved, that is the T-20 format. The new format befits this era of rat-race! But with the evolvement of new methods and new formats the quality of cricket has undergone abatement as well! A cricket match is now a packet of entertainment that has everything, but the essence of the sport is missing! So cricket has undergone a great change in style and approach. T20 cricket has appeared as a great equalizer. It is easier for a team like Bangladesh to beat a team like Australia in a T20 match! Thus, margin for error is almost zero in this format!

Indians are just crazy about cricket. We eat cricket, drink cricket, sleep cricket and obviously think cricket as well! This fad for cricket in our nation has served as a hotbed for IPL. IPL has everything; glamour, big players, big names, lavish preparations-But the “cricket” is missing. Well, cricket is about the three “T”- Talent, Technique and Temperament! 

A good player must have all the above mentioned! Test cricket is a format that requires all the three. That is the reason Test cricket is a real test of a player. But T20 cricket is all about talent, not a lot of technique or temperament is involved! These days IPL is turning out to be an epidemic and there is no antidote to it either! People are so absorbed in it that everything plays second fiddle to it. Although, we don’t get to see quality cricket in an IPL match, but it is full of “masala” and that is what gets everyone absorbed in it! 

A Beer can make you feel “high”, but that feeling is for a short-span of time. You experience a surge of intoxication for a while, but then it decays exponentially as well!

So, we get to see only some percentage of actual cricket in an IPL match! It is actually a “cricket show”, instead of being a “cricket match”. Just like having a Beer or two may satisfy the urge of alcohol, but it is not real alcohol intake! But again IPL is the need of the hour because of the busy schedule that people have these days! But someone who really values the sport will prefer a Test match over an IPL match. Cricket in IPL is actually titular cricket! Sometimes I feel, IPL should add a cognomen to its name-“The Pseudo Cricket”!

~Rohan Kalia