The South Africans should be really pleased. They get an extended cricket season with an international flavour with many of their leading players in the fray too. The Indian Premier League and BCCI are happy that the world’s richest cricket competition is assured continuity. The only losers are Indian fans who would dearly have loved to have been at the venues like last year.

The shifting of the IPL is not a bad solution. Had they tarried in the hope that the security scenario in the country would somehow change to permit the matches officials would have jeopardized the event. Had they insisted on holding it in India, they may have been branded as anti-national since the elections are of far greater significance to the nation than a cricket tournament.

While the late autumn weather of the southern hemisphere will be a huge improvement over that of early spring in England, which can be very wet and miserably cold, the real reason for the shift may have been the hitch in television rights. In UK, Sky TV has exclusive rights to the cricket in its territory while satellite rival Setanta holds the rights to IPL. Sky could not possibly have allowed encroachment by a rival broadcaster.

IPL-2 will be a joint celebration of a hugely popular competition, which the younger generation will love. Not that South Africa is new to T-20, the country having conducted the world championship that brought in such a revolution in the game. Team Dhoni’s famous win transformed the cricket world and, in fact, engendered the IPL because it could win over the skeptics in the Indian cricket board.

The opening edition of the IPL was a success from day one when Brendon McCullum played that extraordinary innings to the last day on which the finale went right down to the wire. Truth to tell, India may have struggled to replicate the success of 2008. Everything was so new last year - from the auction that turned the cricket world upside down to the riot of colour and dance forms –that the novelty factor ensured the event would be a success.

The dancing girls will be there in fair number in South Africa and they will probably be bolder than they could be in India where so many objections were aired that the danceuses were stripped of their glamour. The excitement is bound to be high, especially in Durban in Natal where so many people of Indian origin reside and in Lenasia from where the fans will drive comfortably enough to the Wanderers in Johannesburg.

The only drawback may be the timing of the matches that will be adjusted to peak viewing hours on Indian television. Most of the action will be in natural light, which means some of the glitz associated with floodlit cricket will be missing. The fireworks off the field may not seem as spectacular although it is quite possible that the batting pyrotechnics will be even better on well prepared pitches.

The alacrity with which Lalit Modi, the IPL match commissioner, acted to move the event out will probably not be appreciated in political circles in the country. He may, however, have prompted the BCCI into taking a sound business decision. An immediate payoff came in an improved TV rights deal that is almost twice as much as originally signed for the first decade of IPL.

It is too simplistic to dismiss the cricket establishment as one that can act because it has the money. In this issue of steering the IPL away from the elections against a background of terror threats, the officials have done well even as they have preserved the goose that lays the golden eggs. Best then that we simply sit down to enjoy some more thrilling fare from T-20 gladiators.