Exactly a year ago,I was sitting on the old,faithful media benches of the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore as cricket famously married entertainment. After waves from Shah Rukh Khan,songs from Shankar Mahadevan and cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins,I wasnt certain what I would remember from that night many years later. Would it be the fireworks display of Olympic proportions that had declared the first IPL open,or the fiery century by Brendon McCullum that had made Kolkata Knight Riders the early favourites? Twelve months later,I find that neither is etched too vividly in my memory. Fitting,perhaps,with the nature of T20 cricket in these times of instant gratification. Watching the opening match of last years IPL,there had been several doubts in the minds of so-called cricket experts,including myself,that the road ahead for the tournament would not be easy once the novelty of its sideshow wore out. The event got off to a rousing start,but for a while it seemed that the worst fears of the critics would be justified as a sense of sameness started to settle over the next couple of weeks. But the signs of a potential slump did not last too long because of one rag-tag unit from the smallest of the IPL franchises. The Rajasthan Royals,dismissed as frugal also-rans,started writing their own script in one corner of India,defying the odds,hurling slingshots at Goliath after Goliath,highjacking the razzmatazz and replacing it with a feel-good,cricketing story of the rise of an underdog. Rajasthans triumph connected seamlessly with the sentiment of the time,perfect for a year in which Barack Obama was slowly sweeping the Democratic primaries,and which culminated with a film that exploited the same emotion to win eight Oscars. In a year when hope and change were the flavours of the month,Shane Warnes Rajasthan gave the IPL more than it couldve ever hoped for. Now,as the second season gets ready to kick off in distant South Africa,this time from the high of last year,it will face challenges once again some old and some very different. A lot has changed over the last 12 months. The global slowdown has pegged back many of the team owners,and the blinding projections of economic power that are beamed from South Africa have a darker side not least among them the sudden sending back of Mohammad Kaif,and six others,by the Rajasthan Royals management. Privately,franchise administrators accept that losses have again been projected for the second season,and though they had only hoped to break even in three to five years,the hits suffered by the core businesses of some of the team owners have changed the implications of the red digits on the balance sheets. While the franchise managements battle their own demons,there are other numbers that will be critical to IPL II. Unlike last year,the most important question this season is not how much,but how many: How many people in the stadium,how many viewers on TV,how many column inches in newspapers,how many sixes,how many fours,how many moments to remember. For the IPL,this is not the time to count the cash; its the time to build the brand despite the obvious economic hurdles,to enhance the perception that the tournament is Indias most vibrant advertising platform,and to prove that the foundation laid by the first seasons success is strong enough to stand the test of time. For all the gimmicks that ad gurus and marketing geniuses pull off,achieving these ends,it almost goes without saying,will only be possible if the cricket on display is of the highest standard (or at least as high as the Twenty20 format allows). The IPL had willy-nilly managed to get a perfect on-field script last year. And in 2009 this soap opera of cricket and entertainment being staged neither in an ideal time,nor in an ideal place desperately needs another fresh,surprising,cricketing twist.
