While I used to look forward to the IPL circus every year, recently I have been dreading the approach of the month of April. Though, despite my trepidation, in a display of sporting masochism I end up putting myself through the torture of watching CSK’s erratic march with the fragile hope that this year things will be different. The first match will be blamed on losing too many wickets in the powerplay, the next on poor death overs bowling, the third on “still working on the right combination” and so on. For enthusiastic CSK fans like me, this excruciating journey will continue till the points table renders qualification mathematically impossible. At which point we will all console ourselves with the fact that CSK has been one of the most successful franchises in IPL and we have to allow our team a bad year. Or two. Or even three…
I remember those heady days when I used to heap scorn on RCB, DC, RR, PK and the other less fortunate teams. It has been a telling commentary on the state of affairs that CSK is quite consistently bringing up the rear these days. That MI, DC and LSG fight very hard to dislodge us from the bottom of the table brings scant comfort…
Clearly, once the auctions are done, there is little difference that tactics and strategies are going to make. Much as the coaching staff try to look grim and engaged in the dugouts, furiously chewing gum while looking like they are thinking deep thoughts, they are secretly smirking and chuckling at their accumulating bank balances, all for doing work that is about as much use as the cheerleader squad. Fact is the results are going to be rather predictable till the next round of auctions. Ever since CSK made some audacious auction choices probably on account of being on some high quality weed, I have been addressing myself to this question with some vigour. How can the IPL maintain its interest across franchises, not just the winning ones?
And I’m happy to announce that I’ve hit on a viable, uniquely Indian solution. Reservation quota. The top two qualifying teams should be the teams that top the IPL table, while the next two qualifying teams should be picked from those franchises that have not made it to the play offs in the last 2 years.
Is it fair on the 3rd and 4th teams on the IPL table, you may ask. But I would urge you to pause, put on your social equity hat and think for a bit. We live in a secular and socialist republic. The downtrodden need to be given a hand. And something more downtrodden than CSK or MI at the end of the last few IPL seasons, you would be hard pressed to identify.
We can work more nuance into the reservation formula. Maybe the social media followers of these franchises can be a weighting factor. Perhaps the population of the city the franchise is attached to – “Jitni Abadi Utna Haq!”. I would even suggest accommodating the attendance record of the franchise owners at matches. I would surely like to see Preity Zinta receive some benefit for being the most indefatigable cheerleader in the history of the world. Anything as long as it’s not the actual performance and the rank in the IPL table. That’ll defeat the very purpose of the quota…
I leave this for the wise men in the IPL committee to ponder on. I heard that the TRPs of IPL were lower this year. The reservation quota system could potentially be the greatest innovation in cricket since Duckworth-Lewis. In fact the algorithm for deciding the qualifiers through the quota system could be created such that its complexity and opaqueness matches that of the D-L system. We can really have some solid fun then! Interest levels will not wane till the end of the tournament, guaranteeing solid TRPs…
From my vantage point, CSK have attained a level of performance that cannot get any worse. And auctions are due in 2027 or 2028. So we CSK and MI fans may have to suffer for another year. But other franchises who, during the next round of auctions, make the kind of inspired choices that CSK made last time may take succor from this reservation formula, so I suggest this solution in a purely altruistic spirit.
Unless of course, CSK carries its mysterious bidding strategy into the next round of auctions as well, in which case, if my reservation formula is adopted, given Chennai’s population and CSK’s social media popularity, chances are high that we will qualify each year much like we used to in the good old days…
Let’s make the world a more equitable place…
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