The death of the truly local team?
Vir Sanghvi, in the Hindustan Times , draws parallels between the IPL and the English Premier League, and feels "it’s only a matter of time before all cricket — other than at the national team level — respects only one loyalty: to the best
The foreign players are already here: how strange is it that Shane Warne should be captain of Rajasthan? I’m not sure we’ll ever get to the Premiership’s ratio of 62 per cent foreigners — India has more excellent cricketers than Britain has good football players — but, all over the cricket world, foreign players are dying to play for the IPL because the money is so good. I suspect that the notion of a truly local team is now dead. It may survive for the Ranji Trophy but fewer and fewer people will watch those games.
Ashok Ganguly is an editorial assistant at Cricinfo