IPL2 had much Indian flavour in South Africa: Hiren Pandit

The top two teams started the tournament with losses, which clearly means IPL2 would be unpredictable. Despite all controversies and doubts about the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the tournament took off on Saturday in South Africa. The stadium looked full, at least what the camera showed, but nothing compared to last year. While all of us here in India are sweltering under the heat watching the tournament on TV sets in our living rooms, it seemed strange to see so many spectators all covered up in wool out there at the grounds in Cape Town! From the players’ perspective I am sure they would perhaps enjoy that kind of weather in South Africa rather than play in the melting heat here.

The Indian flavour was there in large doses, with Bollywood celebrities and the spectators in the stadium who were mainly Indians or rather from Indian origin. But we locals are far noisier and more passionate about cricket than any other nation so what was missing was the trumpets and music. Surprisingly the Rajasthan Royals cheerleaders seemed to outdo Vijay Mallya’s aka Bangalore Royal Challengers Cheerleaders in terms of their dress sense.

On the cricketing side, I believe IPL2 will show a slightly different angle altogether and if we go by what we saw in the first two matches then the bowlers will have a large role to play. In fact getting runs is going to be far more difficult, so the number of sixes, big shots and high scores will reduce with the ball moving around. The first two matches of the season also proved by simply hard hitting will not help. Tendulkar and Dravid who each received the Man of the Match award have proved that technique also matters and that the T20 format can be played by older players. Abhishek Nair of Mumbai Indians was the Man of the Match for me as his 35 runs created the score gap between the two teams- Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings and that is what made it tough for the CSK to achieve.

Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore this year are well balanced teams and look promising. RCB for that matter is clearly not a test team anymore and I won’t be surprised seeing them in the top four. Chennai Super Kings is a very good team and probably it was just not a good day for them. Rajasthan Royals on the other hand didn’t seem to have the batting strength. Surprise package for RR is 18 year old kid Kamran Khan who bowled at 140 km +. He is a good bowler, but he is using his back and shoulder more than he should which could make him injury prone in the long run.

The dog on the field was an amusing break and I won’t be surprised if Lalit Modi now orders a dog squad on standby for all matches. Of course that will add to the already spiraling costs!! Speaking of breaks, the seven and a half minute break scheduled after 10 overs in each innings for teams to rework or rethink their strategy will certainly add to advertising dollars but from a television viewer’s perspective it is rather frustrating….could this result in losing viewership for that period will be an interesting research subject in the future. It might help if viewers are privy to some of the decisions and probable strategy stances that teams could be taking to keep them glued to their TV sets.

From the four team uniforms that we have seen on day 1, it seems that the number of sponsor logos on the t-shirts have gone up. The concern here is that are they going the Formula One way because with so many logos how many of them will actually register in people’s minds and that is something which needs to be looked into. What the advertisers will have to answer is that how they enhance that value without remaining a logo on the T-Shirt. The teams seem to have a decent amount of sponsorships associated with them. Whether it was Idea or Rajasthan Royals who were putting turbans over their head besides T-Shirts they were trying to build a value thus aiming to create a local promotion there and I believe the local promotion is really more on the back of visibility on television. One will have to see how the next four teams have pulled in as sponsors.

The highlights of day one according to me were a lone dog holding up the game for over 10 minutes, Abhishek Nair taking on Andrew Flintoff which clearly shows that performance can beat price on a given day. Class and technique will always matter, IPL2 will have far more low scoring matches the IPL1, and finally with the clutter of so many logos, sponsors that don’t activate will remain as designs on the t-shirts. Truly the games have begun!!!

(Hiren Pandit is Managing Partner - ESP, GroupM.)