India, May 8 -- Cricket is India's religion, and the Indian Premier League is its biggest festival. For two months each year, over 500 million people arrange their lives around it. Appointments, family functions, even movie calendars follow the rhythm of IPL. From tea stalls to office canteens, on phones between strangers in local trains, nobody can escape it (not that anyone tries). Valued at over $18 billion, the IPL ecosystem is also serious business. But it is a business that relies on a climate still hospitable enough for outdoor play.

Right now, the IPL is being played across India in the middle of one of the country's most ferocious early-summer heatwaves. In late April, of the hundred hottest cities on earth, 95 were in India per...