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.

West Indian batting star and Bangalore Royal Challenger-to-be Shivnarine Chanderpaul had a great 2007 by any measure. He averaged 111 with the bat in Tests, and 76 in one-dayers, where his output included four centuries. A worthy winner, it would seem, of the West Indies Players Association's awards for Test player of the year, ODI player of the year and West Indian International Cricketer of the Year.

Chanderpaul collected all three major awards at the WIPA's annual gong show in Trinidad on Sunday night. One thing, though. On Saturday he turned out for Guyana at the start of a four-day Carib Beer Series game against the Windward Islands at Providence Stadium. Chanders had a good afternoon at the crease. At the end of play on Saturday he was 78 not out, sharing an unbeaten 151-run stand with his captain, Travis Dowlin.

And then on Saturday night, he packed his bags and flew to Port-of-Spain. Without telling his team management.

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.

New Zealand flogged England in the First Test on Sunday. England were set 300 for victory, but just couldn't quite get there, all out for 110. Ryan Sidebottom's hat-trick was in vain, as was Aussie Tim Ambrose's debut first innings half-century.

But hang on a tic? Wasn't New Zealand cricket supposed to be on its way down the tubes having lost all its best talent to the Icicle?

A thirty-year phase of cricketing history came to an end at the Gabba tonight. The triangular one-day international series had long past its use-by date, and was finally being put out of its misery. But instead of ending with a whimper, it went out with an unexpected bang. India completed a 2-0 clean-sweep of the best-of-three finals series against Australia to win the 2008 Commonwealth Bank Series.

OK class, repeat after me:
"Monkey is not a racist word in Australia."

It's not, in general. There is, however, a long history of "monkey" being used as a term of racial derision in Britain and continental Europe against people of African or Caribbean heritage, most prominently on the football field. Andrew Symonds, born in Birmingham of Jamaican parents, and an immigrant to Australia as a child, comes into this category.

Whatever clowning about Harbhajan Singh was up to at the SCG on Sunday afternoon, it may have been stirring, or it may have been answering back to the crowd. Or it may have been nothing at all. Certainly ICC match referee Jeff Crowe was not interested.

And neither should we be.

In the 1980's, VHS beat Betamax. Just a couple of weeks ago, Bluray was victorious over HD-DVD. Who will be the winner between the IPL and the ICL? One thing that has become clear this week is that the Indian Cricket League is not ready to roll over and die... yet.

Not content with picking up the crumbs of recently-retired Test cricketers, the Icicle seems to be either pouncing on players as soon as they retire, or maybe coaxing them into "retirement".

Today, Jason Gillespie, the only Australian batsman to score a Test double-hundred against Bangladesh, announced that he is retiring from first-class cricket in Australia at the conclusion of the current Pura Cup game between South Australia and Queensland.