Kerala and cricket did mix long before the IPL controversy broke. Kochi’s rendezvous with the IPL was a delayed homecoming for cricket to one of the earliest regions where the game was played in India.

In 2002, the cricket ground at Thalassery had celebrated its 200th anniversary. The town, 300km north of Kochi, hosts Ranji Trophy matches.

“Unlike in Kerala’s cities, at Thalassery, the game is played across economic divides,’’ P. Nizar, 63, a former state cricketer hailing from the town and currently settled in Kochi, said.

In sport-loving Thalassery, cricket was everybody’s basic skill to which they added a second one like football and basketball. “Even today, a typical Ranji Trophy match will find good number of spectators there,’’ he said.

In Nizar’s youth, the local Town Cricket Club was already over 100 years old. Despite that head start in history, cricket didn’t click in Kerala. The state fared better in football, volleyball, basketball, badminton and the like, not to mention athletics and swimming.

Against the many Malayalis who represented India in the said games and the many who brought glory to the state in athletics, a mere two or three from Kerala made it to the national cricket team. That’s what made Kochi’s IPL rendezvous intriguing.

The bid amount makes mincemeat of the money Kerala spends on sports it has been successful at. The state’s 2009-10 budget had boasted its highest ever outlay for sports and games — Rs 328 crore. That’s a fifth of the IPL bid size.

It included a Rs 20-lakh assistance for P.T. Usha’s athletics school, her pet project after years representing the country and over a hundred international medals won. The allocation has been happening for the last four years.

“Finding resources is tough,’’ Usha, 45, said. Real estate outfit Shobha Developers built a hostel for her school. Else, it has been struggle and government help.

Footballer I.M. Vijayan, who played 15 years for India, started a training academy in Thrissur after retirement. In contrast, an IPL team for Kochi was worth Rs 1,500 crore despite Kerala ending last in 2009-10 Ranji Trophy, scoring two points.

Militant trade unionism, regimented religion and caste politics made Kerala impossible for enterprise. By the 1970s, exodus of its workforce became a firm trend. It transformed the state into India’s leading remittance economy.

Thalassery’s cricketers, Nizar recalled, left home for work. “Those days, you could neither live off cricket nor find a job,’’ he said. Kerala now accounts for a fifth of the country’s NRI deposits. That money is the Malayali’s trump card lighting up an extended market on two sides of the Arabian Sea.

Viewed thus, $333 million for a Kochi-based IPL team may yet make sense. After all it isn’t cricket but entertainment as a medium to sell products.

Yet risks are high. First, Kochi’s million-dollar baby is born just when the phenomenon of accumulated debt is unravelling at overseas sports clubs. Second, with so much lost to bidding, what is left for team development? Third, will sceptical Malayalis watch as predicted or tire of the frenzy?

Already, there is talk of the Kerala element in the consortium being weak, inspiring a picture of outsider avarice. Fourth, will the IPL fever last or fade to minor flu?

Kochi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, where international cricket matches happen, is home to FC Kochin. A case of money in club football, it didn’t become hot property.

To hedge financial risk, IPL teams can divest equity and court film stars for glamour. In the end, that is all IPL is — money. The business model that IPL is, with hired foreign players, icons, frenzied marketing et al, requires rich cities for brand. Had it been just cricket, there would have been city teams by the dozen.

If not a bigger mix of money and cricket, what is the difference between Kochi and Ahmedabad, the city haunting the Kochi bid? Nizar, who played in a less-moneyed era, felt that at best a Kochi IPL team would groom a few players from Kerala. What Kerala’s 200 year-old cricket needs is the commitment of Thalassery. What its money attracts is three year-old IPL.

(The author is a freelance writer based in Mumbai)