IPL approaches but will it deal another blow to Indian cricket?

Shikhar Dhawan’s exploits in the IPL combined with his dream debut in an Australian whitewash made even the most pessimistic of analysts furrow a future in the corridors of glory. But the dawn meandered into a loony nightmarish darkness and the ‘future’ was anything but glorifying.

Batsmen like Suresh Raina has struggled outside India

Technical adeptness or rather the lack of it is protruding out at present, making the Indian colts resemble a bunch of amateurs against the rising, seaming ball, with a deadly swing. Ironically, the very three attributes one ceases to find on an Indian strip.

Virat Kohli aside, the middle order is incorporeal to say the least. Hitting through the line, an ever reliable modus operandi which one employs with maximum returns on dour batting paradises in the subcontinent doesn’t work and rather scripts your doom on bouncy wickets down under.

Suresh Raina walks in. Bring your big hairy quick man on. Pepper him up with a couple of bouncy ones on his rib cage. A quicker one hurrying in on him, aimed at his grill follows. The bloke is caught at fine leg. The job cannot get any simpler, if you are an opposition captain. But, Raina is among those retained for big bucks in the IPL. It doesn’t get more ironical than this.

Star value is imbuing a boorish culture where corporate returns hold the reins and the IPL falters right from the grassroots. For the simple reason that flat track bullies bag the bucks, shoving technical ineptitude to ignominy. Equally disturbing is the fact that IPL performances and exuberance in the league enamors the attention of the national selectors, highly prejudiced selections (towards IPL accolades) being the result.

It is exacerbating to the core, that many a cricketer eyes and projects the IPL as a channel to stage a comeback and make a case for donning the national whites again. The Indian Premier League with all its financial muscle is instilling false confidence, incurring faulty decisions, and imbuing false hope of a future which is merely non-existent.

You dream of performers in IPL on flat Bangalore wickets repeating their heroics or even half of the glitterati on a Wanderers or an MCG strip, but alas, the thespians get transformed into toddlers trundling in the dark, with nothing in the world, but a saga of IPL laurels to rest on.

As the nation braces itself towards another incarnation of the cash rich domestic extravaganza, one needs to lift the veil, remove the blindfolds and retrospect regarding the role played by the IPL caravan. A verity which needs to be drunk and digested is the adeptness of flat track bullies to roar in the IPL den, and whimper outside the same. It is a mirage, akin to a charlatan combining glamour with guile. The hardest hit, worse than any connoisseur or stakeholder of the game, is the game itself; in its largest powerhouse, India.