Definitely there's a lot more women at domestic T20s than tests or ODIs, from my observations at matches (ie. queues for the toilets are a ****ing nightmare are T20s, walk straight in at test matches). I also think there's more younger children there too.
All my female friends and cousins etc have a very decent understanding of the game.. They can understand most discussions that I have with my male cricket loving friends/cousins... I guess the IPL happening at 8 to 11 every night just makes it a lot easier for them to follow it.. And it is easier to spend 3 hours on a game than 7
Peak veiwing was approx 500 000 with average viewing at closer to 300 000. Very good figures for the network it was on but I would suspect, though I have no proof, that a large proportion of that would be made up of British based Indians. Still very much niche programming.
I watch as much German and Italian football as I do the IPL
Its a different proposition altogether. The more important aspect i think is the interaction of these young players with various international stars. They get to learn a lot from them after spending almost 2 months with them which you can't expect to get from a domestic competition. Also the attention it gets is far more than the other domestic competitions. And the quality of cricket is a bit more than what you get from a normal domestic competition.
Yeah I think that's one of IPL's biggest pluses, but it's not exclusive to the IPL. Young players can also interact with other international players if they play, say, country cricket in England. I'm not a very big fan of T20 (that's an euphemism for "I dislike T20) so it's very possible that my views regarding the IPL are very biased.
The thing is how many of them get a chance to play in county cricket or any other domestic tournament in a different country with such elite list of international stars. Not many i guess. So this is the platform for them. Well yes, the quality is debatable. But i would slightly rate it more than any other domestic tournament in India simply because of that fact that good International players will always have that quality in them. Also the Indian players will raise the game a little more with the kind of competition. So the standard will be a touch above normal domestic tourneys.
It's a champions league that's set up a bit like the world cup 2015 is going to be... a few countries run it and select who they want to invite.
Point well made. Agree.
Not sure about this to be honest. A number of foreign players in the IPL are retired or trying to get into their own national teams. As a rule of the thumb, the quality of cricket in a T20 game is generally worse than the quality of four/five day matches. I suppose it's debatable though.
The rule that states the IPL team gets priority over the player's domestic side? Yeah that's a pretty stupid rule. Players should be given the option of playing for their own side.
