So the Chennai Super Kings beat the Mumbai Indians by 22 runs to lift the Indian Premier League (IPL) title. Am I the only one completely uninspired by that news? No, I don’t think I am…

Somewhere there's a big, fat cheque too.

We’ve said this before, but the Twenty20 version of cricket is an exciting, entertaining and audience friendly one, but, as someone once said, it’s just not cricket. Not to the purist, the traditionalist at least, and I put myself among their number.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun but it’s not a Test match or even a one dayer. And the English media seem to agree.

Coverage of the lucrative, Asian-based tournament has been sparse. The BBC report on it online, with only the occasional mention on radio. The newspapers, broadsheets and tabloids alike, dedicate only a few column inches to it now and then. TV, Sky Sports News (who have hours to fill and belong to a broadcaster that actually shows it) aside, doesn’t consider it worthy a mention at all.

The only reason it gets a mention over here is because some of England’s big names head over there to earn substantially more than they do playing for their Counties or their country each year. The likes of Pietersen and Collingwood make a nice living from it and fair play to them – if it’s on offer, grab it!

But in the wider context of the game it means little. Twenty20 itself doesn’t receive as much coverage as Test and one day cricket, so a Twenty20 tournament based on the other side of the world is always going to struggle to capture the English imagination.

Launched in a blaze of glory just a few years ago it did briefly garner interest. The amount of money involved and its novelty value saw to that. But since then it has gradually dropped off the radar.

Indeed, the biggest news story to come out of this year’s tournament centres around corruption – hardly the sort of coverage the game needs. Match fixing, betting scandals and money laundering…is that what the IPL is all about? If so, you can take it, thank you very much.

The players themselves seem intent that the tournament will continue, however, and why wouldn’t they, given what they get paid? Paul Collingwood defended the IPL, saying:

“Whatever happens, the IPL will continue. I’ve never been approached or felt I’ve been close to being approached. But I don’t want to be involved with anything like that – whether it be for England, playing for counties or the IPL. I would hate to think that anybody in my team would even come close to something like that.

“I guess there will be allegations floating around in the next few weeks. But I hope cricket doesn’t take a battering because of it. We don’t want cricket going down that route.”

No, we don’t. But surely there’s no smoke without fire in this case? Tax officials have already searched the offices of IPL teams Kolkata Knight Riders, Chennai Super Kings, Deccan Chargers, Kings XI and a new, as yet unnamed team.

Even if it turns out that there has been no wrongdoing, does cricket really need this type of press? Just for the sake of one money-spinning tournament?

NO. It does NOT. As far as this commentator is concerned, cricket did very well without the IPL and would do just fine without it in the future. Cricket doesn’t need the IPL. The players don’t really need the IPL, they are well paid already. The English media don’t care about the IPL, which suggests the English public don’t care about the IPL either.

The only good thing about the IPL

The only reason it exists is money and unless we want cricket to go down the same route as football – except, it seems, via a much dodgier route – then the IPL should be scrapped.

Congratulations and everything to Chennai, I’m sure they’re all very proud of their achievement and possibly rightfully so, but over here we don’t give a damn and I doubt that the fact neither of the finalists had an Englishman in their sides made any difference.

I will say this though…the cheerleaders are nice.