UK interest in the IPL

brandon

brandon

Striker
Is there much?

I’m talking merely from a fans perspective here, not about how many UK produced players are involved, but I wanted to have the discussion really - I noted on the County Cricket thread that there’s barely been any mention of the upcoming county season on the various podcast outlets that cover ‘frontline’ cricket. Not yet anyway. There were however IPL preview episodes on all of them. Now I’ve got very little interest in it so I didn’t bother listening, my interest would’ve risen ever so slightly if Durham had any players involved, but I don’t really care very much about it, being brutally honest. I imagine though, that there were fewer listeners for them than there would be for a standard days reporting of Test Cricket.

I don’t intend this as an anti-IPL thread, nor even an anti-BCCI thread, most people will know what my feelings are already about that, but is there that much interest across our nation for the IPL?? Outside of the normal cricketing public, or aside from even the British Indian community? I get that there’s interest in India.

It’s on Sky, but so was the PSL (as are various other cricketing mediums) and I did watch quite a bit of that. I enjoyed it, I always do enjoy watching cricket from Pakistan, I love the vibrancy of the crowds and I suppose I’ve got a heightened sense of appreciation when watching it which stems from the sentiment of being able to watch cricket from there again, following their previous ban. It did seem to be far more organic however, than the IPL, which I’ll probably always have a lot of hostility towards for well documented reasons.

I know we’re just a small microcosm of the cricketing public on here, but there doesn’t seem so much interest in franchise cricket as a whole, maybe we aren’t the target audience after all 🤷‍♂️

T20 has its place in world cricket, I can’t and won’t dispute that, but when an innings is taking close to two hours to complete as it does in this current version and they’re taking tactical and strategic timeouts AND even having a f*cking drinks break after ten overs - it’s sort of losing the entire point of what it was meant to be in the first place. It’s becoming ever so closer to being baseball. I’m sure most of us have played midweek club games where we’ve completed the entire thing in less time than it takes the Bangalore Bullshitters to bowl their 20 overs.

So is it really the all conquering answer to the future of world cricket? I’m sure the players appreciate the huge paychecks, it’s created a band of mercenary cricketers (and who can blame them?) who simply travel the world for twelve months every year earning enough money so that they never have to work a proper job for the rest of their (or their families lives) once the gravy eventually runs out or they’re too old to board the train. The IPL in itself won’t cure the ills of world cricket, it may not even cure the ills of Indian cricket, but of course that’s why every country now has its own version and whether you or I agree or not with how best to pursue that option, every nation tries to do it as best as they can in order to maximise as best they can the amount of gravy they can extract from it.

I concede I’ve drifted a little from the original question, I concede too that I’ve perhaps touched upon how shite I think it all is (which I said I wouldn’t do), but I think those are pertinent enough points and important questions in the bigger picture and when it pertains to considering how best it is to answer the first question anyway.

If you’re still awake after all of that, what are your thoughts?
 


brandon said:
Is there much?

I’m talking merely from a fans perspective here, not about how many UK produced players are involved, but I wanted to have the discussion really - I noted on the County Cricket thread that there’s barely been any mention of the upcoming county season on the various podcast outlets that cover ‘frontline’ cricket. Not yet anyway. There were however IPL preview episodes on all of them. Now I’ve got very little interest in it so I didn’t bother listening, my interest would’ve risen ever so slightly if Durham had any players involved, but I don’t really care very much about it, being brutally honest. I imagine though, that there were fewer listeners for them than there would be for a standard days reporting of Test Cricket.

I don’t intend this as an anti-IPL thread, nor even an anti-BCCI thread, most people will know what my feelings are already about that, but is there that much interest across our nation for the IPL?? Outside of the normal cricketing public, or aside from even the British Indian community? I get that there’s interest in India.

It’s on Sky, but so was the PSL (as are various other cricketing mediums) and I did watch quite a bit of that. I enjoyed it, I always do enjoy watching cricket from Pakistan, I love the vibrancy of the crowds and I suppose I’ve got a heightened sense of appreciation when watching it which stems from the sentiment of being able to watch cricket from there again, following their previous ban. It did seem to be far more organic however, than the IPL, which I’ll probably always have a lot of hostility towards for well documented reasons.

I know we’re just a small microcosm of the cricketing public on here, but there doesn’t seem so much interest in franchise cricket as a whole, maybe we aren’t the target audience after all 🤷‍♂️

T20 has its place in world cricket, I can’t and won’t dispute that, but when an innings is taking close to two hours to complete as it does in this current version and they’re taking tactical and strategic timeouts AND even having a f*cking drinks break after ten overs - it’s sort of losing the entire point of what it was meant to be in the first place. It’s becoming ever so closer to being baseball. I’m sure most of us have played midweek club games where we’ve completed the entire thing in less time than it takes the Bangalore Bullshitters to bowl their 20 overs.

So is it really the all conquering answer to the future of world cricket? I’m sure the players appreciate the huge paychecks, it’s created a band of mercenary cricketers (and who can blame them?) who simply travel the world for twelve months every year earning enough money so that they never have to work a proper job for the rest of their (or their families lives) once the gravy eventually runs out or they’re too old to board the train. The IPL in itself won’t cure the ills of world cricket, it may not even cure the ills of Indian cricket, but of course that’s why every country now has its own version and whether you or I agree or not with how best to pursue that option, every nation tries to do it as best as they can in order to maximise as best they can the amount of gravy they can extract from it.

I concede I’ve drifted a little from the original question, I concede too that I’ve perhaps touched upon how shite I think it all is (which I said I wouldn’t do), but I think those are pertinent enough points and important questions in the bigger picture and when it pertains to considering how best it is to answer the first question anyway.

If you’re still awake after all of that, what are your thoughts?
Click to expand...
Massive in the British South east Asian community.
 
We’ll have it on, same as we did with the PSL. We have our respective teams that we want to do well… but to be honest, the competition goes on for so long now, it becomes meaningless and we’re bored rigid of it by the time it finishes.
 
Personally I find franchise cricket dull, especially as you now have various leagues across the world leading to 12 months solid of T20 cricket. Plus every league largely contains the same overseas players (Russell, Rashid Khan etc).

The other issues with the IPL is that the tournament is far too long and each game takes about 4 hours to complete, and let's face it once you've seen a couple of IPL games they do get very samey. It's not like the twists and turns of a competitive test match.
 
I watched a bit of todays game for the purpose of ‘research’. The fielding side completely threw it away at the end, they got Kohli, the opposition tail needed 13 an over off the last 4 and won with four balls to spare. The amount of long-hops and leg side deliveries which I could’ve hit for boundaries was staggering. If that’s the ‘best league in the world’ then someone better tell the bowlers. Genuinely seen better ‘death bowling’ from junior club sides.

If someone told me it had been scripted for Kohli’s team to win I’d have believed them.
 
I saw a stat on the IPL the other day which is ridiculous. Kohli is RCBs leading run score with 7700 odd runs. The next highest scoring Indian batter was Rahul Dravid with 780 odd. They’ve had all the big names of the years regarding overseas, Maxwell de villiers and gayle to name a few, but the Indian batters have done sweet FA
 
Will watch it when it’s on and I’m in the house not doing much, but not particularly arsed by it.

I doubt there’s much interest from anyone in the UK who isn’t of Asian descent, even if they’re into their cricket. It’s not like American Football where people over here actually seem to pick a team and support them, nee one gives a toss if the Chennai Cheesemakers beat the Delhi Dickheads.
 
I had more of an interest when Stokes and Wood were playing, but it takes f***ing ages 2.30 start the other night was still on after 6pm, have it on in the background the odd time
 
I'm not interested in it any more than I'm interested in the Dutch or Polish football leagues and I enjoy cricket normally.

However, as much as it would annoy the purists, I think the English game could learn from it, and it might rejuvenate interest in the sport. I know English cricket has tried with The Hundred but somehow that's not quite worked on the same level the IPL has.

But then again maybe cricket has too many formats these days. Is there another sport where its played professionally and internationally under so many different versions of the game?
 
brandon said:
I don’t get why it takes so long, it was meant to be a ‘short format’.
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Sponsors.

You’ve got two timeouts which are sponsored and allow more advert time, probably a drinks breaks to do the same thing as well then it takes ages and the end of the innings for them to get fields sorted. No idea if there’s even a minimum time to bowl an innings in the IPL at this point.
 

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