Not a bad plan, but fans will be missed

Moving the IPL to South Africa isn’t the best thing that could have happened, but as a fall back option it has much merit, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.

Mr Chidambaram, like a bowler does, used his prerogative to set the field. Now that was given. He wasn’t going to provide central forces (and what a sad moment in itself that the availability of anti-terror forces should be the deciding factor in our game!), and he wasn’t going to allow state governments to take policemen away from election duty. Now faced with this, the IPL could either have conceded defeat or played a shot, which is the prerogative of the batsman. They have chosen to play an unconventional shot, a switch hit if you choose, having used up other options. So now, Mr Chidambaram has what he wants, which is the forces he needs to conduct an election and Mr Modi has a sub-optimal result, not a boundary maybe but a three, but at least he is batting.