Living in East Asia, I get an awful lot of IPL on television. And IPL highlights. And IPL re-runs. And the IPL Champions Trophy, or whatever it’s called. Leaving aside any snobbish and/or condescending opinions I might have about the quality of IPL cricket, I’d like to share my confusion at the IPL team names, which – the defunct Deccan Chargers aside – make less sense to me than those in the United States or Yorkshire (remember the Phoenix!). I see that they are supposed to be glitzy, but...
Ingenious ways to improve the IPL
I stumbled across ‘The Huddle’ on Cricinfo today. It’s a forum where cricket experts discuss the latest news via video-conferencing. The debate is chaired by Jarrod Kimber, and this week’s guests included former Sri Lanka all-rounder Russel Arnold. The topic of conversation, as if it would be anything else, was the IPL. Kimber suggested they implement a ‘transfer window’ in the middle of the season, to let teams swap / trade players. This is because, in Kimber’s words, the middle week of the...
Has the bloody IPL finished yet?
I love cricket. I don’t just eat and sleep it, I revere it. I would prefer to watch Lancashire’s 2nd XI play Derbyshire at Old Trafford than Man Utd play Liverpool at the other Old Trafford. Subconsciously I even think of David Lloyd and Mike Atherton as friends because I hear their voices on TV so often. So somebody tell me this: why do I have no interest in the IPL whatsoever? Some diehard Indian fans might say I’m jealous. Why? Because England is no longer the centre of the cricketing world...
