The Indian Premier League (IPL) Season-4 auction conducted in January has already brought IPL4 into news even before the yearly event starts in April 2011. IPL4 has already become an international headline. The ‘twitter’ world was full of IPL news during the two days making many wonder about what IPL actually is. The high auction prices for newcomers such as Umesh Yadav ($0.75million) on one hand and only the base price for well-known Australian cricketer Shaun Tait ($0.3million) generated a lot of talk. Players like Gautam Gambhir ($2.4million) and the Pathans ($4million) were the most expensive ones. Among the foreign players, an unknown face, Daniel Christian got a whopping $900,000. There were more surprises for other well-known faces with Saurav Ganguly, Brian Lara and Sanath Jayasuriya remaining unsold.

With almost $75million spent on these players by the owners of the 10 teams, the IPL4 auction showed how money changes hands in cricket today and how favorable it can be to the Indian economy.  Even the IPL2 auctions that happened during the economic recession of 2009 showed India’s economic strength, a visualization of stability, which India enjoyed during that phase. This even prompted the then President of IPL Mr. Lalit Modi to say, “Where is the recession in India? I can’t find it.” To an extent, it was true and IPL became an example of the growing Indian economy.

Right now, the pattern is set and the time is not far when IPL will be as popular as the English Premier League (EPL) and the Spanish League. This would however, depend upon the easy availability of foreign players and allowing them to play lesser number of international matches during the IPL season. This can happen once IPL receives the calendar spacing in the coming years from ICC.  Given the speed at which IPL is gaining popularity, the day should not be too far away.