What is the difference between Winners and Losers?
Mar 21st, 2008 | By Aditya | Category: Analysis and Speculation, Top Stories
Do you remember the scenes from the winning moments of the Twenty20 world cup? Team India was overjoyed! And it was obvious that they really really wanted to win. For national pride, for the prize money, for all the glory and most importantly, to improve their own chances of being in the next match!
Cut to the Twenty20 Championship. Will the players experience the same desire to win? Or will they just play for the sake of it, already knowing that the ton of money they received in the bank is making them interest? You might dismiss my view as cynical, but follow me down this question: What is the difference between winners and losers? Its not very clear in the case of the IPL!
Starting with the icon players - How will bad performance affect their position in the team? It seems to have been taken for granted that they will be wanted by the crowd, but why will they want to give their heart and soul? The IPL also has a bunch of rules regarding how many international, U-19 and local cachement players can play at a time, and this kind of “quota” system invariably gives rise to “safe-slots” from where existing players cannot be budged.
Also, there is the case of the prize money. The winners will take home $2 million (Rs 8 Crore), but that’s chillar money compared to some of the player’s salaries. It is also not clear who will pocket this money - The franchise or the winning 11 or the entire team? The players are also played per-match, and every team is guaranteed to play 14 matches, with the winning teams playing only 2 extra matches.
All this makes me very skeptical about the motivation that the players will be facing. It seems to me that the only thing they’ll be interested in is being in the playing-11, and that’s a very dangerous situation right there!
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I don’t think motivation will be an issue at all. For one, this is a high profile tournament, going to watched by millions, so player’s own brand value is directly dependent on his performance. Do well and your ad rates will go up like crazy. Also, there is the matter of player trading starting in couple of years. Again, teams will be competing to get the best performers. And thirdly, there is just the desire to win inherent in all high performers.
No, motivation won’t be an issue. We will be seeing them try their hardest to win every match, be assured.
Let’s hope so man!
For the love of God, its LOSERS not LOOSERS!!
Hi Folks(Webmasters):
I’ve been following your posts(for the past few weeks) and find the stuff very interesting. Congrats on the content.
But, I must point out that some of the work published on this site needs really good proof reading and content realisation. Good marks to lead readers to other references et al.
Like a comment above its very disgruntling to find errors on the title of the post.
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