Question for non-Indians: Do you really like IPL?

Yes very well said but this is called talking in hindsight, when things have gone totally wrong. Every cricket board was falling over each other to launch its own T-20 league, including SLPL, which failed to take off due to non-participation of Indian players & lack of interest from BCCI, in its first year. If you remember ECB had recently asked IPL to stage the tourney at such a time when English players were able to take part in their own, to be launched T-20 league.

We have had few major fiascoes, when players like Malinga retired from Test cricket to concentrate on IPL & shorter version of the game. Then KP caused a major shake up in the English cricket, when he was nearly shown the door & was drafted back in the English team only due to his batting capabilities, else a lesser player would have been made to retire. We had a case of Michael Hussey's retirement & then his subsequent success, as the orange cap holder in IPL 6 and Australian batting's capitulation in recent Test series against India in India.

You have spoken about the success of IPL 1, which was 6 years ago and since then other T-20 leagues have mushroomed around but IPL was attracting the biggest players and they were getting paid handsomely, attracting more players with bigger pay cheques. India did suffer & that too due to their heavy dependence on IPL to induce new players in the international XI and with many players suffering injuries. We have seen senior player's attitudes changing, with Gambhir kind of player openly preferring IPL over the national duty.

Yet it doesn't mean that IPL wasn't being looked up to as the best T-20 league in the world, before this betting scandal was unearthed. We are hoping that if everything is so fixed, then its better to say goodbye to this league and many players indulging in malpractices should be thrown into jails, if they have benefited on the sly. But what you are saying here, after being an ardent fan of Indian cricket comes as a surprise to me.

I take JB as a balanced individual & I agree with his views but you'll find many IPL detractors coming out here & saying beautiful things about IPL in your post only, as they have a chance to express their views. You know one particular individual but he is expected to loiter where Indian cra-p happens or he creates some of his own to bask in the glory (at least that's what he believes in). Don't agree with your assertions that no body was jealous of IPL & now we are also bemoaning the hard facts, which are being brought in the open.

We have also suffered as cricket fans, as much as non-Indians fans, who backed IPL as a tourney did, in good faith. Its wrong to decry IPL, when its nearly down & out. Ruefully we are also unable to stand by it anymore but feel sad when people say things in hindsight..

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.