Shakib happy with IPL outcome

Shakib Al Hasan, the Bangladesh allrounder, has had only one day at home to sleep off the delirium of the Kolkata Knight Riders' maiden IPL triumph; he will play club cricket in Dhaka from Thursday. But he is not complaining, having revelled in the victory and the festivities that followed.

"It would have been better if I had played more matches [he played eight out of a possible 18], but for any team the ultimate goal is to become champions in any tournament," Shakib said. "I'm still very happy, because the IPL is a high-quality domestic tournament. It was good that I made some contributions in the team's success.

"The celebration after the victory and reception in Kolkata was amazing, and it's really something that was a new experience for me. [Franchise owner] Shah Rukh Khan was also over the moon, because the team didn't play as well in the last four tournaments."

Shakib was the only foreign player who attended the team's open-top bus parade in Kolkata, and the function at Eden Gardens where tens of thousands of fans turned up to celebrate. Though Shakib said he enjoyed every bit of it, his face was burned and his body is now pleading for a break.

There has been non-stop cricket for the world's No. 1 allrounder this year, and the three before that, and though he had wanted a break after the IPL, Bangladesh's summer schedule will keep him busy, running through to the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka in September. With Knight Riders' participation in the Champions League T20 in October also confirmed, Shakib will have an extra tournament to contend with in his already jam-packed schedule.

"I will play Thursday's Premier League club match; it's good that we have Twenty20 matches before the [Twenty20] World Cup. But for me, what is needed most, is a break," he said. I'm not sure, but I might request the board for a break."

Bangladesh's Twenty20 series in Zimbabwe in June and then in Ireland in July mean that Shakib will miss the Friends Life t20 in England. Paul Grayson, head coach at Essex, where Shakib is contracted, told ESPNcricinfo that the club will miss him.

"Shakib had accepted an offer to play for us. The deal was agreed upon. We were hoping he would play Twenty20, CB40 [England's domestic 40-over tournament] and some [county] championship games, and that he would stay with us until the back end of August.

"It's very disappointing [not to have him]. He is the No.1 allrounder in the world, and he ticks a lot of boxes for us. Now we have found out that the BCB have not agreed to give him a no-objection certificate. They are trying to arrange a few things and they don't want to let him go."

Shakib is in much demand in the game's shortest version, but he says he is disappointed to not get a Test anytime soon. "We [the Bangladesh team] have forgotten what a Test is!" he said. "I don't think about it anymore, that will give me tension; I will feel bad if I think about it. Better not to think about it, and just play what's coming up." Bangladesh's last Test series was against Pakistan last December.

The IPL earns its cricket cred

The league came of age on the field, but was well short of its crease as a TV spectacle

On a steamy Chennai night, IPL 5 had a finish that it could not have dreamed of or prayed for, with all the good bits of an entire season coming together in symbolic representation.

Major finals tend to be flat and forgettable because the occasion ends up too big, the teams too tense. The 2010 World Cup football final will be remembered for a boot in the ribs, the 2011 World Cup rugby final was a dour, defensive struggle that the All Blacks endured. The World Cup cricket final a year ago ended splendidly for India but left its audience so emotionally exhausted that IPL 4 was played to vast tracts of empty stands and dipping TV ratings.

After 2012, however, the IPL lives again, breathes again and makes some good news again. On Sunday, there was a full stadium at Chepauk for the first time since the World Cup, a new champion, a successful chase of 191, nine needed off the last over, players sweating buckets, spectators sweating anxiety.

If anything has rescued the IPL from its turkey of a 2011, and lifted it, regardless of a frequency of allied scandals, it is its cricket and its crowds.

Over seven weeks, the IPL's presence spread through its audience like the heat of a genuine Indian summer. An annual league that takes far longer than the football, cricket and rugby world cups actually produced memories that may just survive the season. Dale Steyn bowling pure poison in four-over bursts, the pure bafflement caused by Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rajane's clean strokeplay and Chris Gayle's fiercest statements of independence - this even before Bisla and Kallis snatched the trophy eastwards.

There was enough of the Twenty20 format's madness in there too. Even before the final week, as many as 22 - or 30% - of the total 72 matches ended in the last over. Not including the final, there were 18 last-over victories to batting teams, seven chases ending on the last ball - all, it must be said, in the batting side's favour.

The IPL's popularity in the global cricket village, due to its enormous financial rewards for two months' work, is well known. Its cricketing advantages are much advertised. Yet what underscored the league's sustainability after a dry run in 2011 was the crowds who turned up at every venue. Every franchise can now have ticket sales as a genuine source of income beyond the BCCI's media rights handouts - which will begin to shrink in size as the league gets older - and shirt sponsorships.

The idea of an evening's entertainment through cricket - eight matches over two months in a city near you - was bought into by a very wide Indian demographic. A media industry executive finds the IPL "more inclusive than going to a Test match". The league, she says, is Indian cricket's "baby pool" and its "shallow end" where "you can paddle around and be happy". The sight of casually dressed stars, with Nita Ambani "sitting in the stadium with the guy who has bought the cheapest ticket … that has something that connects with India".

The IPL has been given the healthiest signs of relevance and, with it, profitability by the cricketer and his fan. Now there is an opportunity for payback, for Indian cricket to give to its spectators what has been owed to them for decades: gratitude and appreciation at their presence, and the chance to make a trip to a high-profile match in India worth the trouble.

What remains to be calculated, though, is the earnings from television. The IPL's TV coverage matters, not because it is central to the IPL's cricket but because it is central to the IPL's financial success. In two of three parameters - ad rates and TV ratings - there have been dips, which the experts are calling "course correction". The ratings fell from 4.81 in 2008 to 3.27, when a count was done at 68 matches, in 2012. The surge in crowd figures at venues did not translate on to the TV screen, the 3.27 being down even from the 3.39 of 2011.

According to the Hindu Business Line, the ad rate that began at Rs 5 lakh (US$9000 approx) for a 10-second advert dropped by 25%, though Rohit Gupta of Set Max told the paper it had only dropped "5-10%". The parameter being most widely circulated is that of the cumulative reach of viewership - from around 102 million in 2008 to just under 160 million in 2012. It means more people are watching the IPL, but for shorter periods of time.

It could have something to do with the coverage. Unlike the standard of cricket, which may have risen over five seasons thanks to better-prepared players and smarter backroom moves, the quality of the pre-game show Extraaa Innings and the live match coverage has continued to nosedive.

Extraaa Innings is handled by the TV producers Set Max, a Sony network channel in India that normally airs Hindi movies. The match coverage is directly under the control of the organisers IMG, who in turn are watched by the BCCI, which controls the panel of presenters and commentators for the IPL. So if there are fingers to be pointed, they must point at both the parties involved. Sadly, the commentary and studio chatter undermined the high-quality camerawork - with Ultra Motion, Spider Cam and HD-TV, the game can come much closer to its audience.

Every game had commentary in English but the pre-game show lapsed frequently into Hindi - a new push that is believed to be the result of a massive survey conducted by Set Max, but most of it, it appears, in the part of India called "the Hindi heartland", which speaks the language of the soaps televised on Sony. Yet of the nine franchises, six come from outside that Hindi-speaking belt. Go figure.

The studio experts approved by the BCCI included Ajay Jadeja, whom it had banned for five years (overturned by the Delhi High Court in 2003) following the Madhavan Committee report on match-fixing, and perhaps the two loudest people on cricket television: Navjot Sidhu and Danny Morrison. It was as if Twenty20 in itself was declared not "entertaining'' enough unless the commentariat started shouting.

In the league's fifth season, this strategy ends up preaching to the converted: India loves Twenty20, breakaway leagues have flourished at state level blessed or cursed by regional cricket associations, the audiences loves the party, can generate its own noise and will wave any flag given free. Ramping it up with stand-up comedy, film and TV promos, and cake-consuming crassness is overdoing it. The IPL's audience in India was given a great gift in some very tawdry packaging.

The IPL's defence has always been its money talk. So, if it is ready to buy into one set of figures, it is only fair that those figures hold over time. Brand Finance India, whose UK arm had valued the IPL at$4.13 billion in 2010, has now said the league is now worth $2.92b. Whatever the numbers may be, the consulting firm's conclusions tell another story: when judged on cricketing excellence, corporate governance, and marketing and commercial strategies, it was the second element that was considered the league's weakest link.

The very idea of the BCCI and "corporate governance" in the same sentence is ambitious. In the IPL's fifth year, the wriggling between an old-fashioned, opaque, patriarchal organisation and its new 21st century revenue-generating 'property' with nine high-profile investors/participants remains evident and constant. The scandals are the least of it.

An industry insider says the public response has been rather blasé because the general positioning of the IPL was of a "tamasha". So the sting operation, Shah Rukh Khan's bust-up, the Pomersbach saga, "all of this kind of stuff just adds to the tamasha. People see it, they accept it. The scandal is going on in society, not in the IPL. I don't think people are shocked, for them it's another tamasha." Tamasha translates as 'a grand show, performance, representation, entertainment'.

On Sunday, Anil Kumble was heard saying on television that the credibility of the IPL would rest on "more discussion about off-field issues". In his mind, young domestic cricketers needed tending in how to cope with two months in the blinding spotlight. Given that the IPL's sporting quotient is expected to be authentic, the tamasha could become par for the course. Of the entire set of scandals that erupted in the space of a week, the sting operation that was centred around spot-fixing and black-money transactions required the most attention; the rest - SRK v MCA, Pomersbach and the rave party raid - were reflective of a culture of high-earning, high-spending celebrity entitlement now commonly found in Indian public life.

In its fifth season, the IPL is a creature of multiple personalities: to start with, the Indian board's own definition of it as a "BCCI sub-committee". Which to the public eye is actually a cricket event. Which to its lucrative media vehicles means a summer entertainment show on TV. In 2012, the cricket event showed itself off in the glittering lights. The other two need some personal reinvention - much like the Kolkata Knight Riders required before they eventually won the IPL.

KOLKATA IS THE WINNER OF IPL 2012

Kolkata Knight Riders 192 for 5 (Bisla 89, Kallis 69) beat Chennai Super Kings 190 for 3 (Raina 73, Hussey 54, Vijay 42) by five wickets


Chennai Super Kings 190/3 (20/20 ov)
Kolkata Knight Riders 192/5 (19.4/20 ov)
Kolkata Knight Riders won by 5 wickets (with 2 balls remaining)

There were a galaxy of former Indian cricketers in attendance, the brightest lights from Bollywood were in the stands, both teams had some of the biggest stars in the world game but the headlining performance came from little-known Manvinder Bisla as Kolkata Knight Riders prised the IPL trophy out of Chennai Super Kings' hands. Bisla, who was without a Ranji Trophy side last season, made a mockery of his previous career Twenty20 strike-rate of 106 to play a jack-in-the-box innings that helped overhaul what had seemed a mountainous Super Kings total.

For Chennai Super Kings' third straight playoff match, a similar tale played out, putting them in prime position for their third consecutive IPL title. For the third time this week, a magical innings from a previously out-of-form batsman left the opposition clueless and Super Kings with a giant total.

After MS Dhoni and M Vijay, it was Suresh Raina's turn to play a blinder. He entered with Super Kings already in a position of strength, with Michael Hussey and M Vijay clicking again, and proceeded to pulverise the best of the Kolkata Knight Riders bowlers.

Weak against the short ball? Raina's first boundary was a powerfully pulled six over midwicket off Jacques Kallis. The mystery of Sunil Narine? Raina slog-swept into the stands and later deposited the ball near the sightscreen as Narine was handed his most expensive figures of the tournament. Brett Lee was swiped over midwicket on his way to figures of 4-0-42-0, nullifying the decision to include him to provide additional firepower to the Knight Riders attack. The shot of the innings, though, wasn't a muscled one, but a punch over the bowler's head that was perfectly timed to beat a diving long-on.

Unlike in the knockout game against Delhi Daredevils, Super Kings took a couple of overs to get going. Vijay didn't show off his off-side drives like he had against Delhi, instead reverting to his flat-bat hoicks and whips to wide long-on. His confidence was highlighted by an on-the-up thump over long-on for six when Lee dropped a bit short in the sixth over.

Keeping Vijay company was Hussey, who initially tackled the spin of Shakib Al Hasan with a series of reverse-sweeps. He countered Lee by bravely shimmying down the track and launching over long-off. As usual, Hussey's innings had the muscled sweep-pulls to midwicket and featured some precision placement. Midway through the innings, he was gasping for breath but his running did not slacken, even when he the non-striker. The boundaries vanished towards the end of Hussey's stay, but by then Raina was hammering the attack out of shape.

Knight Riders didn't fade in the field like Daredevils had. The first wicket came through a superb diving catch from Shakib, and there was no let up in effort as they attempted to keep the torrent in check. It was a flat pitch, and with a long batting line-up, Knight Riders weren't out of it yet.

Indian Premier League 2012 News

Dhoni assault knocks out Mumbai

Chennai Super Kings 187 for 5 (Dhoni 51, Hussey 49) v Mumbai Indians 149 for 9 (Smith 38, Bravo 2-10, Morkel 2-31)

Chennai Super Kings seem to thrive in times of difficulty. At one point in this season, they were hanging by a thread to stay alive and now they're just two wins away from a third straight title. They didn't flinch after losing two wickets in two balls in the second over, they didn't allow a few quick wickets in the latter half of their innings to affect the tempo built by an impressive counterattack. Instead, they took the fightback to a higher level, led by their captain MS Dhoni, whose blistering assault left Mumbai Indians scarred on their way out of the competition. Super Kings' determination and tenacity proved too much for Mumbai Indians, a promising campaign ending in disappointment.

Asked to bat on one of the most productive tracks this season, Michael Hussey and S Badrinath rode on some fortune to help their team recover from trouble and Dhoni then assumed that attacking avatar that had made him a sensation when he hit the international scene. The efforts of those three, together with Dwayne Bravo's late surge boosted Super Kings just as Mumbai Indians dropped their guard with the ball. Only Dwayne Smith's early attack in the chase gave them some hope, but that didn't last long.

Some late swing played a hand in Dhawal Kulkarni's two early strikes and Harbhajan Singh was miserly with the new ball, but Hussey and Badrinath took the challenge head on. Both were initially fortunate to find boundaries off edges with the seamers still finding some movement. But they also middled a few, and found the gaps consistently despite the field being pushed back after the Powerplay. Both drove well, Badrinath cracking Kulkarni past mid-off and Hussey creaming Lasith Malinga through extra cover. When Harbhajan brought his medium-pacers on - his ploy to shuffle the bowling backfired - Super Kings ensured the flow remained unaffected. Kieron Pollard was pulled for two fours in an over, the 10th of the innings, after the first timeout - the cue, presumably, for Super Kings to step up further.

Harbhajan was himself smashed for two sixes before Hussey took RP Singh for two boundaries. The first four overs after the timeout yielded 47. Hussey, Badrinath and Ravindra Jadeja, however, fell in a space of 11 deliveries, but the last eight overs of the innings were to produce 105 runs.

The man largely responsible for that was Dhoni, who flicked his first ball for four over midwicket. Though he has come to exercise far more restraint in his batting, the approach today betrayed no signs of that recent tendency to accumulate steadily before opening up. To his advantage, Mumbai Indians doled out a spate of length balls that he wasn't willing to spare. James Franklin was dispatched over long-on for the biggest six of this tournament, Kulkarni was thrashed down the ground and past cover, and he even had time to make room and cart RP over extra cover.

The stand-out shot was his favourite whiplash, imparting tremendous force against a length ball from Malinga that found itself in the deep-midwicket stand. Bravo, in that penultimate over, launched Malinga - who bowled his most expensive spell of this season - over midwicket and extra cover before finishing off with two sixes off Kulkarni. One of them was battered flat over wide long-off, the power and disdain behind the shot summing up the domination of bat over ball in those late overs.

Some of that contempt for the bowling was also on display in Smith's early ambush of Ben Hilfenhaus - the same bowler who was taken for 14 off the last three balls by Smith in Mumbai Indians' thrilling win in an earlier meeting. He used his wrists well, pulled, flicked, swept and found the boundary with ease in a quick opening stand of 47.

But Shadab Jakati, brought in for this game in place of seamer Yo Mahesh, bowled with discipline at the other end. He bowled a tight line, and his fielders backed him up well. Some superb fielding by Jadeja at point caused a mix-up between Smith and Tendulkar, who was run out, and Smith soon followed, spooning a catch in the same region. Albie Morkel, who got some away movement, had Dinesh Karthik and Rohit Sharma nicking to the keeper, and Ambati Rayudu fell slog-sweeping against R Ashwin. When Franklin was dismissed in the 14th over with 84 still to get, the task was even beyond Pollard. Mumbai Indians' depth in batting promised a close fight, but the pressure of a big chase in a must-win game proved too big to overcome.

Innings                   Dot balls 4s 6s Powerplay 16-20 overs NB/Wides
Chennai Super Kings 48      23 6    30-2          73-1              0/3
Mumbai Indians          59      14 5 54-1          37-2              1/5

Chennai v Mumbai, eliminator, IPL 2012, Bangalore

Mumbai in trouble in big chase

Chennai Super Kings 187 for 5 (Dhoni 51, Hussey 49) v Mumbai Indians (last update)

Chennai Super Kings overcame a poor start in one of the most productive venues this IPL to leave Mumbai Indians with a challenging target to chase in a knockout clash. Michael Hussey and S Badrinath rode on some fortune to help their team recover from trouble and MS Dhoni assumed that attacking avatar that made him such a sensation in the early days of his international career. The combined efforts of those three, and Dwayne Bravo's late surge, boosted Super Kings just as Mumbai Indians dropped their guard; even though Super Kings lost some quick wickets in the latter half of the innings, Mumbai Indians simply couldn't contain the flow of runs.

Mumbai Indians captain Harbhajan Singh has been one of the weak links in his team's bowling this season but he brought himself on to open, and delivered two miserly overs, one of them a maiden. His job was made easier by seamer Dhawal Kulkarni, retained in the side after his three-for in Mumbai Indians' previous game. Kulkarni found late swing immediately, and earned two wickets with M Vijay nicking a wide one to slip and Suresh Raina dragging one onto his stumps next ball. Badrinath and Hussey, who survived a close lbw shout in the first over, took the challenge head on.

In their attempt to counterattack, both were lucky to find boundaries off edges with the seamers still finding some movement. But they also middled a few, and found the gaps consistently despite the field being pushed back after the Powerplay. Both drove well, Badrinath cracking Kulkarni past mid-off and Hussey creaming Lasith Malinga through extra cover. When Harbhajan brought his medium-pacers on, with their frequent dose of slower balls, Super Kings ensured the tempo remained. Kieron Pollard was pulled for two fours in an over, the 10th of the innings, after the first timeout - the cue, presumably, for Super Kings to take the fightback to another level.

Harbhajan, shuffling the bowling around, was himself smashed for two sixes before Hussey took RP Singh for two boundaries. The first four overs after the timeout yielded 47. Hussey, Badrinath and Ravindra Jadeja, however, fell in a space of 11 deliveries, but the last eight overs of the innings were to produce 105 runs.

The man largely responsible for that was Dhoni, who flicked his first ball for four over midwicket. Though he has come to exercise far more restraint in his batting, the approach today betrayed no signs of that recent tendency to accumulate steadily before opening up. To his advantage, Mumbai Indians doled out a spate of length balls that he wasn't willing to spare. James Franklin was dispatched over long-on for the biggest six of this tournament, Kulkarni was thrashed down the ground and past cover, and he even had time to make room and cart RP over extra cover.

The stand-out shot was his favourite whiplash, imparting tremendous force against a length ball from Malinga that found itself in the deep-midwicket stand. Bravo, in that penultimate over, launched Malinga - who bowled his most expensive spell of this season - over midwicket and extra cover before finishing off with two sixes off Kulkarni.