IPL - at last!

My first IPL post when half the tournament is over! And one would think that everything that was to be written about IPL had been written. But no! Here I come with a criticism of IPL schedule!

We are familiar to the home-away league concept, thanks to English Premier League (now Barclays Premier League) and football leagues around the world. The league there is played over several months, and teams normally play one match every week. Only the elite teams playing European (and World) tournaments play twice in a week a few times. Also note that England and other european countries are much smaller. Traveling to another city to play one match every two weeks on an average is not so difficult.

Even in NBA, teams play in a home-away style. Again, the championship there happens over several months, effectively making it one game per week for most weeks (except play offs and championship weeks). The schedule is also such that teams nearer home play more matches between them than far off teams - more intra division matches, fewer inter division matches and still fewer inter conference matches. It's a bit complicated, but the idea is to have sufficient rest period for the teams.

Here in IPL, each team plays 14 matches within 40 days! Effectively a match every third day. With all the traveling involved, I doubt whether even "home" is really a home. The players and entourage are constantly on the move. Seems to me that the schedule was made keeping in mind the viewers and not the players or teams.

If IPL plans on continuing this tournament yearly, I think they should re-look at their scheduling strategy.