Stanford University of cricket

Sohail Tanvir, the phlegmatic-looking Pakistani medium-pacer with the inscrutable face, which gave the Rajasthan Royals team a bowling wonder said it all. At the end of the farcical tri-series between Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, Tanvir, who was part of the winning squad, said that Pakistan's national side victory over India was definitely more satisfying than the IPL triumph. In the end, that's all that truly matters. Funnily, the generally exuberant media that ran a daily TRP barometer during the summer holidays with liberal clichéd quotes from BCCI bigwigs, was conspicuously silent about viewer-ship ratings of the tri-series. Wonder why? Strangely, even the man on the road seemed totally nonchalant and I saw none of the semi-circles surrounding consumer electronic stores devouring cricketing action on giant plasma screens

Elsewhere, the recently retired Aussie Adam Gilchrist, for whom the IPL is obviously a huge commercial windfall in the November of his illustrious career, went on to make a ludicrous statement? Gilly's hyperbole suggested, "IPL was even bigger than the Sydney Olympics", completely forgetting that given the demographic disparity between Kangaroo land and India, wasn't that a logical expectation? Wait for the Beijing Games, Adam! It sounded grotesque, like comparing a B-grade Adam Sandler comedy with The Godfather. Evidently, for most international players IPL will be the new mantra, as it creates for them a quick encashment opportunity. Thus they have all become collective national spokesmen of the T20 commercials, as it makes business sense to have super-annuation earnings exceed career savings for playing 6 weeks in the year, who cares for the young hopefuls who will barely survive three seasons?

So now even the most respectable former players have begun to sing hosannas about the underwear form of the game, leaving us die-hard " purists" in a shrinking minority. It is astounding to see that barring a few like Bishen Singh Bedi, all the others have pusillanimously subjugated themselves to the IPL diktat. Amongst the fickle brigade, we have veteran columnists, over-rated boring commentators, and some sanctimonious "experts" for whom even the Test cricket route ought to be brought under the auction hammer and a franchisee structure. It's a mad-house, out there. Thankfully, someone has not stated that Reliance should lobby to bring cricket into the " priority sector" umbrella.

In the midst of the entire hullabaloo, the ICC is empowering the already-confused players the right to challenge umpiring decisions in the forthcoming India-Sri Lanka series in July 2008. It's a strange co-incidence, but the discerning will note that a lot of such technical innovations and cricketing experiments are casually introduced whenever India is playing. I guess it helps generate TRP ratings and media curiosity in the billion plus country, which then has a ripple effect in other destinations. It's a blatant daylight hard-sell strategy. Create a buzz and increase TV interest. Thereafter let chaos reign.

The poor on-field umpire will soon be a standing joke, reduced to a brittle rubble, losing his traditional black and white superiority and the usual flourish . I see the poor bloke becoming a butt of ridicule in banana republic spectator environments. Of course, it is obvious that the ICC has been inspired by the three chances given to tennis players by both ATP and WTA, but they may have missed the woods for the trees. Tennis is an individual sport, cricket is a team one; so who decides on taking the referral call? More on this later ( as there are several repercussions the ICC is blissfully oblivious of it seems) , but if nothing else this will be another avenue for selling ad spots while the world supposedly waits with baited breath for the divine intervention of the third TV umpire, who dare have an upset stomach or a bad day for 3-4 hours at a stretch. The cricket party is rocking hard, but everyone's conveniently forgotten that the so-called hi-tech Hawk Eye has been termed as highly questionable and of dubious output by sports experts and a certain Roger Federer, who has barely concealed his contempt for it's computer imagery simulation.

The IPL Commissioner has clearly met his redoubtable "moolah-match". Allen Stanford, some big-shot American billionaire from the land of the celebrated George Bush ( God bless us all) , with obviously no sub-prime exposure, is considerably emboldened to throw in a WWF element or a World Boxing culture into the game of cricket. In his scheme of things, which must be having the fat potatoes of BCCI profusely sweating, a T20 knock-out tournament will have a "winner takes it all, losers suck your thumbs". And the prize money is , you guessed it, 20 million dollars. Not much of a trivia quiz, right? Stanford believes that T20 cricket will replace football as the world's most popular game, but that is typical American foolishness on international exhibition. Like Bush , waxing eloquent and chest-thumping about the secret WMDs hidden in Iraq.

Bush, IPL Commissioner and Stanford all have a common credo; nothing succeeds like excess.