IPL Awards

I was watching the telecast of IPL Awards last evening and was saddled with a lot of thoughts as I sat went through the motions. First of all.....SERIOUSLY...IPL AWARDS??? We do have cricket awards from time to time, but they are more of an Annual affair and are conducted in a dignified manner. IPL Awards on the other hand seem to be nothing but a sham organized to have that last ditch attempt to maximize viewer eyeballs. I mean the whole exercise seemed pointless and futile to me. Are we now judging cricketers on the basis on cricket (a lot of people claim that IPL is just not cricket but I ignore that reasoning for the purpose of this argument) tournament that lasts for 7 weeks and is more like a lottery. You have a bunch of world class batsmen hitting mostly not so good bowlers all over the park. Is this what cricket is all about? I know at least IPL is.

But more than the sancity of the awards, I was more ashamed by the manner in which these awards were presented. I mean having Karan Johar as a host!!!!!! I have nothing against that guy, but aren't these "cricket awards" and shouldn't a cricketer be hosting these. Thankfully the winners kept their winning speeches short or else it would have been hard to distinguish between IPL awards and Filmfare awards.

Finally, there was a Fashion Show involving some of the cricketers. And the choice of cricketers was hilarious to say the least. While seasoned 'models' like Yuvraj and Virat Kohli were warming their chairs, the awkward ones like Praveen Kumar participated. It seemed as if the poor guy was in some sort of an ordeal. Cricket has never been commercialized to such a nonsensical extent. I have nothing against the IPL. In fact I really feel that it has widened the viewer base for cricket matches and has helped a lot of youngsters achieve their dreams and aspirations. At the same time, it has become easy money avenues for budding cricketers who are no longer proud in representing their country and are just content playing in the IPL and rake in tons of moolah. A lot of cricketers who have appeared for couple of seasons in IPL have decided to retire from World Cricket and focus solely on IPL. Easy money provided by IPL also has its drawbacks for cricketers. They are now expected to shoot X number of days for their sponsors and employers. Further they are expected to attend post match parties where cheerleaders strut their stuff and booze is on the house (how is that a drawback??, but according to some cricketers it really is). In short it made me realize that post IPL there is little difference between Cricketers and Street Whores except for may be the price!!

However it was a huge relief to see Sachin Tendulkar absent from the IPL Awards.....may be the master still regains his Sanity!!