The human body suffers from an increasing inability to experience a high unless the dosage or the potency of an intoxicant increases with each attempt at consumption. On those counts, it seems that the World T20, set to start in the Caribbean mere days after IPL 2010, will have to dish out an extraordinarily engaging fair to keep an audience that has sated itself on action this IPL, to even stay awake.
Post-IPL
The non-stop action that preceded the World Cup, might either have whetted the audience's appetite for runs and wickets or the Molotov cocktail of cricket, big money and politics might have just left it with a dizzying hang-over.
It seems fairly unlikely that the World T20 is going to outdo the IPL in terms of entertainment value — this edition of the IPL saw more runs scored and more wickets fall than in '08 or '09. It might after all be a good thing for the political and financial murk that clouded the event and climaxed with the IPL, is something that the World Cup will be keen to avoid. As national colours replace the regional bling, the nascent T20 calendar with its pockets of intense concentration and expanses of inaction, presents the participating sides with a few problems. The Indian contingent will come into the event with perhaps a lot of experience with the format and the situations it tends to throw up, but are apt to suffer from the effects of fatigue from having played cricket without a substantial break for sometime now.
A few countries had little or no presence in the IPL (Pakistan, England, West Indies) while a few of them had a smattering of its cricketers around (Australia, Sri Lanka). Success in the IPL however does not translate immediately into gains for the national side. Dale Steyn and Jacques Kallis, in spite of having played in the same team, and having enjoyed relative success — a third place finish with their outfit the Royal challengers Bangalore, still have a lot to do according to South Africa's interim coach Corrie van Zyl. He spelt out the problems most sides could have when he said that each IPL outfit had a specific strategy and that each player in the team performs a pre-designated role that fits with the overall framework, and the roles and the plan of action could of course be completely different for the national side.
The challenges and fortunes that await the teams in the international event therefore cannot be explained by the IPL in a complete or convincing manner.
