The Surfer

The real risk has been taken by the TV company that has committed a little over a billion dollars for TV rights over the next decade. Over the same 10 years, the team owners will get their lion’s share of TV sponsorship fees (80 per cent for the first five years, 60 per cent for the next five) and the title sponsorship fee (60 per cent) which is to be paid by DLF. Each team owner therefore stands to get a guaranteed share of between $80 million and $100 million over 10 years — which makes the teams themselves virtually free for some of the less ambitious bidders (even the highest team bid, by Mukesh Ambani, was for $111.9 million). The team owners also get access to all on-ground and local revenues as well as the obvious branding opportunities, all of which taken together should be comfortably enough to pay the players’ fees (a total of between $3 million and $5 million per team). After 10 years, team ownership is there in perpetuity without any further charges. So what might have seemed like a flaky play by movie stars and cash-rich businessmen is in fact a pretty safe bet.

The main threat comes from the duration of the league and the density of the scheduling. Forty-four days may be a good starting point, but can hardly become a permanent timeframe. The franchise will have to be expanded to at least twice the current number of teams over the next couple of years and the frequency of games will have to be reduced to mitigate viewer fatigue. Realistically, this means at least a four to five-month season every year, which will both eat into the domestic schedules for many countries and reduce the time available for the international calendar, which is set up by the International Cricket Conference several years in advance. If the IPL is to work financially, it cannot but challenge the ICC’s international schedule.

"I am a great fan of Andrew Symonds, his fielding and the way in which he plays his cricket, with that sort of aggression. Having people like that on board is certainly going to add to the [Indian Premier League] razzamatazz. So if I was as well-connected as those individuals [the league's franchise owners] in business, with the funds they have, why not?"

It is only a matter of time - and a few days at that - before English cricketers join the IPL and miss the start of the coming county season. England's top 12 players are on central contracts so they won't be going anywhere except New Zealand in the next few weeks. But that leaves several marketable players who are currently being tempted by offers.

There is simply no precedent for a county player going off to play somewhere else during the county season: it is only recently that the economies of the East have boomed.

IPL franchises are now left holding their big brood of babies. They have their teams, their teams have an event that begins in less than two months. Already some are feeling frazzled. A Delhi insider said all team owners wanted was to get the first tournament under way and over with.

Strange, 36, married with a three-year-old son named Victor, after the master batsman of the Golden Age, refers to his Trumper passion as a magnificent obsession. "I have to refrain from talking about it all the time," he said.

Now he finds himself scratching around like a backyard chook and relying on more vibrant team-mates to put runs on the board. Doubtless supporters expect more from their captain and heaviest scorer. Old-timers with reliable memories will reflect on their careers and say "welcome to the party!" Hell, Ricky, some of us felt like that all the time.

"With no disrespect to the IPL, I feel my body and mind needs a break and with the hectic international schedule over the next 18 months, I feel I need to freshen up and a break will do me good," Clarke wrote. "By trying to continue to advance my profile and reputation with the Australian team, I hope to one day become an asset to your tournament.

Cricket has always been burdened by a myth: unlike other competitive sports, we were told, cricket and the men who played the game were doing it for the ‘love’ of the sport. So while footballers were being transferred by clubs for millions of dollars, golfers and racing car drivers were millionaires, cricketers were expected to be amateurs playing a sport for the sheer joy of it. In India, this meant that you were employed in a 9 to 5 job by a public sector bank or through the ‘charity’ of a benevolent business house like the Tatas, even while you sweated it out on the field. Wearing the India cap made the size of your bank balance irrelevant. A Vinoo Mankad was actually dropped from the Indian team for a tour of England in 1952 because he had the ‘temerity’ to try and earn a living by playing professional cricket for a Lancashire club.