21
2008
Two years ago, if someone had told me that the Washington Redskin cheerleaders would come to India to cheer for a cricket team, I would've scoffed, if not choked, at the idea. But no thought, it seems, is too far-fetched in the new India.
On the 19th of April, the newly formed Indian Premier League (IPL), which boasts the world's best players in its eight cricket teams, kicked off in Bangalore, India. And right there on the grounds, were the Washington Redskin cheerleaders bobbing about in all their glory, much to the delight of the merry spectators. The women were flown in to cheer for the Bangalore Royal Challengers, a team belonging to Mr. Vijay Mallaya - India's airline and liquor tycoon, known as much for his business ventures as for his flamboyant yacht-owning-island-hopping lifestyle.
India has always been crazy about cricket - once described by comedian Robin Williams as "basically baseball on valium" - a funny but inaccurate definition of the delightful game. Even before its new avatar - called the 20-20 cricket, a much shorter and thus more energetic version of the game - cricket had the ability to bring India to a standstill. Such was, and still is, the power of the game that if a match promises to be exciting, such as an India-Pakistan one, then the entire country does nothing except sit in front of the TV biting their nails. Employees call in sick, shopkeepers bring down the shutters, children skip homework and housewives abandon the kitchens.
It is no surprise then that the game has now been taken to an entirely different level, especially financially - unimaginable even about a year ago. And it's all happened with the forming of The Indian Premier League - think NBA - that consists of eight teams. They're backed by the rich and famous of India, many of them Bollywood bigwigs, the most famous one being Shah Rukh Khan - a mega-mega movie star like Tom Cruise.
Though this is an entirely new concept in Indian sport, especially in cricket, what makes this particularly unprecedented is the amount of money that's flying around. Be it player fees of more than a million dollars each, for some, or selling of website rights for $50 million, it boggles the mind. This is, after all, still a developing nation that not many would have thought capable of spending such astrominical amounts to lure the world's best players into its realm.
And yet, that's what has happened. The crème-de-la-crème of international cricket have turned up on IPL's doorstep and are now in India playing the six week long series that of fifty-nine matches, while the Washington Redskin cheerleaders do their jigs. The cheerleaders, apart from providing the glam in the game will apparently train some chosen Indian women on cheerleading, so the ritual - and one assumes, the excitement - can be carried on after they've left.
India has changed, we all know that, but yet it was a little surreal to be watching the opening ceremony and the first game of the IPL. Cricket will probably never be the same again.
Mr. Williams should probably consider revising his definition of the game.