IPL as ATM for Stars!

Cricket as Commerce, maybe a tired old cliché, but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has tweaked the cliché a little and discovered greed on the other side of commerce. Momentarily pushed to the back foot by Zee's ICL, the BCCI hit back with its own Indian Premier League (IPL), and now, a heady cocktail of stars and czars are lining up to milk the last crore out of Indian cricket's latest candy. Spurred by a media fed and fattened on a celebrity diet, everyone (well, almost) seems to be sure that IPL will be a cakewalk on the catwalk, like appealing to an umpire to declare the batsman out when he is clean bowled, but hang on a sec, it might turn out to be a no-ball! One thing is for sure, post-IPL, cricket will never be the same again. In the interim, here's a list of Top 20 disturbing questions that we simply cannot pad up to or leave them alone:

1) Will cricket, celebrated the world over as a gentleman's game now become a ruthless, money making jukebox?

2) Will the entry of Bollywood stars as franchise owners turn cricket into a glamour sport, a la women's tennis (minus the mini-skirts …but don't bet on it…)

3) Will the game be won or lost on the 22-yard strip, or behind power dressing rooms? Will the players play to a game-plan that serves the interest of their sponsors? Will it legalise betting in a different (and "acceptable") avatar?

4) Will money chase talent or will it be the other way round? And with what consequences?

5) Will Preity Zinta tell us how Sachin should have played a shot, rather than say, Geoffrey Boycott?

6) Are the Shah Rukh Khans and the Vijay Mallyas interested in promoting cricket or exploiting its profit potential?

7) By the way, does cricket need ANY promoting at all? Is it not like Brad Pitt telling Google's Larry Page: "Hey, I'll help you to promote your services."

8) Under the management of film stars and business tycoons, will cricket no more be a game that tests one's strength of character and spirit, but a vocation to laugh all the way to the bank at the end of the day?

9) When a film star "owns" a Sachin or a Ganguly, will it encourage or deter fresh talent? Will it dry up the existing talent or merely extend its expiry date? Will it end up lengthening the careers of the veterans, and shortening the careers of the younger ones?

10) With moneybags as trophy and not a piddling gold cup, will cricket end up as an exclusive ATM (any time money) for the stars, cricketing and others, to cash in and cash out?

11) Will players morph from being the proud representatives of a national team to become mercenaries, or to put it bluntly, like prostitutes, available to the highest bidder, satisfaction guaranteed.

12) With the IPL dishing out million dollar checks, will the players prefer to play in IPL rather than for their country?

13) Will cricket as a game become more beautiful or ugly? Are we tapping into its aesthetics or just playing into the gallery, where the result matters, above all else, and the ends justify the means?

14) Will cricket no more be a game of life-and-death, glory-and-tragedy moments, but a succession of adrenalin shots, like a one-night stand?

15) Will cricket no more be a metaphor for life, but a hot scrip traded for its brand equity?

16) Will it give rise to a Sachin Tendulkar who's capable of being at the top of his game for two decades, or a hyped up Sachin clone who can barely last a season?

17) Will IPL end up as a nicely marketed, celebrity-backed Version 2.0 of a benefit match that will end up eventually benefiting only the celeb circuit - the BCCI, the sponsors, the film stars, the players, but not the paying public or even the paying advertisers. And how long can this farce go on?

18) And in case IPL fails to pull in the crowds, despite the stars and the czars, will it rope in item numbers by Mallika Sherawat and Sherlyn Chopra to keep the fans and the advertisers in good humour?

19) Is there any rationale in the IPL trying to become the commercial equivalent of an Arsenal or a Real Madrid in soccer, when football is played by 150 countries and watched by 80% of the world's population, as against cricket which is played and followed by less than 10 countries?

20) And last, but not the least, if the IPL experiment fails, will it not be the most expensive joke in the history of all sport? (And if it clicks, …don't remember you read this here….