Sky Sports.com

Who needs football?... We've got IPL

Skysports.com's Phil Jackson soaks up the hype and the hysteria that is the Indian Premier League...

It's a real privilege as a cricket fan coming here because these people love the game and are still pretty much untouched by the influence of football.

Everywhere you go you see the Indian players worshipped like gods and it seems impossible to find a place where they don't feel passionate about the game.

Even taking a camel ride in the desert of Rajasthan, literally out in the middle of nowhere, I was not safe. My precocious young guide spoke very little English and yet still managed to muster the taunt, 'Yuvraj (Singh)...six sixes...(Stuart) Broad'. Ho ho ho, we did laugh. Needless to say I gave the little tyke some running practice by stealing his camel, so it was pretty much honours even I'd say.

Inside the cities, the faces of India's cricketers adorn every street corner. Television channels and billboards are everywhere, from the old guard and players like Sachin Tendulkar to the new hero Mahendra Singh Dhoni, it seems there is nothing they won't advertise.

Over here, they've even superimposed ailing former captain Rahul Dravid into the Gillette advert with Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Thierry Henry - such is the esteem these players are held in.

Somewhat dubiously dubbed 'cricket-tainment' by the media, the IPL dominates talk across the land, whether it be the inane punditry on how best to approach this abbreviated format of the game, or the street scammers looking for a way to distract you while they rifle through your pockets.

Anticipation

So it was with a great sense of anticipation that I headed for Jaipur to see Shane Warne's Rajashthan Royals take on Dhoni's Chennai Super Kings in a top of the table clash at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.

If you've ever seen India play around the world you'll know that their supporters can be a pretty rowdy lot, but this was something else.

Charged up by the pre-match Bollywood show and the scantily clad American cheerleaders - which have caused quite a stir in this country where arranged marriage is still the norm - Rajasthan hit the ground running.

While admiring the view and munching on a giant popodom, I watched as The Royals, and in particular Pakistani seamer Sohail Tanvir, ripped through the Super Kings batting line-up.

Each new batsman was treated with derision by the partisan home crowd, all that is except for Dhoni whose arrival at the crease was greeted with chanting and cheering.

That didn't stop their rapturous celebrations when he was dismissed just three balls later though, and Warney was winning the war.

Despite the banning of alcohol inside the ground the crowd got even more noisy as the second stanza got under way, with a dancing spectator keeping the crowd amused with his mixture of Bollywood thrusts and Michael Jackson's moonwalk as Rajasthan eased to victory.

Though the game had not been the 'thriller' I had hoped for, Delhiite Parveen Kumar enthusiastically explained on our way back to the hustle and bustle of the city: "The cheap prices for these games (starting at around £1.20) have made watching live cricket much more accessible for the people. The game is India's lifeblood and we don't need football because we have the IPL!"

Debate

And yet still the debate in the Indian press rages on between the purists and the T20 advocates. I, for one, cannot see how the Indian cricket team could fail to benefit from the tournament, but homegrown critics like Mukul Kesavan continue to bemoan the format for its celebrity presence and mindless fans.

I, on the other hand, would prefer to side with Times of India journalist Ronojoy Sen, who insists that "these venerable critics must accept that T20 is a different beast to Test cricket and much more suited to the needs of modern life.

"It is too early to predict the future but both the hoi polloi and purists will surely be drawn to Test match cricket as a result and that can't be bad for the game."

With that I'm off to test out my iron stomach on some local cuisine. Namaste!