By a delicious coincidence, India’s latest blockbuster releases on a Friday. And like all releases, the hype has reached a crescendo, masking as it does the uncertainty in the producer’s gut. Make no mistake, it is there. You can bank on your assets, minimise your risks and yet, there is always something left undone. And in the end, performance has to speak for itself. So let us get ready for the performances.

And yet, it would be unfair to compare the Indian Premier League to a Friday release where fortunes are made and lost in the first three days. This is more like a brand launch, to be assessed at the end of the season, for commitments are in place for much longer. Few brands get it right the first time; and when the horizon is ten years, the first year becomes a learning phase rather than a do-or-die shootout.

But for the first time, the eyes of the world will be on India. Will it have as much of an impact as Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket did? Will it be bigger? Thirty years from now, will Friday the 18th of April be seen as a defining moment in the history of the game? A lot of people are watching from the sidelines, waiting to see what happens before they make their first move.

In England the players will be seeing how much they have lost, and thereby strengthen their case for playing with the world’s best. There is no secret about which side they are on and there is fear that somebody in England will seize the moment and begin a breakaway league. It could work and it may not. It may not because there isn’t the same amount of money and passion going around, but who is to stop a world league of Twenty20 led by the Indian Cricket League? England is the crucible at the moment and the administration has to act quickly. Either they set up their own league, or alter the season to accommodate the IPL, or risk losing players elsewhere. I believe we are not too far from a re-alignment of traditional cricket in England; certainly at least as far as a Twenty20 tournament is concerned.

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