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IPL is more like a television show

The first complaint I heard as I waded through the crowd on the canal road abutting the new stand at the Chidambaram Stadium was that T-20, particularly IPL, was a television show pretending to be cricket. This was voiced by an elderly friend who had been following cricket for several decades.

The diehard cricket fan who may have grown up watching games from under the shade of the baobab trees that used to surround the green Chepauk ground followed that up by saying that anyone above 35 would feel old being at T-20 cricket. There may be a soupcon of truth in that.

The point is modern cricket is a goulash of three different formats and T-20 is the lifeblood that will bring in the revenue off which other branches can live. True, the older generation that saw virtue even in a drawn Test match of a meandering quality of cricket would find it very hard to reconcile itself to the attractions of the newfangled T-20.

As a line of argument it can be said that IPL T-20 is more like a television show. But I believe that anyone in the world of entertainment would struggle to get a full house for a show featuring UB40 and Lionel Ritchie in 2010. As these ageing entertainers were part of the IPL-3 opening ceremony they could enjoy a déjà vu of their heyday when teenyboppers would throw themselves into the mood of the music of the age.

The fact is there is a whole new audience out there. Having to wade through a huge crowd to get to the press box from parking at the pavilion was also sort of déjà vu. This has not happened since Test cricket ran out of a kind of bubbling support for the entire five days, which may have begun happening since the start of the millennium when the India-Australia Test at Chepauk was a 5-day sell out.

The new stand at Chepauk - with its domed polycarbonate roof that is straight out of the Mound Stand at Lord's because the architects are the same - is testimony to the prosperity of modern cricket. I saw this all-concrete stadium come up from scratch in the late '60s at a time when the success of Test cricket seemed so assured that gargantuan stands with very few facilities would suffice.

The culture may be different at the cricket ground now but there is no denying what progress has meant to those who patronise any form of the game today. They can watch matches in comfort, without having to worry too much about the sultry weather that once had Dean Jones in such trouble they had to drop him into a bathtub of ice for a couple of evenings to get him back the batting crease the next day.

There are so many alluring alternatives by way of entertainment that it takes many an innovation to get anyone to come and watch sport at venues these days. So, what is wrong with having the drummer Sivamani as a leader of the cheer troop beating the stick (or is it fibre these days?) on his drums or the pom-pom girls swaying all 40 overs celebrating every little event that spells excitement to a crowd of women and children?

The levels of energy in one of those dancing girls was so phenomenal she had the crowd cheering her all the way. Like a diva she was blowing kisses into the night the moment the match got over and she took leave of those who had encouraged her.

Finally, despite everything, it is the cricket that brings the people to the venue. Whether the spectators are tyros at cricket appreciation or not, they represent the success of the game's allure. I think T-20 is here to stay, no matter how hard the diehards knock the format and it is helping keep the game alive.

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