The IPL

Day 82 / 366

The IPL started today. For a nation that worships cricket, this is nothing less than a festival. After the World Cup loss last year, I had promised myself that I would not watch any more cricket. But seeing Dhoni playing again is just too awesome to miss.

And so I fell for it once again. I felt myself getting excited when CSK was taking wickets. Right now as I am writing this, CSK is batting and I am secretly wishing for a few more wickets to fall so that Dhoni can come out to bat.

One good thing about the IPL is that no matter which team is winning, you can always find a few people in that team to root for. And so even though I usually just support CSK, I still watch the other matches sometimes and enjoy them. And then there are moments that everyone unanimously loves, for instance, Rinku Singh hitting 5 sixes in 5 balls to win the match for KKR last year.

I am not sure if the IPL is good for cricket or not. When it started, it was seen as a way to discover young talent. Without the IPL, we might not have had Jadeja or Bumrah. IPL was a way for talent to get seen and move on to the main stage which was international cricket. Now, IPL itself has become the main stage. We see many overseas players retire from playing for their country so that they can play in the IPL and many other domestic T20 leagues around the world.

No matter what it does for the sport, you cannot argue that it is a damn good source of entertainment. it has been around for 16 years now, and I do not recall a single boring season of the IPL. And I guess I will be watching it this year as well, which will probably be the last time we see Dhoni playing.