The Indian Premier League is gone…. The T20 World Cup has come… Well, there is no end to entertainment for cricket lovers in India… One goes, another comes…!!!
The IPL kept us glued to our television sets for over a month. And now that it is over, a sense of emptiness has surrounded us all who had actually started to plan their day according to the IPL encounters.
“Oh lets not go out for dinner today…
Aaj Delhi ka match hai…”
“Hey lets go to Pebble Street today…. Kings XI Punjab and Deccan Chargers match with a chilled beer would be heaven…”
Whatever the reasons and excuses were, the fact is that the entire nation, as well South Africa and other countries, remained engulfed in the magic of the Indian Premier League for over a month.
But now that the T20 World Cup has started, a strange question crept into my mind… No matter how popular the Indian Premier League was, can its charm ever overpower that of a World Cup?
The outright answer from majority of the people reading this would be, “Of course not… how can the charm of India playing Pakistan or Australia be subdued by a Delhi
Daredevils and Mumbai Indians encounter?”
Point taken… Agreed!
But again most people would agree to the fact the Indian Premier League too has a beauty which no World Cup can overawe. While discussing this, let us keep aside the patriot in us and think just purely like cricket lovers.
Primarily… the Indian Premier League gives me the options of supporting all my favourite players at the same time.
For instance, Brett Lee, the mind-blowing Aussie pacer, is the heart-throb of many and so may be Irfan Pathan and Zaheer Khan. But when it comes to an India-Australia match, our patriot heart would definitely cheer for our Indian men… and not the Aussies…
But thanks to the IPL, I could cheer for both Lee and Irfan at the same time (both play for Kings XI Punjab).
No matter what rivalry India-Pakistan, India-Australia or Australia-South Africa share, when it comes to this T20 league, all the national cricketing rivalry is left behind, men from different countries play as one single team.
The scene of Adam Gilchrist hugging a jubilant RP Singh when he takes a wicket for Deccan Chargers and the camaraderie between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Andrew Flintoff on the field while they discuss the game plan for Chennai Super Kings is something which the T20 World Cup will lack…
But I can bet on the fact that it’s not only me who relished these tiny moments. Another beauty of an IPL encounter was that it wasn’t just two participating nations and their fans celebrating the victory or mourning the loss. An Indian may be happy for Dhoni grabbing a victory for CSK, and another Indian may also be awfully upset for Dada losing it again … A Mumbai Indians victory was not only celebrated by an Indian, but also by a Sri Lankan as by a West Indian.
The high-glamour quotient, which decorated each and every IPL match, will also be missing in the World Cup.
Revisit the moment when Preity Zinta cheerfully waved the flag for her team Kings XI Punjab or King Khan jumping and shouting from the stands every time Dada managed to hit a boundary or Ishant Sharma managed to clinch a victim.
All in all, the World Cup has the charm, excitement, cricket and patriotism par excellence, but those who were madly in love with just cricket, and especially T20, will still miss the elements of the IPL.
