IPL awards...

Those following IPL-3 would be very much aware of IPL awards. IPL for the first time this year IPL has constituted a award ceremony and there are eight different categories of awards to be presented. Further for each award there is an experts' choice and a popular choice taking the total tally of awards to sixteen. Some of the categories for which the awards would be given are best bolwer, best batsman, best fielder,best catch,most stylish player,best captain, best commentator and most fan friendly cricketer. Below is my choice for each of these awards.

Best Batsman: Sachin Tendulkar

I guess there aren't many competitors for this award. Kallis, Raina,Ganguly and Vijay do provide some competition but for the sheer consistency and the impact Sachin's knocks have had as far as MI are concerned ,make him a winner hands down. He holds the orange cap too.

Best Bowler: Pragyan ojha

There have many brilliant bowling performances in IPL-3. Zaheer Khan,Lasith Malinga have been remarkable for Mumbai, so have been Ashwin, Murali for CSK and Mishra for Delhi respectively. However Ashwin has been brilliant only in the second half and Mishra not as consistent as he would have liked and same with Murali though he was dropped for a few matches without any reason. In contrast Ohja has been excellent throughout the tournament and has managed to hold on to purple cap as well.

Best Catch: AB Devillers

One of the most toughest choices. Few other breathtaking catches were that of David Hussey, Rohit Sharma, Bollinger. But AB marginally edges them out.

Best Fielder: David Warner

Again another tough category. There have been scintillating fielding performances throughout the IPL with the likes of Raina, Rohit, Symonds,AB Devillers,Dilshan etc giving Warner a run for his money.

Most Stylish Player: Murali Vijay

Another difficult category but Vijay's stylish flicks and drives wins this award for him.

Best Captain: Sachin Tendulkar

I do agree that MI have a formidable team and the likes of Warne, Gilchrist and Dhoni are not blessed with such luxury. However its the way that Sachin carried the team leading from the front most of the times which make him the best captain of IPL-3. My choice would be vindicated if he could lead them towards the championship.

Most Fan Friendly cricketer:

The fact the I had been to only one of the matches and managed to catch all other matches in TV where you hardly get to know what players do between overs or innings breaks or before commencement of the match makes me ineligible to choose a winner. So I don't want to take a call.

Best IPL Commentator:

The commentary has been disappointing throughout IPL-3. Commentators spend more time eulogising different brands like MRF, karbon and pay very little attention to the action on the field. I like to call them marketing agents rather than commentators. So no award in this category too.

Thats my whole take on the different awards. Need to wait till 23 rd to see how many of my choices have found favour with either the judges or the experts.

Can the IPL retain its sheen?

To say that the Indian premier league( IPL) was a stupendous success would be an understatement. The IPL into its third year has so far managed to attract huge crowds to most of its matches,humongous amounts of money in the form tickets, sponsorship,advertisements etc. However, it has never been free from controversies. It all started with the hue and cry raised against auctioning of players. The second edition was blighted by issues of security and the dates of IPL clashing with elections and this eventually lead to the IPL being played in South Africa. This year the controversies surrounding the auctioning of the Kochi team has come to haunt it just at the wrong moment. The tournament is interestingly poised and we have around 5 teams competing for a couple of semi-final spots. However this recent row has managed to deflect attention from the on-field happenings to off-field issues.

All business conglomerates in India and abroad have realised the huge potential that IPL offers. The fact that IPL garnered about 3500 cr INR for the two new teams auctioned indicates the huge potential it offers. However, the billion dollar question is can IPL sustain its growth amidst all these controversies and still manage to stay attractive. My take is that IPL will collapse under its own weight. Just imagine the scenario next year. IPL with the addition of two new teams would expand further and thus the number of matches would almost get doubled to 94. Given the limited time period available to run the show it would lead to more cramming up and players would soon be complaining of burnouts. All players do have their national commitments and players would be more willing to rest their tiring bodies rather than make a quick buck. This line is already being toed by players like Micheal Clarke and Mitchell Johnson and soon we would have more players joining their club.

The other major reason is that it would lead to a saturation among the public too. People are bound to get bored with the never ending frenzy and a scenario similar to 2007 world cup would arise and thereby reduce viewer-ship and cause profits to decline and ultimately lead to the collapse of the whole league.

The IPL would be better-off if it can do away with its double round-robin format and follow a single round-robin league format wherein each team plays against the other team once instead of twice as per the present format. This would lead to a drastic reduction in the number of matches from 94 to 49 and thereby make the tournament more interesting. The other alternative is to divide teams into two groups of five each and have a double round-robin league within the group. The top 2 teams from each group can then proceed to semi-finals. This would bring down number of matches to 44 and the time period required would be much shorter and players would be more willing to participate then.

However if the IPL were to continue with its present format and play 94 matches the public and the players are bound to suffer and in such a scenario it's nigh impossible for the league to replicate its breathtaking success achieved so far.

I am back...

Its been quite a while since I have posted anything on my blog. Now that I am done with all my GDs and interviews,I have so much time to kill and people can expect a lot of posts from me as I dont have anything meaningful to do for the next two and half months.To start off my itinerary for the week looked something like this.

Apr 3 - IMT G- bangalore

Apr 4 - IIT M- Chennai

Apr 5- IIM Idr- Bangalore

Apr 6- NMIMS- Mumbai

Apr 7- a rare off day

Apr 8- MDI- Bangalore

Apr9 - IIM L- Bangalore

Apr 11- IMI- Bangalore

Apr 15-NITIE-Mumbai

The prospect of facing some many interviews within such a short span of time and the amount of travelling I had to do for it was nauseating. I also had to dwell out many a thousands of rupees towards travelling,boarding and lodging.

This is where I would like to thank the IIFT folks for two reasons. First for selecting me and then for revelling their results just at the right time. Having made it to IIFT I decided to skip most of the aforementioned interviews and attended only the interviews of IIM I , MDI and IIM L. I would be sharing my experiences of the few interview and GDs which I attended in the subsequent posts.