NRIPL - will be fun too!

I liked the ToI headline "IPL becomes NRIPL". Quite creative!

Anyways, I think the home ministry's strictness on this issue has been commendable. Elections are up ahead, and they very well know that this move will also be heavily criticized, (Modi said its a "national shame" and many more) but still they stood by it.

The reason why I say its commendable is, commitment does not always mean that you say something will be done, and do it. Commitment also involves saying "No" when you know you can't do it, or when you doubt whether you can do it. Best effort is not commitment. The government could have stretched a bit, but it chose playing it safe, but what the heck, that's exactly the players want.

Lets evaluate the other arguments against moving it off-shore:
Financial losses - the IPL bosses are not sports-maniacs, but businessmen. For them, a bigger loss would be if the tournament was not played at all. They've in fact, mitigated a lot of risk.

Viewer sentiments - Yeah, for those who throng the stadium, this is quite a blow. But have anyone considered this - inadequate security is as much a threat to the public as it is to the players.

Lets see some advantages:
Risk aversion: One has to admit that no one can guarantee 100% security. Suppose the government complies to the security request, makes all necessary arrangement, and there's some minor disruption some where - even if that is safely dealt with (no casualities, all miscreants captured), I don't see the tournament continuing from that point onwards. Even a safely averted attack will be detrimental to the tournament's progress! Vettori, Oram and co. will be scared, and the next day we'll see pictures of Vettori with his wife and new-born in Auckland airport.

Timings: In the first edition of IPL, everyday we had one match in the afternoon slot, and one match in the evening slot. With South Africa 3.5 hours behind, both those matches will be at post office-hours for India. Talk about viewership!

So Mr. PC and Mr. Lalit Modi, I say good call!