Tuesday 31 March 2009

The IPL - An international competition?


Yes it's a cricket blog!

In my attempt to show my versatility as a writer (ahem) I now have a couple of guest blog slots on cricket websites. Here is my first one over at cricket crazy.

It is a great site and is worth checking out just for the funny spelling of my name alone.

If you like cricket, enjoy and read on. If you don't, well, don't worry there will be more football blogging soon!



I don’t think anyone was too surprised when boss Lalit Modi opted for South Africa as the hosts of this year’s Indian Premier League.

As I look outside now from my Yorkshire home, all I can see is grey murky skies, while a fierce wind is bringing huge across raindrops, which are smattering all over my window. It is hard to imagine that in just a few weeks the English cricket season will begin.

The chances are that much of the opening rounds of games will be lost to the weather. Conversely they could be played under glorious early spring sunshine. But that’s the problem with the English weather, you just never know!

With an already crowded domestic and International fixture list, there is no room for manoeuvre should IPL games be lost to the weather. Therefore I think, on this occasion, they made the right choice in picking South Africa.

But what for the future of the IPL?

The switch outside of India, albeit for security reasons, has now made it a truly global game (if it wasn’t already).

After getting a taste for the IPL won’t South Africa fans want too see them again? Similarly English cricket supporters, who only just missed out this time, may feel they should have the chance to stage the tournament?

Talks for an English Premier League were started, stalled and then stopped altogether last year, so why not make the IPL a truly global competition, with different host countries each year? It would make more sense than to have a different 20/20 Premier League for each country, when would they fit the games in for starters?

Teams like Kevin Pietersen’s Royal Challengers Bangalore could be become a truly global brand, with fans across the world adopting them as their favorite team. This could....

Read the rest of my new guest blog over at Cricket crazy

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