The Indian Premier League's purpose is clear — to sell. It addresses an audience which wants entertainment. They don't want to be bored with technicalities. For the franchises, IPL is just another business with an aim to make as great a profit as possible.
Thus team managements lay stress on strategy management so that the team's ranking improves. And while some teams appear to be desperate to win, not all seem earnest when it comes to selecting players.
A week into the IPL and some teams are struggling. Their lack of preparation is thoroughly exposed. Some of the teams may not be at their full strength, but the problems will only increase with bigger names. Players from different countries with a diversity of mindsets are a headache to the captain and the coach.
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The lack of finance is working to the advantage of Rajasthan Royals. Captained by the experienced Rahul Dravid, it is well backed with thorough strategy management and team-building exercises by former Mumbai opener and now Rajasthan Royals coach, Zubin Bharucha, who has been contributing to Royals since the first edition.
Technical issues
While the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had commissioned Bharucha to prepare a white paper on certain technical issues, Indian cricket continues to ignore him.
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Having followed each player diligently for over four months, Bharucha has introduced some clever drills to help players work on skill enhancement. Since Dravid and he are on the same page, things move smoothly.
The duo created a ‘Situation Room' in Kadamba Technologies, a software company in Chennai, which collected footage of all T20 players over the world. Starting last August, Bharucha and Dravid spent time in the ‘Situation Room' analysing strengths of these players.
“At RR we have to work on our resources and the ‘Situation Room' concept helped us work on the players. Rahul spent a lot of time in planning,” Bharucha says. With players coming from different parts of the world, it's perhaps easier to handle a national team than an IPL team because IPL consists of international and non-international foreigners as well as international and non-international Indian players.
The skill level, mental make-up and degree of experience vary. To combine them into an efficient unit is a challenge for the coach. Kolkata Knight Riders is a plump example. If one compares the team to other teams, they are much superior man-to-man.
With top quality players available, it took time for the team management to work on combinations. In the Bangalore match against RCB they seemed to have found the solution but not playing two left-arm spinners may prove costly on slow pitches. Gautam Gambhir too is learning about what makes a combination effective.
Leaders are born not made. Sourav Ganguly continues to show what good captaincy is. Every player has his own role and the team moves in perfect tandem; like a well-oiled machine. Fielders close the angles and know expectations of them. No scope is given to bowlers to experiment.
India's best left-arm spin bowler, Murali Kartik continues to mesmerise quality batsmen with his clean action; a sure rarity nowadays. Though the BCCI has issued instructions to umpires to stop a bowler if he has a suspect action, there are many who use long sleeves to chuck. Surprisingly or not, some of these bowlers are internationals.
Top foreign umpires are officiating in the IPL. One would expect them to take a stand. Money making is one thing, compromising the game for it is another. Entertainment is meant to enhance the game, not to overshadow it.