Cricket Craziness

Today is the last regular season game of India's professional cricket league, known as the IPL (Indian Premier League). I ended up following quite a bit of the two-month season for many reasons - my friends and coworkers here love cricket; I want to be current on the pop culture topics; I was in bed for five days with food poisoning and there was nothing else on TV; and the teams stay in my hotel when they're playing in Bangalore and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

In the lounge at my first cricket game

Watching all this cricket has made me realize how unique the IPL is; in fact, the IPL is the only league that I know of where:

• The pitch, the target, and an out are all called the same thing - a wicket.
• The team names are so long - instead of the Panthers or the Yankees, there's the Royal Challengers, Rising Supergiants, Knight Riders, and Super Kings.
• There are so...many...rules.
• If the game is cancelled due to weather or other reasons, the teams split the points automatically.
• If the game is delayed due to weather, the number of overs ("at bats") get reduced.
• Two franchises have been suspended for two years for game fixing.
• The games are played literally every night of the week.
• The top four of eight teams make the playoffs - then there are THREE games before the final. #1 plays #2 (game 1) and #3 plays #4 (game 2). The winner of game 1 automatically makes the playoffs, and the winner of game 2 plays the looser of game 1 to determine the other finalist.
• The cheerleaders for the teams are all foreigners (mostly Russians and South Africans).
• The cheerleaders from both teams dance together in the studio during breaks.

Note that these observations apply to the T20 format, which lasts about 3 hours. There's a longer - much longer - five day format that is played internationally, along with the T20 format and a one-day format.

Tim Cook (Apple CEO) was in India this week promoting Apple's growth plans for the Indian market, and the commissioner of the IPL took Tim Cook to a cricket game. Tim commented that he could really tell how much cricket meant to Indians by the passion of the crowd, and having been to one game in Bangalore, I can agree. The passion rivals audiences at a major concert, or celebratory crowds at New Year's Eve celebrations.

Royal Challengers Bangalore fans - pic credit

This passion for cricket has been somewhat demonized by local media for the detrimental impact the league has on the country-wide drought. Some games have even been moved to other regions to appease the public cries for water conservation and blasts of league commercialization.

I'm not sure what the right answer is, if there is one, but I do know one thing - Indians sure do love their cricket and after experiencing the excitement first-hand, I can see why.