The white ball hurtles skywards at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, Hyderabad, on Thursday night. Pity there were so many empty seats. How will the IPL cope if it can't consistently get the crowds in through the gate?

"IPL is now a well established product on TV."

- Kunal Das Gupta, head of Sony TV India, as reported by Business Standard, 20.4.08.

Yes Kunal, a well established product less than 48 hours after its launch. Just one of the many cases of hyperbolics and just plain bollocks accompanying the birth of the Indian Premier League.

Why does the IPL need cheerleaders? Why, oh why, does the IPL need to import cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins? Why, oh why, oh why, do the Kolkata Knight Riders need cheer leaders in garish bright gold wigs, and dancing with their backs to the field of play? Doing a private show for SRK and the gang??

As I write, Delhi are 48 for 1 after six overs against the Deccan Chronicles Chargers, and presumably cruising to victory in Game Seven of the Indian Premier League. There's a lot to observe and a lot to talk about. Lots to blog about over the coming weeks if I have the time and maintain the energy.

I find this a very exciting time, for cricket, for India, for capitalism. It's fantastic to see India take its place at the centre of a sporting universe, much as we look to England for its soccer, much as we look to the United States for its baseball, basketball and gridiron. It's great to see cricket flourish big time outside the straitjacket of nationalism.

One of the joys of having several different formats of the game of cricket is that one can retire more than once. Such is the case of Shane Warne.

His retirement from Test cricket - along with that of Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer - reduced the 2006/07 Ashes into one long farewell tour.

His retirement from ODI cricket was not so well orchestrated. The plan was to retire from one-dayers for Australia at the end of the 2003 World Cup. But that was before he was sprung illegally taking his mum's medication.

Yesterday, Warnie confirmed what we really should have understood for a few months, when Hampshire CCC announced his retirement from first-class cricket, because of his "many other business and charitable activities". The writing was on the wall from the moment he announced his unavailability for Hampshire for the 2008 Twenty20 Cup to play professional poker.

Cricket historians will fiercely debate for years to come whether Warne's retirement from Hampshire to play poker surpasses Phil Tufnell's retirement from Middlesex to appear in "I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here".

I wish I could understand the rules under which the buying of players by the Indian Premier League franchises operates. Meat Market II wrapped up at the Mumbai Hilton yesterday, and I just wonder how and if IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi is making things up as he goes along.

Consider the case of Ashwell Prince who, after being passed in at Meat Market I, was snapped up yesterday. Prince will not be a (Chennai) SuperKing, a (Rajasthan) Royal or a (Bangalore) Royal Challenger, he becomes a Mumbai Indian. But that's not the issue.

Pardon me while my brain explodes...

"What Kapil and the watching millions witnessed was a day that changed cricket forever"

- Jamie Jackson, The Observer, 24.2.08

"The timeless game of cricket may just have changed forever this week."

- Stuart Barnes, The Sunday Times (UK), 24.2.08

"This is the second most important day in world cricket, according to me. The first was in 1994 when the monopoly of Doordarshan came to an end when we won the court case."

- Inderjit Singh Bindra, member of the IPL Governing Committee, discussing the IPL player auction, OutlookIndia.com, 20.2.08

Call me a cynic, but Bindra is not too far off the mark with this self-serving observation.

Discuss.

(Now that I have finally got Captcha working on this website there's no excuse for holding back on the comments.)

It's barely two years since I waxed lyrical on these pages about Ashwell Prince following his attractive 119 in the Sydney Test of 2006. He now has seven Test centuries under his belt, but his Twenty20 stats are almost non-existent.

"Lack of professional expertise in managing a sporting franchise of this magnitude seems to be a glaring gap, especially as a lot of these teams are led by what we call 'casual but rich fans' who are assuming their team will be in the top three."

- Anirban Das Blah, VP Globosport India, from the 3.3.08 edition of Outlook magazine

Today, Victoria were narrow losers in the final of the Australian domestic one-day competition, which this year is sponsored by an automobile with a big carbon footprint. Bowled out for 158 at Bellerive Oval, they lost by one wicket when Tasmania reached a Duckworth-Lewissed target of 131.

Cameron White is the captain of Victoria. Today, White did not bowl. Earlier, he was out first ball, caught by Travis Birt off the bowling of Brad Geeves.

"I'm more IPL savvy. And I'm reading the sports sections more now. My interest in cricket will take time."

- Preity Zinta, co-owner of the Mohali IPL franchise, in an interview with Times of India, 22.2.08