"Cricket is my religion. Tendulkar is my God".

I have often bemoaned the never-ending increase in India's population. I don't bother anymore, of course. But the irony is that it is exactly because of that high population that the formation of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has become possible. Ok, I am not going to go on a rant about saving the planet. Instead I want to quickly gloss over a new phenomenon in Indian cricket: Indian cricket fans hoping that International Indian cricketers will lose their wickets easily in IPL matches.

I mean here I am dreading Sachin Tendulkar's expected active participation with his IPL team: the Mumbai Indians. Tendulkar has been on the injury roster for all the 7 or so matches to date that the Mumbai Indians have played in the inaugural season of the IPL. So why am I dreading his active play on Wednesday? Because the Mumbai Indians will be playing against an IPL team I have started supporting: the Chennai Super Kings! When CSK played Kings XI Punjab (and won) this past Saturday, I was overjoyed! I was elated to see KXP Captain Yuvraj Singh, one of my favorite Indian cricketers, lose his wicket so easily after scoring only 2 runs. Such a strange feeling that was...

A lot of these senior Indian players don't perform consistently well in International games (the IPL, despite having star foreign players, is a domestic league). But the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has not replaced some of these inconsistent performers in a long time. This is quite possibly because it is difficult to market the game in the advertising world with relatively unknown talent, such as promising state-level players. So the IPL, which is overseen by the BCCI, is a great way for a lot of these local guys to show off their talent while playing amidst and learning from both International Indian players and foreign stars. So I guess that I am not that confused about the afore-mentioned strange feeling since I can see how the IPL can strongly benefit India's future in International cricket. I am already seeing some of these Indian youngsters being mentioned in news media in Australia, England and elsewhere. If that was one of the original intent of the BCCI, well...hats off to it!