0Die IPL - die "X-Factor" met 'n krieketbal

Tot 'n week of wat gelede het ek nie die 'plesier' gehad om na die Indiese Premierliga te kyk nie.

Soos die naam van hierdie webwerf aandui, Ek 'hou van krieket', so het by myself gedink, hoekom nie. Dit behels 'n kolf en bal, kolwers en boulers kan dus nie so sleg wees nie.

Hoe verkeerd was ek. Ek het dit reggekry om 'n halfuur lank dapper te wees voordat dit my hoofpyn gegee het. It is truly a dread­ful spec­tacle for any­one who cher­ishes our won­der­ful game.

The Indi­an Premi­er League, or ‘IPL’ to give the ‘game’ it’s almost com­puls­ory abbre­vi­ation is as far removed from the sport of crick­et as I know and love it as it is pos­sible to be.

There were no tac­tics on show from either bats­men – oth­er than slog it as hard as pos­sible – or from the bowl­ers – try and stop the bats­man from scor­ing – and in the mean­time build the crowd up into a cres­cendo of child­like whoop­ing and howling.

Every now and then some trum­pet or some­thing sim­il­ar would sound and the crowd would screech even louder – as if they were young girls at a One Dir­ec­tion gig. I don’t know where this trum­pet rack­et came from – but it appeared to be part of the show.

En show is net wat dit was. It wasn’t a game but almost akin to an epis­ode of the X‑Factor or some oth­er such eye aching dross on the goggle box.  How a sport based on class and cul­ture has been dragged to these depths is bey­ond me.

I really struggle to see how this rub­bish dif­fers from baseball

OK, so it brings in some money and prob­ably lots of it but it’s a case of selling your soul to the dev­il – and I for one want no part of it.

Bring me the County Cham­pi­on­ship any day of the week!