Regional Politics Cloud Start of Cricket Season

The Indian Premier League may have revolutionized the economics of cricket by making top players rich beyond any previous dreams, but regional politics continue to hamstring its aspirations to attract the world’s best talent to India.

Kumar Sangakkara batting for the Sri Lankan national team last year. He will lead Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League.

Players from Pakistan, the most consistently successful national team in the Twenty20 format used by the Indian Premier League, have been excluded from the tournament since 2009. Now those from Sri Lanka, runner-up in the past two world championships, face partial exclusion from the tournament this year, which begins Wednesday in Kolkata.

The state government in Tamil Nadu banned matches involving Sri Lankan players and officials, amid anger and rising political tension in the state over alleged human rights violations against Tamils during the Sri Lankan civil war. The Indian state is home to the Chennai Super Kings franchise, champion in 2010 and 2011.

“India is much more than Chennai and Tamil Nadu, and I think the rest of India has been very welcoming of us,” Kumar Sangakkara, a former Sri Lankan national captain, told the Press Trust of India. “Had it been a nation versus nation issue, the Sri Lankan players would not have been here.”

The sixth edition will be offering other usual Indian Premier League features, starting with an elaborate opening ceremony.

Dancing girls, Bollywood stars as owners, six-hits branded with a sponsor’s name as “maximums” and the shuffling of franchises in the off-season remain a constant. Sangakkara will be leading the Sunrisers Hyderabad, successor to the Deccan Chargers.

The format also remains the same. Nine teams will play one another at home and on the road. Once the 72-match regular season is complete, the top four go into a three-match eliminator leading to the final, to be played May 26 at the Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata.

Eden Gardens is where the tournament also starts Wednesday, when the reigning champion Kolkata Knight Riders entertain the Delhi Daredevils. “To become champion is difficult, but to stay on top is still more difficult,” one Kolkata player, Rajat Bhatia, told the Press Trust of India. But, he argued, “having won it has improved our concentration. We know how to tackle it now.”

Much will depend on the West Indian spinner Sunil Narine, the most effective bowler in the 2012 competition, second in the list of wicket-takers and by far the most economical regular bowler.

Delhi, by contrast, is particularly conscious of two players who are not there: the flamboyant England batsman Kevin Pietersen, who is recovering from an operation, and Jesse Ryder of New Zealand, who suffered severe head and lung injuries after being attacked outside a bar in Christchurch last week.

Pietersen “is a big occasion player, and he will certainly be missed,” said veteran Indian batsman Virender Sehwag. “But we have other players who can put their hands up and be counted.”

Hyderabad, which saw the batsman Shikhar Dhawan transformed into a national hero by a brilliant innings of 187 in his five-day test debut for India last month, has the frustration of waiting for him to recover from an ankle injury sustained in the same match.

But the league’s biggest star and leading scorer in the past two seasons, the thunderous West Indian batsman Chris Gayle, should be ready to start for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Mumbai Indians on Thursday.

Intriguing newcomers include the Australian paceman Kane Richardson. The Pune Warriors spent $700,000 to acquire the 22-year-old, who has played only a single one-day international for Australia.

“He is completely left field” said Pune coach Allan Donald, a fast bowler himself. “He brings something completely new, and not a lot of people know about him.”

None of that can be said about Richardson’s compatriot Ricky Ponting, back in the Indian Premier League after a five-year absence because of international commitments as Australia’s captain.

“I am very excited to be back,” he said. “The way things have worked out, with my retirement from international cricket and finishing off the domestic season for Tasmania and playing well, have given me the opportunity to be back here.”

Ponting said he was looking forward to playing alongside the Indian veterans Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh â€" “guys I’ve had great battles with over the years.”

Mumbai’s franchise has yet to emulate the feats of its state team, by far the dominant force in Indian domestic cricket. This, though, might be the year in which it starts to make up ground.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 3, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune.