In Football crazy Goa is there a sizable following for the Indian Premier League (IPL)? There is only one player of Goan origin Shadab Jakati representing Gujarat Lions in the IPL; even he is not a regular feature in the playing eleven. There are no IPL matches played in Goa as Goa does not own a cricket team. TV broadcasts are the only way to watch it here; notwithstanding that we miss key moments because of frequent power failure.
My only nephew is a cricket encyclopaedia; his ideal cricketer is the now retired “Prince of Calcutta” Saurav Ganguly; the first & only “Captain Aggressive“ of Indian cricket. My nephew often says “wish our current politicians could show their bare chest to the Pakis and the Chinese as Ganguly flaunted his chest to the English and that too in their own den!; these guys exhibit it to their own countrymen”. I console him saying, we are getting there, at least the measurements have started.
My niece on the other hand is a football and Brazil fanatic, since I had some tickets of the IPL & also since its holiday time I asked her if she would like to watch a live IPL match in Mumbai? “Is this IPL match as attacking as my Brazilian team?” she inquired. “What do you mean“ I retorted. She explained that “If the opponent scored one goal the Brazilian scores two; if they score two they score three and so forth, you see there is no concept of defence,… I mean there is a deference area on the pitch, but even that is to conceive and originate an attack,” I told her IPL cricket is very attacking, one has to score at a strike rate of 150 plus while batting and bowl conceding less that 5 runs per over, if a team has to win. Further the sub continental players like some Indians have all the flair, grace & technique to place the ball in the gaps and score boundaries and sixes; while some West Indian and Australian cricketers exhibit brute power, even if they miss hit a ball it goes for big boundaries. She looked confused by the strike rate of 150 v/s 5 and she would not forgo the various football tournaments currently being played in and around her village for any flunky IPL.
Watching IPL in Goa on TV one is confronted by the advertisement designed to juxtapose the game with society at large. A guy alights form a box like SUV with three beautiful women in tow—the tag line says “In the sport of glamour no one cheers for singles”. Yes, fours and sixes are the glam shots of the IPL …. Single runs are a no no, should life imitate the IPL? There is another so-called Mr Universe of cricket promoting a condom brand, his oft repeated: “Sometimes it helps to play close to your body” Or “Sometimes you have to play & play on & on all night long” did not do him any good; he ‘scored’ at an average of 19 runs in 8 matches, an abject failure indeed, his team is already out of the playoffs and languishing at the bottom of the points table — its true, real life does not ’score’ as good as the brand.
We Goans should be mighty pleased. Goa tourism has got a free ride this IPL. A telecom company in marketing their own product has depicted a cute, mature, elderly, conservative Tamil couple to promote Goa as never before. Imagine a conservative mature couple getting tattooed & learning to dance in the sunset years of their lives! Its only & only because of experiencing this unique feeling & being on holiday in a Paradise called Goa.
