I am loving the IPL.  I am loving it mainly because it demonstrates (or appears to demonstrate) that India is becoming a modern country.  If true, it’s wonderful to see.

But there are other reasons: it’s cricket I can physically watch.  Is there any other form of cricket that you can watch of Freeview?  It’s cricket that actually gives you a result before the glaciers have melted.  It’s cricket where things happen.  I love the fact that I don’t have to tie my emotions to the fortunes of “my” tribe.  That is particularly useful when your tribe happens to be the English.

As this is the first year I have been seriously watching it, I haven’t been exposed to players moving from team to team.  But if, next year I saw Raina or Badrinath walking out for Mumbai, or heaven help us the Delhi Desk Jockeys I would be seriously disappointed.  Especially, if no money changed hands.

But even then I am not sure I agree with this “organic” business.  Are modern Chelsea or Manchester City truly organic? And does it really matter?

On the question of “evenness”, it seems to me that the Mumbai Indians are clearly a much better team than anyone else.  It also appears that the play-off system has been specifically designed to give them the best possible chance of winning.

Players and teams:

Malinga: Mumbai
Valthaty: Punjab
Sehwag: Delhi
Gayle: Bangalore
I Sharma: Deccan

Am I right?  I think I’ve got them all.

You know I am liking this so much I may even go and find out what the rules are.

Australian and American sporting leagues are in many cases as old or nearly as old as the Football League in the UK, but do not have that same “organic” quality you describe. They have drafts and salary caps and all sorts of regulations (particularly involving the sharing of television revenue and sponsorship money) to keep the teams even, the same teams in the league every year, artificial nicknames made up by the marketing department, clubs will sometimes relocate to different cities, and new clubs enter the league by usually paying a large sum of money to the league. The IPL has followed this pattern, and as long as it continues to be regulated in this way it will probably remain “artificial” rather than “organic”, or perhaps “Australian/American” rather than “British/European”.

The big issue is actually promotion and relegation, I think. European soccer leagues have it. Other sporting leagues generally don’t. In soccer you buy into a club and spend the money on the club. You can found a club, enter it in some low division, and theoretically build it up until it is champion of Europe. Elsewhere you often buy into a league and buy a share in that league. This leads to a different set of desirable outcomes.

Patrick: the IPL this year added two new teams, and the IPL wanted them to be competitive. The trouble is that in franchise style leagues, new clubs being built from scratch have difficulty competing as all the good players have trouble already. The new clubs then have difficulty getting fans in their early years, and they then have trouble making money and you get a vicious circle. Therefore, almost all players were required to be released by their clubs and auctioned again, so that the new clubs could get their fair share of the good players. Fans may or may not have liked this, but the supporters do seem to be showing up.

Clubs were able to retain a maximum of four players from last season, but suffered financial penalties for doing this in terms of what they could spend in the auction on other players. The only club that retained four players this way was the Mumbai Indians, as it happens. (Clubs could of course retain players by buying players they had previously employed back in the auction, but this way they faced the possibility of losing them). I am sure they are the richest club, but it will be interesting to see how they have actually put their team together. (Australian sports - particularly rugby league - have a history of scandals in which clubs have had two sets of books in order to fraudulently get around salary cap rules).

As for the playoff system, virtually all Australian sporting leagues have playoff systems like this, in which the teams that finished highest in the regular season get a much easier route to the final than teams that finish lower down, not just in terms of who they play but in terms of how many games they have to play and whether they can lose playoff matches without being knocked out. I don’t think it is designed to aid the Indians specifically, but it is more that Australians are heavily involved in organising the IPL, and this is the sort of system that Australians see as being fair. Seriously, tell an Australian that “We need a four team playoff system” and this is the one he will draw up.

Especially, if no money changed hands.

Funnily enough, when I learned a small amount about English soccer (in my teens) and someone described what a “transfer fee” was, I thought this was one of the most peculiar and strange things I had ever heard of. Assuming that the way things work in the place you have grown up is the only possible way or the only sensible or fair way is easy.

Very brilliant discussion dear :) On the question of evenness, it seems to me that the Mumbai Indians are clearly a much better team than anyone else.