Summer madness

Rohit Mahajan

The last we saw of the IPL in India, it was being hastily shuttered, in May 2021, as Covid struck inside the bio-secure bubble of the tournament. Before that, even as Covid deaths rose across the country, the tournament went on — that was then the economic imperative, for it seemed then that any economic activity which generated revenues and jobs, must be encouraged. But, in the first week of May 2021, as players or staff of at least four teams contracted the virus, the league was summarily suspended and players began a mad scramble to reach their homes across the world.

Nearly 11 months on, much has changed — our native resilience (helplessness?) has led to acceptance of Covid’s danger. This has been aided by India’s impressive vaccination drive: The number of Covid shots given to the people has passed a staggering 180 crore. Also, the IPL returns to our shores in much safer times, and the number of cases has fallen dramatically since the January peak caused by the Omicron variant.

Changed world

However, the world has changed irrevocably, and the IPL has changed people irrevocably, too — the economic imperative of the world’s richest cricket league has led to a change in attitudes. Serious journals, including those that ostensibly abhor capitalistic ethos, have accepted the buying and selling of players — once upon a time termed ‘cattle-like sale’ — and are now enthused by the tournament and write editorials on it. This is a very significant change since the 2008 auction, mocked as a cattle market in which the players had no say about which team they would go to.

More teams, more games

The IPL itself has changed, for it’s become bigger, fatter, richer — now it has 10 teams, which means that the number of matches will go up. Last year, including the four knockout matches, the tournament had 60 matches. With the increase in the number of teams, the number of matches has naturally gone up — it would be 70 in the league stage this time. This means more airtime for cricket and, consequently, more airtime for advertisements.

The 70 league games will be played over 58 days until May 22. The playoff matches would be then played, but their venues and schedule are yet to be announced. The final will be played on May 29.

Personnel changed

Most teams are very, very different from the last season. The entry of two new teams, Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants, has led to a massive shuffle in the cards — KL Rahul will captain the Lucknow team while Hardik Pandya will take the reins of the Gujarat outfit. Mayank Agarwal is the new Punjab Kings captain. Virat Kohli is no longer the captain of RCB, though he had made his decision public several months ago. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, 41 this year, has given up captaincy of the Chennai outfit, making way for Ravindra Jadeja. Shreyas Iyer, having secured his India spot, is the rising star and the KKR captain.

Game on in Mumbai

One big impact of Covid striking the bio-bubble last year is that this time, the organisers have decided to minimise the danger of exposure of the players to the virus — all the league stage matches would be played in two cities, Mumbai and Pune, in four venues: three in Mumbai, one in Pune. The four grounds that will be used are the Wankhede Stadium and Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai, the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, and the MCA Stadium in Pune.

This time there’s no home-and-away format, as used to be the case in pre-Covid times. To make it a level playing field and to ensure that all teams play the same number of matches in certain conditions, all teams are slotted to play four matches each at the Wankhede and DY Patil stadiums, and three matches each at the Brabourne Stadium and the MCA Stadium.

The stands would not be empty, happily — the Maharashtra government has allowed 25% of the seats to be occupied, but only for fully vaccinated spectators.

Shorter boundaries

Interestingly, the four venues for the group stage of the tournament have short straight boundaries, around 70 yards. With modern bats, and with batsmen working hard on power-hitting, such boundaries are not difficult to clear. This would lead the bowlers to think smart — they would attempt to shorten the length of bowling, in order to bring the longer square boundaries of the wicket into play.

Covid protocol

If a team member or staff tests positive for Covid, they must isolate for a minimum period of seven days. During this time, they would be tested on the sixth and seventh days. For these players to return into the team’s bio-secure environment, they must return two consecutive negative RT-PCR tests, taken 24 hours apart. Also, they must not have any symptom and there should not have been any use of medication for more than 24 hours.

However, if Covid strikes any outfit, it would be allowed to field a team if there are at least 12 players available for them, including at least seven Indian players and one substitute. If a team has less than 12 players available, the organisers would try to reschedule the match later in the season. If, however, rescheduling is not possible, the IPL’s technical committee will decide on the matter, and its decision would be final and binding on the franchises.

Different conditions

There are some changes in playing conditions — each team will be allowed two unsuccessful DRS reviews per innings, as opposed to one earlier. Also, in case a batter is caught out, irrespective of whether he and the non-striker have crossed over, the new batter would replace the dismissed batter at the end where the stroke was played. Earlier, if the batter and the non-striker crossed over, the new batter used to be at the non-striker’s end.