Second time unlucky?

UMPIRE`S POST

The second time is always tricky. Great debuts are often followed by disappointing duds. Citizen Kane, often chosen by film critics as the best film ever, was Orson Welles's first. The rest of his career was marred by lack of funds, interference by incompetent studio bosses and other unfortunate occurrences.

Farhan Akhtar's first, Dil Chahta Hai, remains his best by a long mile. Despite the high productivity of John Grisham, A Time to Kill is acknowledged as his best yet, though The Firm became more popular.

For sportsmen, it's often the second season that makes or breaks them. At the very least, it hones their character and brings them down to mortality. Sunil Gavaskar, who scored four centuries in his debut series, took a while to get the fifth. Sourav Ganguly played like God until the bowlers realised in the second season that he was an earthling when facing fast, short, rising deliveries.

The Indian Premier League has had a stupendous first edition. The challenge is to ward off the second-year blues that would certainly hover next year.

In part, the enthusiasm for IPL can be put down to novelty. The format was new all right, but the scale, glitz and Bollywood's involvement took the breath away. Next year, none of it will be very unusual; be it 18 runs in the first over or Shah Rukh jumping into Shoaib's lap. Will the next edition, too, pull the viewers who are not really cricket watchers?

Second, when will the tournament be held? It has to create its own space on the international calendar. This time, the England players could not participate (and would have surely rued missing their pounds) while many overseas players had to fly back midway. That's not a desirable situation for anyone. Other countries have begun to crave their own Twenty20 league. When will they be played?

Third, the clamour of club versus country will be much louder next year. Players have for long complained of a crammed calendar on the grounds of fatigue and said that they did not get time to recover from injuries. How will they justify playing in one more