I noticed something very interesting the other day. Here’s the list of man-of-the-match awards that have been given for the 7 matches so far.

Sehwag, SR Watson, M Boucher, D Hussey, Mahroof, M Hussey, McCullum

Only one Indian name in the list? Despite the max-of-4-international-player limit, the foreign players seem to be cornering all the limelight? Technically, the international players have a probability of winning the man of the match of 36%, but they’ve won the man-of-the-match 85% of the times. Very worrying.

What can possibly explain this? I think one reason could be that the international players have more at stake and are willing to put in the extra concentration and extra energy to make sure that they will be noticed. The local players are obviously going to be the crowd favorites, and so they have to work extra hard to please the crowds.

Another possible reason is that the IPL has attracted the best-of-the-best international players, and so each team has a very high quality of international players, while the rest of the players are U-19, from Ranji etc… But this doesn’t explain why the Indian superstars are not firing - Yuvraj, Dhoni and company have not gotten very big scores yet.

But I think the real reason is the 4-player-limit itself that is causing this phenomenon. Think about it: There are only 8*4= 32 slots available for international players in the IPL, but 100s of contenders for the limited positions. That means the competition is intense, and the international players all recognize this, and are so willing to take more risks to prove themselves. There is a lot of fame, money and superstardom for the international players if they make it big in the IPL.

The Indian players are protected by a form of reservation. Legally, there are some requirements for picking U-22 players. And then there are crowd-favorite players that will automatically select themselves. Plus there are the icon players that are guaranteed the highest pay in the team.

So, what is my prediction for the rest of the series? I think we’re going to continue to see the international players corner a lion’s share of the action. And if this continues for a long time, the crowds are going to consider them their own heroes instead of the local boys, and that cannot be good for the Indian players. They’d better put their heads down and concentrate on their game now!