In my last article, I talked about the flawed logic of having icons in the IPL teams as players who were mostly un-suited to this form of the game even if considered crowd pullers in India. Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag, Yuveraj and Laxman (who later backed out of being an icon) would be enough to pull in the crowds for a test match or an ODI but if proceedings until now are any indication, not all of them would automatically do the same in the 20-20 format in future. The crowds would come in to see the big hits and misses, to swing and sway with the cheer leaders, to shout their lungs out during the 2 odd hours the match lasts, but with time, they would not come in just to watch the icons; the other players who are not icons are providing much more value for money.

When the IPL teams were formed initially, with the IPL organizers already having decided upon the icon concept, and the franchise owners not really having a choice on that score, the owners faced a risk of counting pennies and losing the pounds if they fought against the icon concept. With the icon players automatically getting a percentage over the highest paid player in the respective team, the investment in the team icon is huge but if the bigger business plans of the franchises came through, the money could still be easily recovered. So the franchises put in their monies, and smiled as the icons got their million dollar cheques irrespective of not actually having been bid for.

It was a risk the franchises had to take keeping in mind the market they were operating in. India would not have forgiven or forgotten if the likes of Ishant Sharma, Andrew Symonds and Brett Lee had walked away with the big contracts. In our country, it would be an insult to the "services rendered to the country" by the big guns like Dravid, Tendulkar and Ganguly if they didn't have their bank accounts stuffed with money every time there was a cricket match. In the auction which was gleefully projected by the BCCI mandarins (a.k.a. bigmouths) as the first market driven valuation of the cricketers, the biggest pay cheques were reserved for those who were protected from that free market valuation. So typical!

Today when more than half of the first season of the IPL is over, the icons have done nothing to prove themselves worthy of the huge investment. Tendulkar has sat out most of the tournament, and Ganguly has had more bowling success than in batting. Yuveraj glittered briefly in the beginning and Laxman is sitting out the later half of the tournament. The only two among the big names to have glittered on the field more than a bit are Sehwag and Dravid. Sehwag has mixed blazing knocks with damp squibs but that is to be expected in 20-20 and for that reason, he has probably been the best icon to date specially considering the team he helped select. Dravid has probably surprised everybody, including himself, with his batting in this form of the game but he will probably be stuck with the stigma of having selected the only test team in the 20-20 tournament.

Laxman can probably produce a 281 against Australia in tests which Rohit Sharma might not be capable of today, and Tendulkar will always remain a darling of the masses irrespective of age or score. What would be interesting to watch in the future is how the franchise owners handle their icons. In this first season, I didn't expect anything else but glassy smiles, back pats and votes of confidence in the teams, including icons, by the franchises. In the future though, when the balance sheets are tallied and the return on investment analysis done, as they will be done eventually in a game that is today more business than cricket, the market driven valuations will give a more realistic picture of the true valuations of the players. Players will be traded, and some others might be paid off as a bad investment, some others upgraded to highlight their value and that is when the icons will be judged; the free market will some day catch up with them.