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Initially I agreed with this but in some way the IPL can be a beacon a hope for many. Just my take on it though, you know like in this time of h
Brilliant post.
May not seem a popular opinion but is it possible the IPL is providing a beacon of hope to some fans? I mean all this heartache fans are going through atleast they can see some glimmer of hope in cricket still being played at the highest level in T20? Look Indian cricket fans are the most passionate in the world so in some way the IPL continuing is good in some way? Not sure if I am making sense and cant believe I just wrote something positive about the IPL.
Because they pay...But I just don't get why franchise owners and players' families are allowed to stadiums.
I disagree with this take because who exactly the IPL supposed to serve as a distraction to? Certainly not the frontline workers working without sleep, not the grieving ones who have lost their beloved or the ones currently sick. Most certainly not those struggling to put food on the table. It is just catering to those of us who are privileged to enjoy entertainment at this time without immediate concerns.
A lot of these people have this complaint of "we have lockdown fatigue and the current situation depresses us a lot, IPL is our sense of normalcy". I agree on the importance and impact of mental health but I don't think IPL is the antidote and if people hold IPL in such high value then I fear it sounds very dystopian to have an entertainment product distract us from ever rising doom. People need to face and confront reality instead of hiding behind entertainment and hold those responsible for all of this to culpability. The IPL is merely a distraction from bigger issues at hand, ones that will sooner or later affect everyone and one that is time limited.
In any case, the main issue with IPL is the absolute tone deafness of it. All you see is #maintainsocialdistancing #wearyourmasks on the overlay whilst you have people huddled in the stadiums, blokes not wearing masks of any sort. None of the players barring very few have spoken about the actual crisis at hand. It is shocking that you have Pat donating money, Tye pointing out the sheer ridiculousness of having a sporting tournament when the country is in an emergency whilst most of the Indian players are silent when they were all outspoken about other issues. Imagine a war scenario as an emergency. Would you still have sport around?
Somebody call Prabhsimran Singh & Dawid Malan!
Is Kumble a shit coach?
Most of them don't follow social distancing neither they wear masks. And they don't even realize they're on national TV lol.Hard disagree on family if they are also following protocols.
If IPL can be a beacon of hope then the players deserve to have the people they love near them for their own mental well being.
Cricinfo said:Indeed, it has led to a line of thinking that the IPL should be called off. That in a time of national tragedy as this is - and a tragedy that, by all estimates, will get worse before it gets better - sport is irrelevant, perhaps even disrespectful. This is not a time for light entertainment.
That is debatable, because there are clearly takers for the IPL as entertainment or distraction from the surrounding grimness. Anecdotal evidence, perhaps, but I can hear the TV commentary from apartments around mine every evening, and I know of people - including one 80-year-old aunt - who wait for that match every day to offer some relief.
Equally important, though, is to see the IPL as not merely a sporting activity, 22 men playing cricket under floodlights. It is an economic activity that brings in millions of dollars, which are then spread around the wider cricketing ecosystem and to the country at large. Think of hotel rooms occupied, chartered flights booked and the IPL gig economy - social-media teams, cameramen, commentators, security and catering and housekeeping staff, and all the people they support in turn - that keeps the wheels turning. A distressed economy needs whatever cylinders that can keep firing.
Source: https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/...-its-power-to-aid-a-country-in-crisis-1261025
Most of them don't follow social distancing neither they wear masks. And they don't even realize they're on national TV lol.
India lost the IPL already last year to UAE. Losing it for the second year in a row during times where the economy needs it, doesn't sound really good. You cant rely on the ICC World T20 as ICC is not an Indian organization and can always move the tournament out of India if things dont improve significantly in the next few months.
I read some comments above about the distraction of IPL being pointless and that it doesn't matter. I humbly disagree. Even the frontline worker will need her/his distraction. It has been a decades long obsession for the whole country with cricket (as they famously say "cricket is a religion in India and India is a religious country"), and I can almost bet that among the frontline workers, atleast 1 in 3 would be following/tracking the IPL while they go about their duties helping people in need. And not just frontline workers - people who are constantly being fed and exposed to dark/negative news, all need their distraction and relief and the IPL provides it best. I personally endured this last year when things were darker in USA and IPL offered amazing relief that OTT platforms or TV channels could not provide (I've got exhausted by the ocean of options on OTT and am almost cancelling subscriptions to most OTT platforms as I cant choose what to watch).
Players and BCCI can do their thing to support the country in these times, but again we as outsiders cannot judge "who is doing how much". Its the same when people do social service and a 3rd person has no right to judge who does how much service. Doing help during a pandemic falls under "service". And it is to each and everyone's choice how and how much they want to do. Again some people do it privately; some like to boast about it to increase their image; some talk about it openly in the hope it inspires others; some dont do anything because they dont know where to start; etc.
P.s: Sorry if I might sound insensitive since I dont live in India right now, but this pandemic is a worldwide phenomenon and USA is still in it and when USA was in really dark times last year, India was better off and now its the other way around. And I have relatives in India who are living amongst what is happening right now and trust me, they dont feel IPL happening right now in the country is insensitive.
These families of players are also in a bubble and have gone through the strict process to quarantine and then get into the bubbles. Why would they wear masks when they're in a bubble? Do you wear masks at home everyday?
We dont have to spoon fed our people by showing off that we wear masks even in a bubble. There has to be common sense for people to understand that "in a bubble, you dont wear masks". For e.g. if you are at home with your family, you are in your own private bubble. Every family who have stayed home for more than a year now during this pandemic, have all been in their own private bubbles.
India lost the IPL already last year to UAE. Losing it for the second year in a row during times where the economy needs it, doesn't sound really good. You cant rely on the ICC World T20 as ICC is not an Indian organization and can always move the tournament out of India if things dont improve significantly in the next few months.
I read some comments above about the distraction of IPL being pointless and that it doesn't matter. I humbly disagree. Even the frontline worker will need her/his distraction. It has been a decades long obsession for the whole country with cricket (as they famously say "cricket is a religion in India and India is a religious country"), and I can almost bet that among the frontline workers, atleast 1 in 3 would be following/tracking the IPL while they go about their duties helping people in need. And not just frontline workers - people who are constantly being fed and exposed to dark/negative news, all need their distraction and relief and the IPL provides it best. I personally endured this last year when things were darker in USA and IPL offered amazing relief that OTT platforms or TV channels could not provide (I've got exhausted by the ocean of options on OTT and am almost cancelling subscriptions to most OTT platforms as I cant choose what to watch).
Players and BCCI can do their thing to support the country in these times, but again we as outsiders cannot judge "who is doing how much". Its the same when people do social service and a 3rd person has no right to judge who does how much service. Doing help during a pandemic falls under "service". And it is to each and everyone's choice how and how much they want to do. Again some people do it privately; some like to boast about it to increase their image; some talk about it openly in the hope it inspires others; some dont do anything because they dont know where to start; etc.
P.s: Sorry if I might sound insensitive since I dont live in India right now, but this pandemic is a worldwide phenomenon and USA is still in it and when USA was in really dark times last year, India was better off and now its the other way around. And I have relatives in India who are living amongst what is happening right now and trust me, they dont feel IPL happening right now in the country is insensitive.
These families of players are also in a bubble and have gone through the strict process to quarantine and then get into the bubbles. Why would they wear masks when they're in a bubble? Do you wear masks at home everyday?
We dont have to spoon fed our people by showing off that we wear masks even in a bubble. There has to be common sense for people to understand that "in a bubble, you dont wear masks". For e.g. if you are at home with your family, you are in your own private bubble. Every family who have stayed home for more than a year now during this pandemic, have all been in their own private bubbles.
Two instances here. From my own personal experience, none of the people in the healthcare industry actually bother much with the IPL at the moment. They get at best few hours away from duty if they're not on 24 hour call and to think they use it to not sleep, eat or take care of themselves and instead try and consume IPL at odd hours is really not accurate.
In addition, the food delivery person I met today asked me one thing, "is Covid actually serious?". I had to explain to him that it wasn't like the flu and to get tested if he falls sick. Nothing wrong on him too, he asked me to genuinely learn and listened to it completely. This is the knowledge of a person who is fairly adequately educated about the pandemic, imagine the others who aren't aware and the ones who choose to not be aware because they see it being treated as a joke everytime.
The US and India are utterly incomparable in terms of the seriousness of the issue too because of the standards of healthcare. The biggest issue in the US to my knowledge was misinformation and prohibitive healthcare costs with incompetent leadership during the Trump times. Where it was wilful ignorance there, here it is enforced and costs are artificially inflated due to rising demand. India's healthcare status is pathetic due to underfunding even by global standards. People are being sent home despite being sick enough for admission, drugs are running out, vaccines have been depleted, oxygen is being handled on a day to day basis (plenty of hospitals have received their oxygens just mere hours before they would have run empty).
India was never really better off, even in those times there were cases unofficially, the economy was in tatters and lockdowns were actually more enforced then. I already alluded to in my previous post that only those of us who have the luxury of needing something to conquer lockdown fatigue feel okay with the IPL. A tournament that only will happen until May. What next then? Others either are indifferent or find it appalling that there is a million dollar tournament happening mere yards away from graveyards of death. I really find it very dystopian that we need cheap entertainment in the middle of our worst calamity (did the 2004 tsunami kill as many people as corona has done?) to numb our minds instead of pointing fingers at those who have led us to this mess or seeking answers to our problems or going out there to help. Seems very 'Brave New World' like to me.
It isn't completely right to compare being in a bubble that gets constant exposure to us folks in a home. None of us demand them to wear masks in their own rooms. When football resumed, you had substitutes socially distanced with masks worn. They were in bubbles too, heck they were actually players. I found it silly then too but I understand now the power of subliminal messaging. When you're on TV out there doing an activity watching matches in a metaphorical bubble let alone literal while millions struggle to survive, the least you could do to stand in solidarity and raise awareness is wear a simple mask. These people may still be interacting with outside elements, I doubt that their bubble is taken very seriously (you hear cases of every cricketer breaching bubbles in every other country including our own but somehow all seem to be well disciplined in the 'festival of cricket'?). The moment someone inside tests positive or more players pull out, it will be total chaos.
I find Tye getting attacked over his comments by people pointing out that the BCCI is the one doing all this and the Government doesn't waste resources on this hilarious as the only thing he pointed out was the sheer tone deafness involved as people involved pretend as if all is fine and dandy elsewhere. I remember Ganguly criticizing overseas players as soft for not embracing bubble life as well and for indicating that mental health is not that big a deal. No surprises that overseas players are pulling out more and more.
These bio bubbles are not as safe as you might be thinking. All these folks travel, they use hotels and visit grounds. Now the hotel staff is not necessarily part of any bubble. I suppose they'd be regular employees. Even though there is no crowd, the ground/stadium staff whom also I don't consider to be part of any bubble still has to work on site. The management people of all sorts are still vulnerable and they might create contact with players or team staff indirectly or even directly. There are many such factors to consider. It's not exactly a fully closed bubble. Also from a household perspective, if one person is infected merely 4-5 more are at risk, but for a bubble the size of an IPL franchise that number goes about 50-60.These families of players are also in a bubble and have gone through the strict process to quarantine and then get into the bubbles. Why would they wear masks when they're in a bubble? Do you wear masks at home everyday?
We dont have to spoon fed our people by showing off that we wear masks even in a bubble. There has to be common sense for people to understand that "in a bubble, you dont wear masks". For e.g. if you are at home with your family, you are in your own private bubble. Every family who have stayed home for more than a year now during this pandemic, have all been in their own private bubbles.
When the PM had announced the first lockdown, there was a powerful messaging attached to it. People listened because it was communicated in a way that it rang alarm bells. Unfortunately, we as a society need a burning hot iron rod put in our rear end to understand the gravity of any situation. I have a friend in health care and my heart aches every time I speak to him. I worry about his mental health and his family every single hour. The PM's latest speech was an absolute and utter joke. It was an extension of every Indian's caller tune basically.
When the moment to hog the limelight was there, the PM was there and now when the fall is upon us, the states have been thrown among the sharks to sink or swim. And this comes from someone who's been a supporter of the current government and it's leader.