IPL is just a day away and it’s time for the fans all over the world to join the carnival in South Africa, writes Chandraboli Mitra.

The shift of the second season of the Indian Premier League to South Africa from India though initially had left most of the fans heartbroken but that certainly did not kill the excitement.

In fact, few of the companies quickly came up with ready-made solutions and never let the enthusiasm die in the country.

Fans will miss the party at home but they are still excited

Be it South African tourism industry, the cinema hall and mall owners, the major airlines, event management companies -- they all readily provided a perfect medicine for all those who were cribbing, by coming up with deals that gave them a chance to enjoy the mega-event just the way it is, besides using the opportunity to their maximum benefit.

The owners of cinema theaters and the malls are having a good laugh with IPL being shifted to South Africa. With Bollywood not being able to provide some real good entertainers, they are certain to rake in good money, showing matches on the big screen.

Fans, they say would come in huge numbers considering that most of them would miss the live action in the stadium and the only consolation that could be provided to them is by making it big. And the 70 mm screen definitely has the potential to do it.

Despite the fact that the fans will miss the party at home, yet they are still excited, as usual.

"Yes, definitely I am not very happy considering that the matches won't happen in India and I would miss live action at the stadium. But at the end of the day, I am happy that the tournament is happening since at one time that was also under doubt.

"I would watch the matches live on television and I have also heard that matches would be telecasted on big screens, so looking forward to that as well," said Ritesh Khandelwal, a financial consultant with a leading consulting company in Mumbai.

Special holiday packages 

But for the more desperate ones, who could not be comforted by the virtual action on the big screens but wanted to be in the midst of action, it is the South African tourism industry in India, which instantly came to their rescue and swiftly announced holiday packages at special rates.

And quite a large number of the cricket-crazy public rushed to avail these special packages at affordable rates.

"Kingfisher Airlines and Kingfisher Holidays, the official partners of the Indian Premier League, have appointed three travel partners in India to officially market holiday packages to South Africa for the tournament.

"Cutting Edge, SOTC Sport Abroad and Thomas Cook are all adept at marketing sports specific tours, and they have put together some wonderful itineraries during the event. As such, these are centric to the match cities, with leisure activities thrown in for good measure. And what makes it most attractive is that they have been very competitively priced to make it exciting for fans to follow their favourite team," Medha Sampat, Country Manager India, South African Tourism told espnstar.com.

She also added that there has been a tremendous increase in the number of queries from people heading to South Africa this IPL season.

"The Indian traveler is enthusiastic and is keen to explore the Rainbow Nation. Moreover, the IPL falls as part of the peak outbound travel season for India, in the middle of the annual summer holidays, which has definitely worked wonders for us."

The Vice President-Marketing, Kingfisher Airlines Limited, Vikram Malhotra confirmed, "We are offering integrated packages for cricket fans so that they can sit back and enjoy the cricket action and thrills while our tour partners take care of air travel, hotels, local sightseeing, and match tickets."

Various media organizations, in collaboration with some of the event management companies started special shows to attract a number of people and influenced them to tune into their channel to play contests and win tickets to South Africa.

‘Manoranjan ka baap' is here

Even at this time of recession, the big companies went ahead to sponsor events related to the IPL because this is the only event where they are certain to get back the value for their money and earn profits.

This is evident from the fact that Preity Zinta's team Kings XI Punjab managed to bag nine sponsors during these times of economic slowdown.

This long list of sponsors only justifies Lalit Modi's comment that he made after the auction that "IPL is recession proof".

The excitement and enthusiasm is there for everyone to see.

Be it in South Africa, where fans lined up on either side of the roads to get a glimpse of the cricket and the Bollywood stars when IPL got off to a rousing start on Thursday with tableaux of eight IPL franchisees passing the city centre.

Or in India, where one can hear the murmurs all over the place on which team will do well this time around in the IPL.

So, there is little doubt that build-up campaign to the IPL has borne fruitful results and the fans are expecting another ripper of an experience during this season as well.

The only thing that might stop the action from being a show stopper is the non-acceptance of the city based format by the South Africa audience. The problem is that not even one of the teams has the South Africa players in majority and this can come as a hindrance if the fans don't find enough favourites to root for.

But according to Lalit Modi, he and his team have found answers to that concern as well.

At the end of the day, T20 cricket at Rs. 106 a match would definitely bring in audience and this is a sheer masterstroke by the organizers because once the spectators come into the stadium, IPL is addictive enough to bring them back again and again.

So the only people who now would be at the edge of their seats during IPL II would be the Saas-Bahu serial makers of the country because TRPs testified last year that even the ardent fans of these shows had switched preference to the IPL during the first edition.

The IPL is finally here and the wait is over! ‘Manoranjan ka baap' is all set to hit the television sets from tomorrow and it promises to bring home some extra-ordinary cricketing and non-cricketing action for the next one month from the land of safari.