No Chennai Super Kings, a water drought and little expansion: IPL 2016 faces fresh challenges

Chennai Super Kings also commanded a fanatical pan-Indian following. Pawan Singh / The National

Former Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni is now at the newly formed Rising Pune Supergiants. Alexander Joe / AFP

It is that time of year again, when two of India’s overriding preoccupations — cricket and Bollywood — come together in the form of the Indian Premier League, a seven-week-long tournament that will feature the majority of the world’s elite cricketers. This, the ninth season, looks out on a vastly changed landscape.

When the spot-fixing scandal broke towards the end of the 2013 season, few had any idea how serious the ramifications would be. Now, we know. When the league resumes action on Saturday, it will be without Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the most consistent side in the competition’s history, and Rajasthan Royals, the inaugural winners, after both franchises were banned for two years for their part in bringing the game into disrepute.

Chennai were not just two-time winners and six-time finalists. They commanded a fanatical pan-Indian following. While other franchises chopped and changed personnel, Chennai managed to retain a core group for years.

MS Dhoni, the captain, and Suresh Raina were there all eight seasons. Ravichandran Ashwin played seven years for his hometown franchise. Dwayne Bravo — “There will not be another CSK,” he said at a promotional event a couple of days ago — spent five seasons in Chennai, while Stephen Fleming was coach for seven.

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On match days, the MA Chidambaram Stadium in the Chennai suburb of Chepauk was a sea of yellow. The team’s Whistle Podu [Blow the Whistle] song was the league’s most recognisable anthem, and thousands of fans would often travel to away games to support their heroes.

The adulation for Dhoni was such that many just referred to him as Thalaivar [Leader/Boss], a pedestal usually reserved only for matinée idols like Rajanikanth.

Dhoni will captain the new Rising Pune Super Giants franchise, coached by Fleming. Ashwin will be there, as will Faf du Plessis, the South African Twenty20 skipper who spent four years in Chennai.

Dhoni continues to wear his love for Chennai and the fans on his sleeve, and Raina, who will lead the other new franchise, Gujarat Lions, echoed his views.

“It’s not been easy and it’s not going to be easy on us (CSK bunch) anytime soon either,” he said in a newspaper interview. “It’s like leaving one family and going to another.

“No matter how much love you get in this new family, how can you let go of all the love you received over the last eight years from the Chennai family? The city had become a second home to all of us.”

But even as the detritus from a one-time champion side get used to new surroundings, the league faces other problems.

Politicians and social activists in drought-hit Maharashtra have written to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the state government about the water that would be wasted on maintaining pitches and outfields, urging them to move matches out of the state.

Responding to Public Interest Litigation on the same matter, the Bombay High Court observed: “People don’t get water in Marathwada for three to four days. This is a criminal waste.”

If the state government, acting at the court’s behest, was to move the matches out of Maharashtra — unlikely, given that the BCCI will use every political contact at its disposal to prevent it happening — it would have catastrophic consequences for the tournament’s scheduling. Including the play-offs, the three venues in the state — Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur — are set to host a third of the IPL’s 60 matches.

Water woes aside, the organisers may also have to deal with cricket fatigue. The IPL begins less than six days after West Indies, who knocked out India in the semi-final, won the World Twenty20 in such dramatic circumstances.

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After India hosted and won the 2011 World Cup, there was vastly reduced interest in the opening weeks of the IPL as the cricket-watching audience took time to recover from the ecstatic celebrations.

Initial interest this time will depend greatly on how quickly the marquee players find their A games. With Dhoni away from his Chennai comfort zone, most eyes will be on Virat Kohli, whose popularity soared to near Tendulkar-like levels as he almost single-handedly dragged India into the final.

If the aim is to pack the stadiums every game, doing away with the 4pm matches on weekdays is a step in the right direction, given that daytime temperatures in most parts of India in April and May bring to mind tandoor ovens.

The double-headers that were a feature of the World Twenty20 will be conspicuously absent though. Nearly a decade after the competition was conceptualised, there is still no women’s equivalent or the will to make it happen.

There has also been little effort to discover new audiences. The rapturous response to Mohammad Shahzad’s big hitting when Afghanistan played their World Twenty20 matches was a reminder of how much more popular the IPL could become if it reached out to countries like Afghanistan.

If and when Chennai and Rajasthan are allowed back and the competition expands to 10 franchises, it may not be a bad idea to allow each team an extra foreigner in the playing XI (the current rules permit four) provided he is from an associate nation.

The prevailing mood, after the World Twenty20 letdown, is fairly lukewarm, though more than 20 million should tune in to the opening match between Mumbai Indians, the defending champions, and Pune.

For the moment, the most vocal fans, especially on social media, are those that once marched in yellow. You can observe a gamut of emotions, from sorrow to defiance, even as some come to terms with perhaps supporting Pune or Gujarat, where most of their heroes have gone.

Chennai are the IPL’s phantom limb. The authorities moved on, roping in two new franchises. The players, especially Dhoni, Raina and Ashwin, clearly have not.

Neither have more than 11 million fans on social media. For them, an IPL without Chennai and Whistle Podu is going to take some getting used to.

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