Cricket and Election are the two most popular past time of India and when these two collide the world is ready to move heaven and earth to limit the damage. The previous sentence is a pastiche of news bytes I read from various sites which sums up the current situation of IPL. The money and glamor that IPL brings is much debated and scorned topic. But what is mind boggling is organizers insistence on keeping the same time slot as previous year so that viewers can watch it. Or so that media house can get maximum viewership and maximum advertising revenue. IPL is no doubt turning into a media staged event like American Football. In NFL, media has managed to create an aura of staged event and induced addiction so that viewers tune in not for the actual football match but for the program that is aired on particular time. And the extreme of that is Super Bowl where some people watch it just for Super Bowl ads and half time shows. Indian channels' obsession of filling in screen real estate with ads and 5th ball advertisement break has already pi**ed off many viewers. As IPL is drifting more towards Sunday Night Cricket mode, I wont be surprised to see when Punjabs' Brett Lee charges in full speed to bowl and suddenly umpire pops his left hand out, stops him and says "Sorry mate ..we are not on air yet ...you have to do it again ..".
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