1. Of course the first reason is shifting it to South Africa .. i was planning to watch one live, not lucky this year.
2. Pitches : T20 is famous for big hits (remember first match of the last IPL), this year not even a single match was that interesting because of the pitches. Pitches have made bowlers task easy. The average score of this season has been ~150 runs and even chasing this small score has been difficult at times. The teams cannot be blamed for this.
3. Missing foreign players : IPL has been interesting only when teams have a mix for players from all countries. Because of the various series like Australia vs Pakistan, England vs West Indies, few players didn’t turn up for the season and few only for few matches.
4. England players making entry to IPL created lot of expectation. But it was a total flop. Kevin Petersen, Andrew Flintoff were bought for 1.55 million each and they didn’t deliver anything worthy enough to watch. Paul Collingwood and O’Shah didn’t get a chance to showcase their talents and sat in dugout the whole season and returned back.
5. This is the one i hated the most. In the name of strategic time out there has been lot of breaks which is absolutely not necessary. Of course necessary for organizers to make money. But it should not be so long.
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May 12, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Senthil Kumaran
Mmmm, thats interesting, But i thought it was better this season. Except for the first and last point, others do not affect it to a greater extent.
2) Without good bowling pitches it becomes a batsman game and it is at this time it becomes less interesting. Even if the score is low, an opportunity to defend it makes the match thrillilng. Last ball victories are more thrilling than flurry of sixes and win in 10 overs. Thats what i feel.
3) Every year that would happen with. We will miss a few, but there are others to keep the IPL entertaining.
4) In my view, poor form of England players does not make the game less interesting. CSK is blasting without Flintoff. Gibbs, gilchrist are in form. Didn’t that compensate their poor run ?
The main reason why i feel IPL is a lot interesting this year is still there is a lot competition for the top spots. Most of the teams are in good form when compared to last year, which makes it more interesting.
Strategic time out is total waste. If it was in India it would have rocked.
I thought of posting this as a separate post in my blog, finally had to post that as a comment.
May 12, 2009 at 4:12 pm
nachiappan
I should have also given the positives of this year .. atha nenga panitenga ..
Bowling pitches make some matches interesting and some matches the other way round(makes things very obvious)
Why i gave special attention to england players was last season they were not allowed to participate in IPL .. this year they made entry but their entry didnt make any difference
4th is 100% true.. more than half of the tournament is over and we are not able to decide which four team will enter the semis.
May 13, 2009 at 5:42 am
Annamalai
The main reason for the IPL to be less interesting is the time interval between two seasons.. It should be atleast two years once..Otherwise no one will be ready to spoil their two months schedule every year.
PS: IPL has made cricket from a interesting “sport” to a money making “game”. I hate to watch it anymore!!!
May 13, 2009 at 6:25 am
nachiappan
@malai :
i found this in one of the blogs
“IPL stands for Indian paisa league”