March.12 : In a few short hours, instant cricket’s latest extravaganza — the Indian Premier League — will get its third edition under way in Navi Mumbai’s D.Y. Patil Stadium, and already all bets are off on who will emerge the champions from among the eight participating teams in 45 days’ time.
Included in the cast for the hour-long opening ceremony is ageless crooner Lionel Richie, who will serenade the watching millions before defending champions Deccan Chargers take the field against last year’s bottom-placed team, the Sourav Ganguly-led Kolkata Knight Riders. Indeed, given the roller-coaster nature of results in IPL-1 and IPL-2, the 2010 tournament sees no clear favourites as yet. Among the teams to watch will be the Deccan Chargers, though how they will cope with the weight of expectations after their stunning performance last year remains to be seen, and the Mumbai Indians, who have so far flattered to deceive despite having a stellar array of talent led by the great Sachin Tendulkar. Royal Challengers Bangalore followed the example of the Chargers and picked themselves off the floor under Anil Kumble’s stewardship and made some big names eat crow en route to the finals in South Africa, while the irrepressible Shane Warne can never be written off after leading rank outsiders Rajasthan Royals to the very peak in IPL-1.
Many of the eight franchises have used the last few months to reshape squads and management, and IPL-3 promises to be quite a ride. Also, given the fact that this is the third time the event is being played, tactics will be still further evolved, as will be the batsmanship and, hopefully, the bowling as well. In the shorter forms of the game, the bowlers are the ones that get it in the neck and in the shortest format, there is just nowhere to hide. Quite obviously, the return to the lower and slower Indian pitches after IPL-2’s dalliance with the faster tracks in South Africa will mean a change in approach and possibly bigger scores than we have seen in previous T20 tournaments across the globe, which means bowling coaches will have a bigger role to play in getting their wards to check marauding batsmen. Not the least among them will be the Chargers’ leader, the swashbuckling Adam Gilchrist, who led from the front in South Africa to see the Hyderabad-based team rebound from a slow start to mow down fancied opponents all the way to the final in Johannesburg.
In yet another way, IPL-3 will also be a challenge to the tournament itself, a test to see if the thrill of the first two tournaments is still around, and whether it can still generate the buzz IPL-1 in particular did. T20 cricket is no longer just the glamorous new baby. It has arrived and claimed a place alongside Test and 50-overs cricket — evident from the speed with which the International Cricket Council put together a T20 World Championship of its own — in the hearts of those that follow the willow sport. More than anything, however, IPL-3 will be a test of resolve. Shorn of the glitz and glamour, it is after all 22 men striving to give of their best day after day for a month and a half. It takes a mighty resolve to last the course, to be able to bounce back from inevitable setbacks and heartbreaks over that period, and still have enough steel to walk out to yet another cricket ground and begin the endeavour all over again. That will — 45 days from now — mark the champions out from the rest.
