IPL: The disappointment begins again

Just like that faint, building dread that worries the nervous system towards late November, you can now add April’s IPL woes alongside the annual yuletide dread to your calendar of ennui and fear.

I suppose that I have to do some reporting on it. But, to be honest, I’m rather hoping that the entire IPL thing will do a Stanford.

Well. Here we go. As if you cared, some people cocked up in today’s exciting twentytwinklies. These were, in no particular order:

- Andrew Flintoff
- Kevin Pietersen
- The entire Rajasthan batting line-up.

In fact, singling out the “English” “stars” in the IPL for unfair criticism may be one way of clawing back some interest out of this cynical, brainwashing exercise.

But there was no exciting razzmatazz as there was last year's opening games. It's just a lot of old blokes living our their middle age fantasy. It’s like watching a Star Wars film without at least twenty shots of deactivated light sabres rolls harmlessly away from reach.

Yeah. I hate the whole thing. And everything else.

Guest Blog: The “South African” Indian Premier League!

While you try to wrap your head around that - Lalit Modi is crouched over a table in a dark room, smoking his 2nd pack for the day, his top shirt button undone, tie loosened, punching his calculator trying to figure out how much money he will make, or loose, in IPL round 2.

Only the course of time will tell if the move will prove to be an in genius idea on the part of Lalit Modi or whether it was just another way to make a quick buck because he couldn't wait around for 2 more weeks till India’s general elections passed. It was perhaps in his haste that he scheduled matches at 12.30 and 4.30pm South Africa time. If the idea in bringing the IPL to SA was to generate some interest there then Modi doesn't seem to have followed through. In these times of economic strife, one wonders how many people can afford to take a day off work to make it to a match at either of these times.

Of course the Indian fans will be happy which might have been Modis ultimate goal in any case. Can South Africa’s meager numbers even compare to the billion eye ball worth market he can please. At prime time no less. This would no doubt mean the Indians will have plenty of time to hit the PCs and join in some Fantasy cricket fun. I mean with no matches to go to how else they are going to enjoy the full IPL experience.

Well enough about the politics of it. Let’s talk about the cricket. If you are thinking about engaging in some IPL Fantasy cricket, you might want to think carefully about the kind of players you are picking. If you are thinking about budgeting for the traditional power houses - Jayasuriya, Sehwag, Yuvraj and the like you might want to think again. While these players were massive hits in India in 2008, their records in SA are paltry when compared to their careers. Most sub continental batsmen struggle in SA so you will need to be wise in who you go for. This doesn’t mean there aren’t any good Asian players to pick from.

You can’t go wrong with Kumar Sangakkara, who thrives on all conditions or Sachin Tendulkar, who is looking sublime in NZ at the moment. But if you really want to hit the big times, invest in Southern Hemisphere teams. The Australians, South Africans and Kiwis will probably be stars at this year’s IPL because they are used to the conditions and play most of their cricket on similar wickets. All 3 teams are coming off good 2020 runs in the lead up as well.

My top 5 batting picks for IPL are -

5. Graeme Smith- You can count of Smith. He is a man so cool under pressure you feel at ease just by looking at him. He racked up the runs for Shane Warne when it mattered last year and playing at home in front of his home crowds will lift the big man.

4. Brendan Mcullum - Mcullum gave the IPL a start that even Lalit Modi couldn't have engineered. His big hitting is an art form. Brendan has learnt the virtue of consistency and from the looks of things in NZ over the summer is ready for another rumble in the jungle.

3. Adam Gilchrist- If you want clean hitting then look no further. Gilchrist still gives me nightmares after what he did to Sri Lanka in the world cup final. Has plenty of experience in SA and will want to prove to Australia and the world what they are missing out on. Plus he walks. What more can you ask for.

2. Kevin Peitersen - Big egos need to be watered all the time. The IPL gives KP the prime time opportunity to expand his self love and in doing so provide us with some switch hitting genius. The IPL was made for KP and KP for it. He will be keen to prove his 1mil+ worth. Probably at the expense of some hapless bowler. Good thing Mick Lewis ain't around.

1. Jesse Ryder - We have just witnessed the birth of a Giant. And that's no poke at Jesses' hefty size. Well it is but Ryder seems to have the natural gift of time and has ample of it when facing the ball and its perfection when hitting it. Its Ryder’s first time out in the IPL and if he can stay sober he might light the whole show on fire.

Well now that the chances to watching the matches live in India do not exist anymore, it seems more likely that cricket fans would have to do with Cricket News & updates online and get going with some good interactive cricket stuff over the internet!

The market weighs man’s soul and decides his worth

"Which men?” you ask, “And what market?”

These are good questions, which makes a stark difference from the usual dribble you lot come up with, and so I will endeavour to answer them.

The IPL has held its latest round of auctions. For those English fans, and, least face it, no one really is, there are some interesting outcomes.

Of course, Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff all of a sudden became more valuable than the draw full of plastic bags and string, but the most interesting outcome of the bonanza, is the relative vale the companies of India gave to the various English players:

Andrew Flintoff (Chennai Super Kings, $1,550,000);
Kevin Pietersen (Bangalore Royal Challengers, $1,550,000);
Ravi Bopara (Kings XI Punjab, $450,000);
Owais Shah (Delhi Daredevils, $375,000);
Paul Collingwood (Delhi Daredevils, $275,000).

Three of these people cannot be dropped from the England team. It is simply impossible. Well, unless they defect to Botswana, or something. I hear there is a lot of diamonds there.

According to the markets, Bopara and Shah, neither of whom are likely to get into the England team any time soon, are significantly more valuable than Paul Collingwood, whom the ECB gets funny feelings in funny places about.

Everyone loves an underdog. Especially a scrappy, trampy one with an ugly face and a history of rejection.

But remove the story from Collingwood and what are you left with? A ginger nurdle to nowhere.

The markets, with their cold, harsh calculating minds, processing balance sheets and cash flow forecasts faster than an accountant’s calculator marinated in amphetamines, has realised that Collingwood, although ginger, isn’t that great really.

He’s a player with no spice, in a world where you need to remember to always add more chilli and thyme.

Bopara has spice. Albeit a rubbishy, neglected spice that you find at the back of the cupboard of your long-expired neighbour, Old Tom.

It’s strange that no England bowlers were selected. Given that they are all cuttingly devastating in all conditions.

Steve Harmison finds his spiritual self

The list of English players that are interested in participating in the up-and-coming IPL fiasco has been published.

Steve Harmison, troubled tourist, homebody quick and molly-coddled underachiever, has found that, after years of moaning, complaining and missing the soft, bountiful rain of Durham, he has, all of a sudden, developed a pining for foreign shores.

He likes warm weather after all. Sure, it turns him redder than a judge’s backside, but, what are you gunna do? Spend all day in the swimming pool?

He likes international food now. He can tolerate all of that foreign muck these days. Although, still, no one can do spaggi bol out a can like his mam can.

Of course, it’s a shame that the recent independence and glimmer of character has emerged only recently, leaving a legacy of spineless overseas performances and frittered test matches, but we England fans have long accepted to take anything that we are given.

Except, we won’t be given anything in this case, because he’s going to play for Madras Metal Works Ltd. Super Smelters' XI. But, anyway, it’s nice to know that, after all these years of promise, investment and attention, Harmison has finally decided to come out of his shell; once the world realised the sort of incentive he needed. He cares enough to give something back.

It was such a simple thing. Harmy never wanted much. Just huge piles of diamante. It’s almost shaming to realise how basic a man’s desires were, and how pitifully we let him down.

Good on you Harmy. We’ll be rooting for you to stay in India for as long as it takes for you to find the real you, and leave the unpredictable, whinging disappointing you behind. Really, stay for as long as you need.

By the way, take a look at this tee-shirts. They're pretty cool looking.

Indian premier yawn

I’ll try not to be too smug, but isn’t the IPL boring?

Does anyone care any more? What’s more interesting: the IPL or the English county championship?

An obvious trick question. However, if you are a) a cricket blogger; b) not well disposed to twenty20; c) obsessed with international test cricket; d) me, then you were always going to struggle for consciousness whilst watching this marketing spectacle

A great many people who satisfy none of the above criteria but are still reaching for their remote controls and hitting the “Big Brother” button. Or a film. Whatever floats your boat. Personally, I’m a news 24 man. Except when there’s no news. Then news 24 is pretty much the least informative thing outside of a White House press conference.

With 59 games scheduled in total, you don’t have to be Malcolm Speed to work out why interest is waning. Indeed, television audiences have been dropping steadily as the novelty of this event begins to fade.

I’ll chuck in my usual self-congratulatory anti-twenty20 rantings here: perhaps people are recognising the shallowness, the artificiality and the limited possibilities that twenty20 offers as compared to even a 50 over match.

The subtle nuances, the competition of bat versus ball and the developing strategies are all removed from this format of the game. Once you watch a bloke smack a ball 70 yards you have exhausted the game’s entertainment possibilities. It’s just more of the same.

I’d like to think that viewers are assessing these weaknesses and are deliberately boycotting an impoverished version of the game. However, the fact is that they’re just getting bored by it. No one really cares about the teams, the play is predictable and the results unrelated to skill. They’d rather watch reality television.

Heck, I'd rather watch reality television.

People make a big deal of twenty20’s potential to pull in cricket-haters into the fold. But, judging by this league, twenty20 might result in putting people off from the game.

Take that establishment!

Sehwag Smash!

Once again, AYALAC inspires great feats of near super-human achievements.

After watching my latest viddy-blog, Virender Sehwag was overheard to have said,

“The video quality is a bit shaky, but by crickey, that has inspired me!”

He went on to biff an unbeaten 94 from 41 balls. This is not normally the sort of cricket I approve of; I prefer it when those figures are reversed. Better still if they are reversed, debited, credited and multiplied by the residual value,

Now there’s some spanking cricket.

But, for Sehwag, I make exceptions. You can mercilessly biff anyone like, Viru, even England (but not Somerset). And he accepted my offer, and used the opportunity to single-handedly win the match.

There seems to be a developing pattern to these IPL games. Each match has had some bloke go mental. The side with the mental bloke wins, it seems. Rather like rolling the dice, you might think… I know the truth.

By the way, you may, or may not have heard that the IPL, in a bid to extend public affection for them further, has banned the publishing of images taken at the matches onto the internet.

This is where AYALAC comes into its own. Not only do I paint you an original artwork straight from my creative consciousness to your puny, underpowered computer, but this is the only source on the internet where you can see, nay feel, the unfolding action of the IPL.

You are certainly lucky. Luckier than most. The rest don’t have AYALAC, and oh how they suffer.

IPL starts: Hoo-fucking-ray

Well, I suppose I should something about the inaugural IPL match.

Not that I want to.

As you no doubt already know, Brendan McCullum broke the twenty20 world record, providing the crowd of thousands of rabid football fans with what has become known as “entertainment”. He scored 158 not out, from bugger all balls.

After that innings, the Bastradly Bangalore Badgers melted away like the Wicked Witch of the West, giving the Kolkata Squires an easy victory in an ultimately predictable and drab match.

In fairness, the IPL is breaking down my protective wall of curmudgeonliness, McCullum’s innings was awesome. “Whack! Wollop! Wazzam!” went his innings.

“Oh! Whoops! No!” went the bowlers.

What strikes me, more than anything, about this tournament is the weirdness of the players’ juxtaposition. There, before me on the telly, is Ricky Ponting hugging Sourav Ganguly. Australians, Kiwis and Indians alike are frolicking gayly in front of my disbelieving eyes.

To capture any similar sites in the future, it might be worth watching a few more games.

AYALAC launches new IPL team

King Cricket recently agonised over which team to invest his support. He opted for the “English tactic” by selecting the worst looking outfit.

I, too, have deliberated over this problem. But, given as I hate the IPL so, it is probably best that I launch my own team and attempt to wangle them into the League. (I was going to found a team with Miss Field, but my legal people didn't like her legal people's shoes.)

Although the team isn’t flush with money, once the players realise that I’m associated with it, they will flock to me like fluff to a bellybutton. Besides, I’ll buy them a pint now and then.

So here’s my team, with my bid in parenthesis:

Rahul Dravid (packet of pork scratchings)
Steve Tikolo (pint of “Captain Smith”)
Mahela Jayawardena (one coaster; torn)
Hashim Alma (the printed wine list)
Mohammed Yousef (half eaten packet of crisps; ready salted)
Cameron White (some pleasant chit chat about folk from the Blackdown Hills)
+Chris Martin (a prod)
*Anil Kumble (the entire contents of my bank account)
Ryan Sidebottom (some lager; on special offer)
Abdur Razzak (bottle of trendy alco-pop)
Dwayne Leverock (that nice sounding pie on the Specials Board)

These are obviously the best players in the world. The basic criteria is that either their best shot is the forward defence or they bowl spin. I have no other demands of cricketers.

Although, some of them have connections to Somerset or are otherwise in my favour. I have decided to give gloves to a specialist gloveman, I’m not concerned about batting ability.

They will be called the Twickenham Alan Sugars. Named after my town and the scariest thing I can think of.

So, how easy is it getting a franchise into the IPL? It must be easy, no?

IPL yields to Ayalac pressure

Regular readers will know that AYALAC has long campaigned against the hypocrisy of Shoaib Akhtar's continued presence in the Indian Premier League.

AYALAC has longed railed against his inclusion, despite his five-year ban issued by the PCB, which we viewed arbitrary given the BCCI’s canvassing against ICL players’ participation in other domestic competitions.

IS Bindra, a member of the IPL governing council, after reading the AYALAC’s latest post, said:

"AYALAC is quite right. The scales have fallen from our eyes. Well done The Atheist.”

And then added,

“Shoaib has been banned by the Pakistan Cricket Board, and even though they have cleared him to play for IPL, we felt that international discipline needs to be respected. If he can't play for Pakistan, how can we play him? There will be no discipline left in the game, if we play him. It will set an unwanted precedent.”

This could be interpreted as an obvious rouse to influence other boards’ stances on ICL players, but we in AYALAC would rather consider it as another success for this blog and humanity in general.

Well done me.

Official AYALAC line on those Indian leagues

Be warned, this post is angry.

Right, the Indian Premier League (IPL) is rubbish. Let’s get that cleared out of the way. I have kept quiet on these twenty20 competitions because I don’t like twenty20. But now is the time for the noisy minority to speak out.

First came the Indian Cricket League - a rubbishy enterprise that sought to make lots of money from has-been or never-will-be cricketers. “Oh! That’s a terrible idea!” moaned the BCCI, “You’ll ruin cricket.”

But then they saw how much money could be made, and then they thought, “Bugger cricket! Let’s go for the money.”

Of course, this is a perfectly reasonable thought, if you are in a position to realise it, selling out for cash is always a good idea. However, I am not, so I think it’s a rubbish thought.

Now, the BCCI has decided that its raison d'etre is to make money, it is acting like any monopolistic firm would: it is clamping down on its competitors to maximise profits.

You might argue that the world cricket boards are behaving in an oligopolistic fashion – a small number of firms acting as a cartel to control the market. But you would be wrong; damn wrong.

The BCCI is the Big Daddy of the cricketing world, if Daddy wants other boards to ban players for playing in an unsanctioned league, then Daddy gets.

It is at this point that the analogy of sensible mechanisms of a free markets break down. Players are workers (bear with me) just like us; they sell their labour for money. Nothing wrong with that.

In any normal market, you apply to different firms, see who can offer you the most. Oh no, not in the BCCI’s market. The Daddy doesn’t want players to chose. Daddy wants them to be his bitches. AND WHAT DADDY WANTS, DADDY GETS.

Because Daddy wants a piece of the action, the other boards are struggling to pussy-foot their domestic schedules around Daddy. The IPL, generally, does not impact upon many other leagues – all except England’s, of course.

The early season of the English county championship overlaps with the IPL, so some of our more exciting players will be tempted away to the sub-continent. Even touring Kiwis are requesting permission to bugger off.

What that’s, little one-legged, orphan-boy, Jimmy? You want to watch your favourite, Dimitri Mascarenhas play at Hampshire this season? You’ll be saving up for ages for that ticket?

Well tough totty. DADDY WANTS DIMITRI MASCARENHAS.

The worst thing about this whole endeavour is that no-one knows why they are doing it.

The IPL bases itself around English football’s Premier League – the most soulless of all the football leagues. People come from all over the world to play in places like Middlesborough. Adoring fan attempt to scream unprenouceable names as if the centre forward from Burkina Faso was actually their mate Pete who works in the chip shop.

They don’t care they. As long as “their” side wins. They recognise money is necessary for this – everyone else has money, right?

Ah. That’s why we’re doing this. Money. Of course. How incredibly stupid of me. Money is important to have in the game, isn’t it?

Just look at England, historically loaded with government grant after government grant, and look how wisely they have spent it. Look how good our team is.

What! Am I suggesting that there is no evidence that shows that money has improved the game? Surely not! The administrators tell us without money the game would die. If the kiddies playing in the street weren’t sponsored by Arse Ltd., they would literally put down their bats and play golf. Literally.

It’s odd to think how India won the World Cup in 1983, when its Board wasn’t nearly as rich as it is now. Must have been a fluke. Cricket wasn’t as good as it is now. That’s FACT. Just look at the money involved.

Bollocks to you IPL. Bollocks to you twenty20. Bollocks to you BCCI. Bollocks to the cricket administrators. Bollocks to the lot of you.

Right. Well, lets lighten the mood, shall we? (Well done on getting this far.) On a happier note, King Cricket has grown up, and put into print. That’s right, paper!

When you thinking you’re doing OK as a blogger, someone like JRod comes along, and blogs his way into the annuals of legendary bloggers overnight. His excellent site has just started a new podcast series. Well worth a listen to.

Those blogs are happy places.