IPL a non-event for SA fans
WHAT will you be doing at about 4.30pm today? Craig Matthews knows what he most certainly will not be doing — tuning in to the Indian Premier League (IPL) final between the Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab in Bangalore.
“I don’t watch the IPL much,” the former SA allrounder and national selector said. “If I’m really looking to behave like a zombie for a few hours, then maybe I’ll put it on.
“But I feel T20 cricket has become boring. After four or five overs you usually know which team is going to win. I apologise to the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India), but that’s my take.”
Matthews will not be an odd man, woman or child out this afternoon. If a chance sighting of Morne Morkel bounding in to bowl for KKR snags cricket-minded South Africans’ attention, we will channel our inner zombie. Once Morkel’s spell is over, we will snap back to life.
Should Jacques Kallis’ statuesque frame fill the screen — although that seems unlikely considering he has been left out for Kolkata’s last six games — or David Miller or Beuran Hendricks turn it on for Punjab, we will take notice. If not, then not.
I feel T20 cricket has become boring. After four or five overs you usually know which team is going to win
This, Matthews said, was as it should be: “I’m not sure there’s that much interest in the IPL outside of India, and I’m not sure the BCCI are interested in creating much interest in the IPL outside of India.”
But Matthews, whose career ended in 2000, eight years before the advent of the IPL, would have leapt at the chance to be on the less boring side of the tournament’s boundaries.
“It’s been incredibly financially rewarding for the players and it would have been fantastic to have had the opportunity to have played in it,” he said.
How long will the IPL goose keep laying golden eggs? Although the tournament is thought to be worth some R33.5-billion as a brand, the revenues of most of its eight franchises have slumped along with the asking prices for sponsorships in the wake of a slew of scandals.
From match-fixing to maladministration to marketing gone mad, the IPL has been diagnosed with incubating the conditions that allow cricket’s serious ills to fester. Fans are voting with their remotes: viewership has been dwindling since 2012.
So, why does it exist? It’s the money, stupid. Even a zombie would know that.