The SA Exile Is Great For IPL, and India

IPL has kicked off nicely in South Africa, and Lalit Modi and Cricket South Africa have truly pulled off a seemingly impossible task.

Three weeks to relocate a tournament that runs for a month and a half is a logistical nightmare, and the organizers deserve a standing ovation for just trying. That they have actually got the tournament up and running is a tribute to their management capabilities and their resilience.

The buzz at the grounds may not be as deafening as it was on the Indian grounds, but the South Africans have adopted the tournament as their own rather quickly and as is evident from the television pictures, favourite teams have been chosen, fan followings have emerged, and there is a little India beyond the Indian diaspora in every stadium of a country that spent years in sporting isolation thanks to its apartheid policy. Sport unites, they say.

The relocation establishes another fact, not recognized very often by skeptics. Indians can organize and manage anything, and a crisis brings the best out of them.

The biggest beneficiaries, however, have been the Indian players. No, I am not referring to the regular international stars but to the lesser known men who ply their trade in Ranji and other domestic tournaments, who bat and bowl on flat tracks, and field on grounds that could sometimes be considered tough terrain for battle tanks.

These men, all vying for a little place in the international sun, are now getting their first taste of conditions that are starkly different from India. The weather is cooler and more unpredictable, the tracks ask questions and spring surprises, and the grounds generally don't ask fielders to leave their skins behind when they dive to stop runs or take catches.

This experience adds a new dimension to what the IPL did for some of the boys last year. It got Jadeja, Yusuf Pathan and Dhawal Kulkarni to international reckoning; but the ones who succeed this year will step onto the international scene better prepared, will carry experience beyond rubbing shoulders and sharing dressing rooms with overseas stars.

In many ways, the Indian establishment did a big favour to Indian cricketers when it forced Lalit Modi and his team to look beyond Indian shores. It might not be a bad idea, therefore, to hold the IPL in a different country every alternate year.

Of course, there is one more point to consider in favour of South Africa as the venue. The cheerleaders can also do their bit to entertain crowds, without the Indian politicians and the entire moral brigade making much ado about their itsy bitsy clothing. Cheers!!