The IPL is upon us even though the excitement has mellowed down a little with the event getting shifted to South Africa.

By Siddharth Suneja

It still remains a great mode of entertainment for everyone in India. In fact not only India, the IPL has succeeded in becoming a worldwide phenomenon, with foreign players playing and performing in the cash rich league.

Kolkata Knight Riders has become the favorite team in Bangladesh after they roped in Mashrafe Mortaza into their side. This speaks volumes about the globalization of cricket initiated by the IPL.

IPL -- the brainchild of the chairman Lalit Modi, had its agenda right, which was not taking India to the world, but bringing the world to India.

However, the highest paid player in the league this time, unlike the last year, is not an Indian. This crown now sits gracefully on the heads of two Englishmen - Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff.

So have the English stolen the show? Will IPL be overshadowed by the foreign players? Or will we see a turn of events when the IPL moves from the corporate offices to the field?

The franchisees, even during the recession period, bought players for more than US $ 1.55 million, who will not be able to play all 14 matches in this season. So, it is clear that they were bought not only for their cricketing expertise but something else.

Vijay Mallya's franchisee bought Kevin Pietersen and named him as the captain of his team, even after the dismal show England showcased under his captaincy. So what is driving these corporate giants to buy these foreign players at such inflated rates?

It is probably the performances of the non-Indian players during the event last time. The Orange Cap for most runs went to an Australian - Shuan Marsh, who was not even in his national team. Whereas the Indian captain - Mahendra Singh Dhoni, most expensive player of the tournament ($ 1.5 million) failed to prove his worth with the bat as he stood ninth in the list of most run-getters in the tournament.

The Purple Cap was won by Sohail Tanvir who came at an expense of just $100,000, as against India's Ishant Sharma, bought at a price of $ 650,000. He could only pick seven wickets from 13 matches.

The player of the tournament was Shane Watson, who was dropped by his national side. The only foreign captain of the league went on to lift the trophy with a map of India on it.

But it is not that the Indian players didn't do well, in fact they performed at all levels. Youngsters like Manpreet Gony, Shikhar Dhawan and Shreevats Goswami succeeded in proving the reason why the IPL was initiated, which was the growth of young players, besides monetary reasons. But the only Indian to be in the top five scorers of the league was Gautam Gambhir, who was in the form of his life, followed by Yusuf Pathan at no.7.

For the franchisees who paid huge amounts for international stars are lucky that IPL has been shifted to South Africa, where they can channelise the experience of such players in difficult conditions. But when these buys were made, none of the teams knew the twist in the events that were going to take place. All these players have been bought at an inflated rate, which can backfire the teams.

Now the odds are favouring the foreign players to perform better than the Indians, especially the domestic players who have had minimal exposure to such conditions. So it will be interesting to see if these players stand up and deliver in such pressure situations. Also good performances in difficult conditions will go a long way in giving them a chance to get selected for their respective national teams.

The South African players will play a vital role in helping the less experienced Indian players adjust to the conditions. Players like Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, J P Duminy are expected to be instrumental in there team's performance.