Less vox on the box

Less is more. It’s taken three seasons of excesses and many heads rolling but finally the IPL bosses have realised the benefits of a stripped-down tournament, and we aren’t talking about the cheerleaders. The after-party’s over, the mid-over advertisements have been done away with and there are no more legions of commentators at each game. Now there are only three per match, who – as one of them tweeted – barely have time to get their laptops out. It’s yet another way the IPL has stamped its own identity as distinct from the World Cup, where the vast armies on duty meant that each commentator had little more than 15 minutes in the box. There is a downside, though, to the IPL’s three-man rule - more airtime per person means more chances of the dreaded product placement slipping in. But then we probably wouldn’t recognise the IPL, would we?