The simple joy of the fat lad
The IPL coverage on ITV4 has been a hit with British viewers, although of course there have been plenty who find themselves a bit bemused by all the flashing lights and rampant commercialism. Luckily, most of these seem to have newspaper columns or blogs to tell us that, would you believe it, the IPL is a bit of an advert-fest?
At the other end of the razzmatazz spectrum, I happened to turn onto Sky Sports 4 on Sunday - a channel that I swear I didn't even know I had access to - and found something called The Emirates Twenty20 tournament.
The match on show was the final, between Sussex and... some blokes who play for the works team of Emirates Airlines. It was played in an empty stadium, and naturally it had apparently not been possible to sell advertising, or bother too much with commentators etc. The match, in fact, took place on March 21, not sure why it was on TV over Easter. A very minor point of news interest was the fact that Shahid Afridi had been signed up to play as the airline boys' ringer, but had injured his knee or teeth or something in the semi-final.
Yet even without the services of Shahid, the baggage handlers and trolley dollies of Fly Emirates XI defeated the County of CB Fry and Ted Dexter, Ranji and John Langridge, setting them a modest-looking 85 but then skittling the men from Hove for just 71. Sussex are, of course, the holders of England's Twenty20 Cup.
Other than the obvious opportunities for sniggering, the best bit was the sheer joy of the amateur side, some of whom looked like pretty useful players, some of whom had international experience with the UAE and some of whom were distinctly tubby and a bit long in the tooth. Keeper Shoeb Muljiani, especially, looked like somebody's uncle who had been drafted in at the last moment, and there was at least one other player about whom it seems safe to say that he had not been going on any boot camps prior to the match. Or at any other time.
It was a pleasant antidote to all the hoopla over the IPL, and a break from all the discussion about commercialisation and TV rights and direction of the game. Obviously, the event was largely a branding exercise by a large international airline, so I'm not saying that the tournament represented some sort of Corinthian ideal or anything. But there's nothing like an underdog, especially a generously-covered one, to remind us that cricket is still about upsets, and glory, and improbable feats as much as it is about DLF Maximums and worrying about DLF Maximums. Cricket will be fine.
