Cashing in on cricket

The startling figures paid for the star players at the IPL auction stands testimony to the power of the new Indian market, writes Mike Marquesee in the Hindu.

Before plunging head first into IPL-mania, cricket fans should consider the down side in the comparison with the English Premier League, which has become widely associated with venality and dishonesty, on and off the field. There have been extensive allegations of bribery and corruption, many highlighting dubious trade-offs between agents and managers. The newspapers are full of the pathetic misbehaviour of over-paid, under-educated 20-year old football stars, and the public is not amused. The danger is that the IPL will emulate the worst of English football, and not only in its paper thin culture of instant celebrity.

The IPL isn't the only league drawing foreign players. Two decades after touring apartheid South Africa, John Embury is at it again, coaching in the unofficial Twenty20 league in India and dreaming of a global inter-city event, writes Will Buckley in the London-based Observer.

Also read an interview with Shane Bond, another ICL recruit, in the Indian Express.