Book: Not Out: The Incredible Story of the Indian Premier LeagueAuthor: Desh Gaurav SekhriPublishers: Penguin243 pages

For the last nine years now, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has had people eating out if its palms. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has seen tumultuous but opulent times, courtesy the IPL. Cynics have often wondered how or why the IPL is still around and manages to attract eyeballs and interest from fans, advertisers and broadcasters. Lawyer Desh Gaurav Sekhri answers many of these questions in Not Out: The Incredible Story of The Indian Premier League.

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It's not easy to have a balanced opinion on the IPL, but Sekhri does a remarkable job, much to his credit. In many places in the book, you get a sense that, perhaps, Sekhri isn't an IPL fan. He calls it a "regrettable necessity" but is quick to lavish praise on it as well.Sekhri pieces together all the major incidents and controversies – and there have been many – that have dogged the IPL since its inception in 2007. Issues like conflict of interest and spot fixing get more than ample attention. Sekhri is scathing in his assessment of how BCCI has handled the IPL. He hits with a straight bat while talking of BCCI's many fallacies – lack of transparency, bullying tactics, little foresight, etc.The earlier books on IPL focused on controversies and scandals without going into the details. What sets Sekhri's book apart is that he points out what and why things went wrong, and how they can be improved. But he does not touch on the salacious controversies and gossip surrounding the IPL.What the book also does – perhaps unintentionally – is make you think about the psyche of the Indian cricket fan. Here's a league run by people who perhaps care more about money than the sport. Sekhri makes one important critique of the IPL: that it hasn't done much to develop cricket at the grassroots level. "What is baffling is how easy it would have been for the IPL to make a real difference in expanding and developing grass-roots cricket in India above and beyond merely monetising it at the highest level," he writes. "At no point was any effort made to centrally create a development league so as to farm and develop youngsters." This is a pertinent point that gets you wondering whether there is any genuine talent the IPL has produced.IPL's finances, we all know, are anything but transparent. Sekhri deals with the business side of IPL in quite some detail. We can say with some accuracy that matches have been fixed in the IPL and that a lot of money has also exchanged hands through betting on IPL. The brain behind the tournament – Lalit Modi – is on the run and lives in exile. A cabinet minister lost his job because of his involvement in IPL. The quality of cricket isn't really something to brag about. Sekhri though says that the IPL is single-handedly responsible for the popularity of the shortest format of the game.It's astounding how cricket fans in India fell hook, line and sinker for this unoriginal concept. Sekhri's book will tell you in detail how the IPL is a giant success and a massive failure on several levels. While he may not have set out to write this book as a commentary on the Indian cricket fan, it certainly reads like that. The IPL is here to stay and more than fans, perhaps interested parties in IPL will take a lot from Not Out: The Incredible Story of The Indian Premier League.As long as you keep the fans entertained, it really doesn't matter what's happening behind the scenes. The Indian cricket fan only cares about bang for buck and the IPL has been unequivocally providing that for the last nine years – perhaps the only thing it has been good at.