Rainman talks Cricket

The buzz around the VIVO Indian Premier League was slightly subdued this year. Thus, when the 12th edition of the T20 jamboree began on an unusually tepid note without the razzmatazz of a star-studded opening ceremony on 23rd March, it seemed to be foreshadowing a season of cricketing action minus the fireworks the league is synonymous with. The first match, billed as the ultimate showdown between India's current captain and his predecessor, also turned out to be a damp squib.  But that, as we look back at the eventful first week of IPL 12 action, seems to be a distant past. The IPL came back to life, just the way it almost always does. The opening weekend of the 2019 edition of the VIVO Indian Premier League attracted 219 million viewers, which was 31 per cent higher than last year’s opening weekend. Hotstar, the official digital streaming partner of the league, claims to have reached 135 million in the opening three days of the cricketing event which is 2.2 times mor...

While there remains little doubt that the tournament has gone a long way in making cricket popular in the country again, Big Bash League's impact on the state of Australian cricket's health definitely deserves a discussion. If a tournament is to be judged for its look and feel quotient, the Australian packaging of the slam-bang version of cricket, aptly called the Big Bash, would win hands down over the other franchise-based global T20 leagues in the world. Everything about it looks like the culmination of the dream Kerry Packer saw when he put together the World Series Cricket in the 70’s to revolutionise the face of cricket. Not only does the cricket look fantastic in drop dead gorgeous looking stadiums, the matches are well attended despite them clashing with the Australian cricket season which is often cited as one of the major successes of the league. The quality of cricket on display has gone up a notch higher every year since its inception in 2011 and it has turn...