As a neutral, strictly

I resumed watching cricket, and following it, in 2008. It was the year of inaugural season of famed IPL. One match, between Kings XI v/s Mumbai Indians, I vividly remember. Mumbai Indians lost that encounter after a tight contest and that day I became a Mumbai Indians fan. Three and a half seasons of fanship and the fact that Mumbai Indians has gone from strength to strength just delights the fan inside me. This season they have also made for one more weakness of last season. Last season I thought there was thin layer between opening batsmen and Pollard. This year, as MI showed in the latest match against champions CSK, the middle order is studded with quality batsman like Rohit Sharma and Symonds before Pollard comes in. The postponed Sri Lankan series has also helped the case in a positive way with Malinga staying till the end. So obviously everyone would expect me to think that this year is MI’s year but believe me I am really not hopeful. I cannot be. Or for that matter no fan can be sure about his team becoming champion. The case I build here may have MI in it but the disappointment is of every fan of every club in general.

T20 version draws a major inspiration from football leagues but falters in one thing. The one thing I feel is to reward consistency. A league is more about consistency, rather relative consistency. A club who is relatively more consistent compared to other clubs should be winner of the league which is what happens in football leagues around the world. In a cup format, or a knock out format things are little different in a way that the team can always be pumped up to perform on that single day. It is hard to consistently perform with the same tempo if you are not a quality side. Ask South Africa to play in a league format and I guess 7 out of 10 times they would win it. Ask them to win a knock out cup and evidently so for 20 years a team of the day, recently NewZealand, can knock them out of the most coveted cup. And so the point is that keep the league for rewarding consistency. Keeping the format of Champions league cricket same, it can be ensured that only teams who were consistent get distilled to play for the prize that rewards the brilliance of the day. In the end we would have a winner who is consistent as well as has the temperament and nerves for the important day.

It would be unjustified to criticize the format and not coming out with any suggestion. We can retain the current format, with slight changes and still have a worthy winner. I am not at all saying that winners of previous are not worthy, because they performed best according to the system. Have a semi final where there are two matches at home and away venue. Winner of the semi final can be decided on the basis of net run rate. Have 3 or 5 final (like there are 7 NBA finals) so that the team has some time to react. The changes I suggest is just a point of view of a neutral as well as an ardent fan. After all IPL is just a synonym of fans and junta.