The New League in Town

Did you too happen to come across the new Kapil Dev advert being telecast on TV these days?

The captain of the WC triamphant Indian Cricket team of the 1983 is upto something, and this something seems to be big. Earlier around a year before the IPL (Indian Premier League) was announced, Kapil Dev was the face of ICL (Indian Cricket League), an idea that had the potential to transform how the players in the domestic arena were treated in comparision to their counterparts playing for the National team. Though, ICL couldn't take up for good, for too long, this new thing by Kapil Dev seems to be reassuring us of something like that. Or is it?

I came across a couple more of the adverts for this Ek Nayi League with the legendary cricketer seen promoting the very idea of this new league. He can be seen referring to Dhoni (Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the current captain of the Indian Cricket Team for ODI's). Watching this video alone gives one the impression that this is again something related to cricket, someone trying to ride the popularity of cricket bandwagon in the country. But then when I checked out more videos, it became apparent that this is not exactly about cricket alone, as he can be seen talking to Sania Mirza, the Woman Tennis star of the country, appreciating her play. In one more videos, he mentions a number of top sportspersons who earn a handsome from their careers as sportspersons, and in stark contrast, lots of young talented players here in India couldn't even get to showcase their talents, let alone earning money they couldn't even spend.

And one final video refers to Kapil Sharma, the overnight star of the Indian Standup Comedy scene, more lovingly called as Bittu by his pet name. He also appreciates Kapil Sharma, saying he too is his fan. Like in other videos, he calls in Kapil Sharma too to follow his twitter account, to know more about this new league.

MY TAKE: In all the videos, one thing is common, the legendary cricketer is talking about the state of Indian sports and Indian sportpersons, most of whom can't even get to reach the start line, calling in known and some of the other star attractions of different sports in India, M.S. Dhoni, Sania Mirza to name a few. Understandably, Kapil Sharma has nothing to do with sports, but then owing to his huge popularity, Kapil Sharma too has been made a part of this new league, apparently to grab people's attention, and to add the element of humour to the idea, due to the soaring popularity of Kapil Sharma, a.k.a. Bittu. Could it be a yet another cricket league, of the likes of IPL or CCL (Celebrity Cricket League) or the BCL (Box Cricket League)? Or could it be something different?

The impressions at this point of time appear to be something of the sorts of/on the format of National Games, or the Olympics (if I should quote a much easily recognisable term). Could it be? Could it not be? We will have to wait to know more. In the meantime, the team has launched the website as well. People are being motivated to connect with them, and for this, they have announced a contest on their website www.eknayileague.com wherein, people have to guess what this is all about and if they do that correctly, they stand a chance to win 1 lakh rupees.