'Bollywood' game lacks spice

There have been so many scare stories since the IPL was launched. The biggest nonsense appeared in a responsible British newspaper which announced that the future of cricket had now begun.

In fact, cricket's future was launched not in India a fortnight ago but five years back in dear old England when Twenty20 was introduced to county cricket.

As we all know, it was an instant hit and the concept has been a huge success all over the world ever since, including the IPL - though this was only after a late start and only having been reluctantly forced into action by the formation of a rebel league.

In the past five years, the debate has focused on how Twenty20 cricket should be controlled and managed, and there is no doubt that the introduction of the IPL has intensified that discussion. Money talks and, in truth, it was only the scale of the players' salaries that stood the clash I witnessed between the Chennai Superkings and the Mumbai Indians apart from any of the other Twenty20 games I have watched.

The cricket was the same, albeit in humidity so intense that it was impossible to watch through the fugged-up press box window, and the huge salaries offered to the best players in the world will ensure they keep coming back. The IPL will not go away.

Nor should it. Much to the relief of England's cricketers, whose absence from this tournament is so glaring.

Kevin Pietersen and Co will be watching on television, however, no doubt green with envy and preparing for a battle with the England Cricket Board which they will inevitably win.

Some critical questions were answered during my visit to India, not least how the traditionally partisan Indian spectators would take to Matthew Hayden, now playing for Chennai.

Only a couple of months ago, Hayden described Harbhajan Singh - one of India's idols, at least before he slapped international team-mate Sree Sreesanth last weekend - as "an obnoxious little weed".

But how they cheered Hayden as he lined up against Harbhajan again and smeared him massively over long-off.

Indians are capable, after all, of adopting foreigners, and even supporting them over one of their own (with the possible exception of Sachin Tendulkar), thus burying one of the IPL's most serious concerns.

Hayden had a surprise for us, too, acknowledging that this experience might give him and his Australian colleagues a different, more sympathetic understanding of the mindset of Indian cricketers. Following such an ugly Test series between the two countries, that has to be a good thing.

The IPL is far from perfect. The tournament, which has four days more cricket than the inter-minable World Cup in the Caribbean last year, will be a test of everybody's patience and stamina, not least the poor dancing girls who would have been the least impressed of everyone that last Wednesday's match overran by 45 minutes and finished just before midnight.

There is muttering within traditional circles here that such displays are unseemly and unnecessary.

It is true that in order to succeed, the cricket has to be the draw rather than the Bollywood actors who, like trend-seeking politicians, are lining up to be spotted at India's latest craze.

It would help considerably, too, if the television coverage within India transformed itself into something even barely watchable to the cricket fan. Crammed with the same, monotonous adverts which cut off the commentary in mid-sentence, the coverage lacks objectivity, possibly due to the same pressure described to me by Indian journalists who feel unable to criticise the IPL because their accreditation would be taken away.

The moment when one of the television commentators openly, and in vision, plugged one of the sponsor's soft drinks plumbed new depths.

But the real point is where cricket goes from here. There seems little doubt that the International Cricket Council are becoming increasingly powerless - if that were possible.

Now that the IPL has been sanctioned, the danger is that Twenty20 tournaments will be springing up all over the place and this is why cricket will have to take a new turn. The writing is on the wall for the 50-overs game, which is now dull and predictable and has had its day.

What everyone has to avoid is that same observation, one day, being made of Twenty20.

Over-exposure would guarantee its swift demise, not least because it lacks real substance. Twenty20 cricket is light relief; a good night out.

It is crass and irresponsible to attach any more importance to it than that. But it is here to stay and needs to be embraced within the framework of traditional Test cricket to preserve and protect both forms of the game.

Jonathan Agnew's encounter with the Indian Premier League, buffalo carts and recalcitrant children can be seen on BBC1's Inside Sport, next Monday, 11.20pm.