Dawn of a new era in Indian cricket!!

For the past few weeks I had been reading a book titled “India’s Century” written by Mr. Kamalnath – Minister of Commerce of Indian government. Very systematically he writes to explain about how India will become a positive force to reckon with for the rest of the world. Methodically he takes the reader through the days of colonial era, Independence, Foundations laid after the independence, struggles of Indian people since then and the liberalization of Indian economy etc are few topics to quote.

At 6:30 PM today, there will be a new era beginning in Indian cricket. India inaugurates a new form of cricket – a city based franchisee cricket, similar to any professional sports league like National Basketball Association (NBA) or European league (EL). There are 8 teams slug it out for 40 days. Individual players are being auctioned for unheard of amount of money as high as 1.5 million dollars and the media rights are being sold for about a billion dollars.

How did all this begin? Well….it all began with the last cricket world cup held in West Indies. India went into this tournament as favorites but they lost so badly that they failed to qualify to the respectable levels. If you don’t know yet, for many Indians, cricket is a religion and that disappointed many. India’s media baron Mr. Subhash Chandra was equally disappointed but saw a business opportunity in it and that’s where the thought of city based franchisee cricket began. This new league is called as “Indian Premier League” or IPL [Click here for to visit it’s site].

The hype of inauguration of IPL is all over the media. New industries such as cheer leading, cricket academies, sports medicine/ physiotherapy, event management and virtual cricket etc are emerging. In short, excitement, and cricket is everywhere. So what does all this mean? As it said in the book I mentioned above, it reasserts the confidence of emerging India that they can face challenges head on and turn them into opportunities. Many young Indians will have opportunities to make a living through IPL.

If you’re wondering why cricket is being talked on adoption blog, know this that I am writing today to lay a foundation for my article tomorrow. See you tomorrow.

Ruby