IPL10 - A futuristic look at IPL
Posted by Anantha | Posted in Concern , Cricket , Parody , Sports , Take Lite | Posted on Monday, April 27, 2009
Disclaimer: This is a hypothetical and futuristic take on IPL
This is the year 2017. 10th season of IPL is about to kick off in few days in Las Vegas. Here is an account of IPL, the way it has grown and changed in the last 10 years since it started in 2008.
- The IPL which started as a league of 20-20 game back in 2008 is now reduced to 10-10 overs, making it the shortest form of Cricket. The reason being cricket enthusiasts started to lose interest in 20-20 after few years of IPL. People demanded more excitement as they considered 20-20 was pretty slow game (!)
- There are 15 teams now participating in this IPL-10. Shimla Apples is the newest team playing its first IPL. Preity Zinta who was once a co-owner of Punjab Kings XI, is the sole owner of this team. She ventured into owning a team of her own after an alleged spilt-up with her long time beau Ness Wadia. The pair has finally split after multiple reconciliation efforts by their family and friends. She says now she will be able to concentrate fully on IPL as she has taken a sabbatical from her acting career. Well, we all know that she hardly had any roles in her kitty, since the first season of IPL ;) Yadavs of Patna is another relatively new team with Lalu Yadav's son Tejaswi Prasad Yadav captaining the side. The team is owned by none other than Rabri Devi. This team is a good contender for the IPL trophy this time.
- This season of IPL has most number of baseball players (on an average, every team has 2) than any other IPL seasons in the past. Most of the team owners and coaches felt it was a strategic necessity to buy baseball players for the team as there are records that 220 (in 10 overs) is also not a safe total to defend these days. For this reason, team went on a buying spree across the world. Most baseball players were bought from teams in US. This is when BCCI showed interest in conducting IPL-10 in Las Vegas. BCCI says it is also an effort to popularize cricket in US. The newly set up Cricket Board of USA has managed to set up a new plush indoor stadium for IPL-10.
- The cricket pitch is prepared of synthetic material unlike the hard soil pitches of the outdoor stadiums. This kind of pitch is supposed to bring ball straight on to the bat without any scope for spin, swing, and enabling batsmen to just cudgel the ball. The ball is also a made with a mix of leather and special rubber, making it much lighter and is supposed to cover long distances when hit by batsmen.
- Ever since IPL-7, ICC has permitted the use of double sided bats made of special fiber instead of wooden bats used in other conventional formats of the game. These double sided bats help the batsmen to hit the ball farther without much effort. These bats look very much similar to baseball bats, which also helps the baseball players in the team. The word club is being used synonymous to bats these days.
- New set of rules say every team could only play 4 Indian players and the rest have to be foreign players. This is an encouraging move as it gives the team the best of talents across the globe.
- This is the 3rd successful year of the new chairman Another Bindralmiashah, after there were allegations on Lalit Modi of dwindling the money of BCCI during his long tenure as IPL chairman.
- 18 year old Arjun Sachin Tendulkar is the new sensation of IPL-10. There were rumors that his father, legendary Sachin Tendulkar did not want his son to start his career with T10, instead he wanted his son to start with the traditional format like ODIs. Arjun Sachin Tendulkar is the costliest buy out by any team in the history of IPL. Rumour mills say Mumbai team quoted him close to 500 million USD for a contract of 3 years.
- IPL-10 is also going to be the last IPL of arguably the God of IPL, Yusuf Pathan. He has decided to retire from cricket after this season. When asked about his next plans, he says he is already in talks with few of the team owners to join them as batting coach. Yusuf is the only batsman in the history of IPL to have an overall strike rate of over 250!!
- There is also a new variable being added to the statistics of batsmen. Along with number of matches played, run aggregated and strike rate etc, this new variable is gonna be number of sixes hit by the batsman. A similar element will be included for bowlers, for the number of sixes conceded.
- Cutting edge technology always has been part of cricket.
- The new technology enables to sniff and tap the thoughts of the brains of bowlers, batsman and fielders which is available for the analysis when the match is in progress. But grey heads have revolted against adapting this technology as this information could be used by the opponent coaches to guide their players on field.. But there is also an argument that it is fair as the info is open for all to use and make plans and counter plans.
- Umpires no longer stand in the field. In an effort to nullify human errors, all the umpiring decisions are taken by the third (but the only!) umpire.
- There are also rumors that there are gonna be no bowlers in any team from next IPL. Due to this bowlers' future is in doldrums. Instead of bowlers, there are gonna be bowling machines used. Automotive giants of Japan and S Korea seem to have prepared the prototypes of bowling machines which can generate a maximum speed of 200 mph. Whether there has to be a regulation on this speed of bowling as it requires super human batsmen to judge the balls thrown at these extreme speeds is yet to be decided by ICC. The legends of the game like Sunila Gavaskar, Steve Waugh and likes who have always expressed their dismay against commercialization of cricket now have openly lashed out at robotizing cricket also.
- Bryan McFixer is returning to T10 format after clearing the charges of match fixing in IPL season 9. He had played four continuous dot balls in the semi finals of IPL-9.
- Television broadcast rights have been bought by Zoom channel this year in India.
- There are close to 250 official commercial sponsors overall for this year’s IPL.
- The popularity of T10 has affected the snail paced ODIs let alone Tests. There are only 5 test playing nations remaining now. Kenya being the last and latest team to get the nod from ICC as test playing nation. Rest of the teams are England, Australia, West Indies and Sri Lanka. India stopped playing tests 3 years back, as BCCI decided it was not a lucrative business.
- According to the latest rule, if a batsman fails to score in the required run rate, he could be called off by the batting side captain. A batsman of choice (any player from the squad who has not played yet in that innings) could replace him. Mostly like a substitute in a football match.
- At last how on earth can there not be anything special about cheerleaders when IPL is being held in LV? This time many of the teams have hired strippers from various Clip joints of LV. Various Women's rights activists in India and as well as in US have protested this nanga naach in the name of Cricketainment. But chairman of IPL, has announced a part of the profit of IPL is gonna be donated for the welfare of Commercial sex workers in India. This has pacified many of the activists in India.
- BCCI is also thinking of introducing 5-5 overs match before cricket enthusiasts turn their faces away from T10. Would they name it F5? And will it remain a mass hysteria like F1 for decades? Only time has the answers in its belly...
Too good!!!!
Ha ha ha.... Very very hilarious! Too good an imagination.....
Awesomly hillarious!!!
LMAO
@Tess, @Sum and @Prats,
Thx :)
Hmmmmmm
Accha hai....
But you forgot one thing, Shahrukh Khan would still be looking the same & owning KKR.
Shilpa Shetty ki beti ka beta IPL me hoga...
Woow.. Wonderful bro.. It was fun.. You can become a humor blogger. I loved the donation part. :)
Very nicely written sir!
Going by the way these people are sacrificing cricket to money, all that you say could be possible within five years.
I watch IPL these days only for the Vodafone ads - definitely better entertainment :)
And with all the crap these people try to fit it right from the extraa innings and more than extra ads, In feel it is impossible to watch a match from start to finish.
@Anonymous aka Bhai:
SRK ka market nahi rahega tab tak. Bahut bardaash kar chuke hain log use.. :)
@Saravanan:
Thx bro.. im glad u liked it :)
@Shashia:
yeah I totally agree with you..
magaaa super.u dint say abt LAGAAN sequel being made with IPL as base:))
@Basu,
Super idea maga.. If Lagaan was of 3.X hrs long, this sequel has to be not more than 1.5 hrs duration.
Umm.. hero could be Imran Khan..?? :)
Im getting ideas, lets jointly develop a script in the weekend maga ;)