I am guessing it must be a quietly jovial day at the headquarters of Zee Telefilms when Subhash Chandra finally figured out how to mint the stupidity of millions of fanatic cricket lovers in gold. Alas, his plans with the Indian cricket leagues hit the greedy roadblocks of BCCI , but he had nevertheless shown the imagination strapped bunch of clowns at the hem of Indian cricket how to truly turn this beautiful game into a money making machine. Thus was born the Indian Premier League. And it sucked.
It sucks in the same way Britney Spear feels like molten iron is being poured into your ears. It sucks with the same foulness of a Garfield mocking your intelligence. And it sucks in precisely the same way an Ekta Kapoor feels like she has just installed a juicer-mixer-grinder in your skull which is working overtime at preparing a homogeneous concoction of your gray matter. And there is a reason why it sucks so much.
Warning: Politically incorrect content to follow:
The reason IPL (or T20) must necessarily be bad is because its so popular. Its catering to what Watterson called the Lowest Common Denominator of humanity. And the Lowest Common Denominator of humanity is a sorry mass of stupid homo sapiens. Their demand for non-complex, instant gratification has reduced music to the shambles it is in today. Their inability to appreciate anything even remotely sophisticated has led to the downfall of smart/sensible Television and Cinema. Our generation has seen the demise of the likes of Naseeruddin Shahs and it has forced the reasonably talented A.B. to dance to the tunes of talentless hacks like Himesh Reshammiya. We have witnessed the steady incursion of mediocrity in everything. Everything we have touched, has turned to dust. And we are happy. Because now it can be mass produced, cheaply, and efficiently. And it is just clever enough not to put us to sleep and just dumb enough to be universally palatable. Yes, we have achieved great audiences but we have lost the soul in our efforts. And the same is true for IPL or T20.
To put it mildly, the Twenty-20 format is a joke. The format is too heavily laden in the favor of the batsmen and kills any sort of competition between the bat and the ball. And the seeds of this were sown before T20 itself. The game of cricket began on the path of demise when the no-ball rules came into place. When the power-plays came into place. When the bouncers were prohibited. Suddenly with the bite taken out of a bowler's arsenal, we had stupid talentless freaks like Dhoni straddling around, waving their bats in inebriated frenzy and still managing to keep the scorekeepers busy. I would have loved to see the likes of such modern cricketers face the sweet music of 150 kmph deliveries aimed at their terror stricken eyes. Oh, how much I would have loved to see a few more broken bones and fractured rib-cages. That would have separated the boys from the men. But no, we had to go one step further and start this mind dump of a format called T20. And the last hopes of a game lover like me who just wants to see a level playing field were dashed by the money grubbing corporations.
People would say, "So what ? its a hit". Well, obviously its a hit. That's what pains me really. Because while good art can still survive amidst mediocrity through individual efforts, a game as institutionalized as cricket will find it difficult to breathe when the institution itself is bent upon destroying it. And the public can hardly care less. As long as it has its share of crying Sreesanths and angry Harbhajans and dancing cheerleaders. That's another thing. Importing cheerleaders. Its just sad. I mean, I cannot care less about the moral police (I hate them) but this is not what cricket was meant to be. As inappropriate as cheerleaders are in cricket (from a historical perspective), importing them says a lot about us Indians. I really do not have words to describe how sad it makes me. Its like saying, the game is no more good enough. It has to be supported by sex. Because that's what it is. Sex. Cover up all you want but I would be damned if I do not see through it. The swinging balls are not good enough anymore. We need the swinging bellies. The unadulterated, honest cover drive doesn't appeal to us anymore. We need a bunch of Russian bimbos to get our adrenaline going. We need a complete soap opera on the field. We have even started terming the game as 'evening entertainment'. With all due respect: MY BLOODY FOOT !
It sucks in the same way Britney Spear feels like molten iron is being poured into your ears. It sucks with the same foulness of a Garfield mocking your intelligence. And it sucks in precisely the same way an Ekta Kapoor feels like she has just installed a juicer-mixer-grinder in your skull which is working overtime at preparing a homogeneous concoction of your gray matter. And there is a reason why it sucks so much.
Warning: Politically incorrect content to follow:
The reason IPL (or T20) must necessarily be bad is because its so popular. Its catering to what Watterson called the Lowest Common Denominator of humanity. And the Lowest Common Denominator of humanity is a sorry mass of stupid homo sapiens. Their demand for non-complex, instant gratification has reduced music to the shambles it is in today. Their inability to appreciate anything even remotely sophisticated has led to the downfall of smart/sensible Television and Cinema. Our generation has seen the demise of the likes of Naseeruddin Shahs and it has forced the reasonably talented A.B. to dance to the tunes of talentless hacks like Himesh Reshammiya. We have witnessed the steady incursion of mediocrity in everything. Everything we have touched, has turned to dust. And we are happy. Because now it can be mass produced, cheaply, and efficiently. And it is just clever enough not to put us to sleep and just dumb enough to be universally palatable. Yes, we have achieved great audiences but we have lost the soul in our efforts. And the same is true for IPL or T20.
To put it mildly, the Twenty-20 format is a joke. The format is too heavily laden in the favor of the batsmen and kills any sort of competition between the bat and the ball. And the seeds of this were sown before T20 itself. The game of cricket began on the path of demise when the no-ball rules came into place. When the power-plays came into place. When the bouncers were prohibited. Suddenly with the bite taken out of a bowler's arsenal, we had stupid talentless freaks like Dhoni straddling around, waving their bats in inebriated frenzy and still managing to keep the scorekeepers busy. I would have loved to see the likes of such modern cricketers face the sweet music of 150 kmph deliveries aimed at their terror stricken eyes. Oh, how much I would have loved to see a few more broken bones and fractured rib-cages. That would have separated the boys from the men. But no, we had to go one step further and start this mind dump of a format called T20. And the last hopes of a game lover like me who just wants to see a level playing field were dashed by the money grubbing corporations.
People would say, "So what ? its a hit". Well, obviously its a hit. That's what pains me really. Because while good art can still survive amidst mediocrity through individual efforts, a game as institutionalized as cricket will find it difficult to breathe when the institution itself is bent upon destroying it. And the public can hardly care less. As long as it has its share of crying Sreesanths and angry Harbhajans and dancing cheerleaders. That's another thing. Importing cheerleaders. Its just sad. I mean, I cannot care less about the moral police (I hate them) but this is not what cricket was meant to be. As inappropriate as cheerleaders are in cricket (from a historical perspective), importing them says a lot about us Indians. I really do not have words to describe how sad it makes me. Its like saying, the game is no more good enough. It has to be supported by sex. Because that's what it is. Sex. Cover up all you want but I would be damned if I do not see through it. The swinging balls are not good enough anymore. We need the swinging bellies. The unadulterated, honest cover drive doesn't appeal to us anymore. We need a bunch of Russian bimbos to get our adrenaline going. We need a complete soap opera on the field. We have even started terming the game as 'evening entertainment'. With all due respect: MY BLOODY FOOT !
