I assume the IPL is going from strength to strength in India?
Definetly think it's lost interest in England - I've barely seen a ball this year and see no general chat about it at all, even with quite a few of our lads going well.
Yes - it’s a proper league now. Local support is huge. I think there are a couple of things that still are off. One is that we get too much player-centric support.. like Chennai gets supported massively in away venues because of Dhoni. It’ll be interesting to see how the next generation of players are supported. I hope Virat, Rohit and Dhoni are the last of the celeb-players.
The other is that it’d be good for teams to retain the same players. The big auctions happen every 4 years and a bunch of teams get completely new identities. The ones which have retained their team players over a long time look like more serious teams. What this does well, though, is the league itself feels very competitive because the worst team can just release everyone and form a new team.
The league itself is very professionally run now. Dinesh Karthik was on a podcast and he spoke about how Mumbai Indians run things: players contracted to Mumbai Indians can contact them any time of the year for practise and Mumbai will arrange all facilities - net bowlers, balls, including renting out an entire stadium, flight tickets, accommodation - for a single player. There are also A team tours(Mumbai Indians sent a bunch of kids out to England to play some county teams in unofficial games.. likes of Tilak Varma, Brevis).