"The IPL (Indian Premier League) is two days away - and you've experienced it and how for 11 years as a player. This time around you're going to be commentating in the IPL. But could you start by telling me, in the world, is IPL truly the centre piece of cricket as we think it is in India?"
News18 anchor Shivani Gupta kickstarted the Rising Bharat 2024 session on Cricket Insiders with this question, addressed to South African cricketer AB de Villiers, among the most successful batters in the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) from 2011-21 when he announced his retirement from the league.
AB de Villier's response should come as no surprise to fans who can hardly wait for the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) which starts this Friday with a star-studded opening ceremony featuring Akshay Kumar and AR Rahman, among others. And then a star-studded match featuring Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
His response: "It certainly is (the centre piece)! It's grown from strength to strength over the years. It's not only the biggest cricket league in the world, I think it's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world."
What AB de Villiers, Brett Lee, Aakash Chopra, Anjum Chopra said about the Indian Premier League
The Cricket Insiders session on Day 2 of Rising Bharat had many highlights, including AB de Villiers and Brett Lee humming songs like "Yeh Dosti" from the 1975 Bollywood film Sholay. The conversation flowed from topics like the significance of IPL in the world of cricket today, and IPL 2024 title predictions.
AB de Villiers said: "We've seen the IPL really explode over the last few years. The performances the players put in really make them household names. And some of the foreigners coming over here get to understand a bit more about the Indian culture, and they also become household names over here. It's a great opportunity for players. And not only players, but administrators and everyone to get involved."
Brett Lee began the session by greeting audiences with a "Namaste, aap kaise ho?", calling India "my second country". Lee said: "The thing that the Indian Premier League has done is it's brought a lot of different cultures closer together. My first couple of years I was playing for the Kings XI (Punjab Kings), and seeing how different guys prepare - you've got guys from South Africa obviously, players from India, from all over the world - and just from the preparations they go through, I think it's brought the cricket nations a lot closer together. When we play at the national scale, that camaraderie is still there. That passion, that aggression is still there, but it (the camaraderie) just transcends, and actually finds a way to take the angst out of the game. And that's what the Indian Premier League has done. It gets better and better and better."
Former India player and Hindi IPL commentator Aakash Chopra said in response to a question about the T20 format eating into the popularity of longer formats, and money incentives to players to play more Test cricket: "This (T20) was a threat way back in 2008 when IPL launched, and I was a sceptic then too... but (the three formats) have coexisted... On JioCinema and Sports18, we were covering the Test series (India-England five Test series) that just got over... absolute top draw... keenly contested... two quality teams going at each other. Yes, it (Test cricket) is under a bit of pressure, but pressure is good."
Anjum Chopra, responding to a question about the recently concluded Women's Premier League and its popularity, said that "some of the best cricket played at the global level, we have surpassed those numbers".
A former India cricketer Anjum Chopra also shared an anecdote about travelling in a taxi where the driver was listening to the IPL commentary in Bhojpuri. She said that having the content available in multiple languages had made a huge difference to how audiences consume and enjoy the IPL. Because at the end of the day, "it's serious for the cricketers who are playing, but for viewers it is entertainment".
Anjum and former RCB batter AB de Villiers also expressed hope that the men's RCB team will "join the party" now that the women's team has won their league. "It's meant to be for the guys," de Villiers said. "I really do believe we can win it - we will win it. Sport is a funny thing. Cricket is not predictable - otherwise it would have been boring. The women's team have broken the shackles, and I think once RCB have one win, there are going to be several wins back-to-back."
Brett Lee's prediction: "RCB have a very good chance this year!" He said he had based his IPL 2024 winner prediction on the squads list of all 10 teams.
RCB start their IPL 2024 campaign with the inaugural match on Friday, March 22, at 8pm.
CSK vs RCB head-to-head: 5 reasons why the first IPL 2024 match is a must-watch
Indeed, CSK and RCB embody so many reasons why the IPL has grown - as AB de Villiers said - "from strength to strength" since 2008. Here are five reasons why we are counting down the minutes to 8 pm on Friday, March 22:
1. A Chennai Super Kings match is the only place you can see former India skipper MS Dhoni in action now. His helicopter shot and wicketkeeping are legendary. Dhoni is 42. And though he hasn't said anything about retiring from IPL, every IPL season with the man from Ranchi now feels like it could be the last.
2. A CSK - RCB face-off is also an opportunity to see MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli on opposite sides. While CSK have won IPL titles five times, RCB Men are yet to open their account. Perhaps what will ignite RCB's desire to change that even more is that RCB Women have this month emerged winners in the second edition of the Women's Premier League - two cups are obviously better than one. Virat Kohli returned from London after the birth of his son, to lead RCB in the IPL.
3. Orange Cap holder Virat Kohli has hit over 7,200 IPL runs (7,263, to be exact) - 646 runs more than the next top run scorer Shikhar Dhawan (Punjab Kings). He missed the India - England Test series from January - March, and this is the first we'll of him on a cricket ground since the India vs Afghanistan T20I in Bengaluru on January 17, 2024.
4. CSK and RCB have faced off 31 times in the IPL; CSK has won 20 of these matches. Especially on Chennai's home ground MA Chidambaram Stadium, CSK have dominated, winning 87.5 percent of the time. Friday's match will be played at the 38,000-seater MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai's Triplicane area. If RCB can engineer an upset here, it should give them a massive boost in the early league matches.
5. New players on both sides will add to the drama. On the Chennai Super Kings team, all-rounder Rachin Ravindra will make his IPL debut. The New Zealander came into the global limelight during the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup, with batting figures of 578 runs across 10 matches. He's only played 20 T20Is from 2021-24, amassing 214 runs across 20 matches and a highest score of 68. He also took 11 wickets and 10 catches across these 20 matches.
Among the RCB camp, there's excitement around West Indies bowler Alzarri Joseph - Joseph has 92 Test wickets across 32 matches; 111 wickets across 68 ODI matches; and 35 wickets across 22 T20Is. Joseph has fifers across all three formats. He made his IPL debut in 2019 with the Mumbai Indians, and played with the Gujarat Titans before coming to the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the December 2023 IPL auction for Rs 11.50 crore. The other new players in the Bengaluru franchise are Yash Dayal, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Swapnil Singh and Saurav Chauhan.
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