The Fuck is an Indian Premier League?

As someone who had to figure out pretty much everything about cricket, there was very little I found more perplexing that the club/country conundrum.

Following soccer, I was very aware of the concept of national teams meaning a great deal to people.  But even then, there are many people that are club over country, hell I'm one.  Coming into cricket, and finding out that players are with the national team a crap ton amount of time, and a lot time times, might barely play for a club team was unbelievably confusing.  Not only that, looking at players' Wikipedia pages, a lot of them played for more than one club team during the same years!  What the shit is this?

I'd definitely heard of the Indian Premier League, leading up to its beginning a few weeks ago.  But of course, being a new cricket obsessive like I was, I wanted to read as much about it as I could.  The team names seemed a bit arbitrary and as it turns out, they sorta are.  In my few months watching, Twenty20 had been my least favorite form of the game, because there really didn't appear to be any strategy in it.  But I tuned in anyway, because it's cricket, and I needed my fix.

I decided I would root for King's XI Punjab, because they had Adam Gilchrist, and he was someone who I loved reading about and watching YouTube videos of in my primitive stages of learning.

So, I tuned in for a few games, and very much did enjoy the actual gameplay, but the whole thing is just, I dunno, arbitrary.  I can understand being Indian and supporting your hometown team, but as someone who is from America, I just can't get into it.  I'll still check in and see some scores and how some of the players I know are performing, can't say that I can truly get into this.  Get back to me in the later stages, IPL.

Why?

That's a good question.  Why would an American kid from Northeastern Pennsylvania write a cricket blog? 

Well, the story doesn't start off too long ago.  Back in November, I sat around my house messing around on my laptop. One of the windows I had open was Twitter.  Being that I'm a massive fan of soccer, specifically the English Premier League and Aston Villa, I followed many members of the English media.  It just so happened that on that November night was the beginning of The Ashes for 2010-2011 in Australia.  I had nothing better to do, so I though I'd check it out. 

By the time I'd shut down my computer that night I was hooked.  The strategy.  The strangeness of the referral system.  Trying to find out what the fuck an lbw was.

After watching all of The Ashes, several assorted ODIs, a few Twenty20s, and the World Cup, the sport of cricket has a new American obsessive.  I've grown a dislike of the Indian team.  I've grown a love for the Aussies.  I've grown a man-crush on Brett Lee.  I've laughed as South Africa choked.  Went nuts for Ireland's win over England.  Been sad for Pakistan.   Snickered at the name 'Morne Morkel.' But most of all, I've learned to love a fucktardly complicated sport.  Long live cricket!