The Indian Premier League or shall i say The Idiotic Premier League… For me 20-20 is Tamasha 20. Instead of watching a 20-20 match, i would rather watch a boring English movie. 

Cricket Historian Ramachandra Guha said “Test cricket is like Scotch or Irish Whiskey, One day is Indian made foreign liquor and 20-20 is country liquor”. It gives you a immediate high and goes down in seconds. I could watch Kumble and Bhajji bowling in Tandem against the Aussies in a Test Match for hours but i could not even watch a 20-20 match for 10 kin continously….

May be may be i am not fit for the current generation. Let me accept one thing, i am a purist when it come to cricket. The arguments which are posed in support of 20-20 are just utter stupidity. 

1. It increases the fan base in women, i know womenfolk who are more skewed towards one day cricket and test. I know my mom who spoke good cricket 10 years back. Do you want more fan base? I don’t think so, Cricket is already a religion in India. An International cricket match if India plays reduces traffic in the city, stops work in a office and even creates rifts in lot of places. I don’t think you need more of it.

2. An entertainment in 3 hours…like a football or tennis match. Do any of the other games reduce the time or tamper with their format when they want to create a entertainment quotient around it? They will never do so, can you think of 20 min football game. We can have one 20-20 game for every series, but not series of 20-20 games. I feel like watching a porn movie for instant mood instead of watching a sensual romantic.

3. It will create interest in Youngsters. This is the worst of the argument you can think of when it comes to 20-20. What kind of interest you are creating in youngsters minds. They will try to hit every ball out of the ground hereafter. Once Rahul Dravid said, “For every ball i hit over the ground, my coach will make me to go one round around the ground with the bat held over my head”. And we will never see such breed of cricketers like Dravid and Kallis if this continues. 

Even now, Dhoni is not as good as when he plays in Test Cricket. I accept he is a wonderful captaincy material, but i never saw him playing square of the wicket. His bat doesn’t move in that fashion. I can’t imagine people who will replace Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman. The future looks bleak and foggy. We have a Rohit Sharma, who is fit to play test cricket, then….. Who else? You can’t hit every ball out of the park in Perth or Durban or Port of Spain or Old Trafford (even Sehwag can’t my friends, he hit those mammoths in Multan and Chennai ( Flatter than the flattest) ) . 

I like to see that Indian team without those 4 greats in a Perth Test Match and i am damn sure they are going to look like a bunch of fools. 

And we have started making more foolish decisions to improve cricket in India.

And about IPL and city based loyalties, India is a diverse country and the people live of different ethnicities in different cities. I believe there will be more outsiders in Bangalore than Kannadigas. May be a Chandigarh or Jaipur, will have more insiders. I feel Sachin will get more shouts and cries than Dhoni in Chennai, as its like his second home. I felt it during a one day international in Chepauk. Only one good thing about IPL is i am going to see Sachin and Jayasuriya ( a dream combo) opening in a match and Shane Warne will once again bowl to Sachin… Wow thats great

But Can we have a Test Match like this? Because as i said this is a short lived fantasy…

God save Cricket…