India, May 31 -- My friends know that I am no great connoisseur of the Indian Premier League, popularly known as the IPL, even though cricket is my elixir. Mark Taylor has gone on record to emphatically state that T20s are not quite cricket, and most old-timers would tend to agree with him. The IPL is a loud, bombastic, overbearing and far too stretched phenomenon. The bowlers are there just to make up the numbers and the batters feel like lords, whereas sundry others actually find tangible employment through the annual extravaganza. Yet, hate it or love it, the IPL has become an inextricable annual part of our early summer. And there are several life lessons to learn from it. Never take anything for granted: There's no telling which player or team will slide downhill, without any indication. Punjab Kings began their 2026 season like billionaires with runs and wickets being their currency. That they ended up with six defeats on the trot and were knocked out is now an inexorable part of IPL history! Nothing is permanent, not even class: Top-class bowlers had already found the IPL to be a graveyard shift, and returning with an analysis of none for 54 became quite the norm for some of them. It is another matter that they've been going back to their frugal and incisive ways the moment they return to 'real' cricket. Write off someone, only at your own peril: Some players are such duds in the beginning of the season or before it that no-one gives them a chance. But batters like Rahul Tewatia and more importantly bowlers like Sunil Narine show up with total panache once a year, come IPL time. Narine could have been a world class Test match bowler but chose T20 leagues instead. Leadership matters, even in slam-bang affairs: IPL teams that are well led by coaches and skippers are the ones that come through eventually. Shubman Gill has been in silken form and has led Gujarat Titans with elan. Matthew Hayden and Ashish Nehra have mentored the team with vision, insight and a formula that has clicked impactfully. Human element effortlessly supersedes technology: However much AI and tech might enable analyses and simulation of situations, performances on the field are what matter! Passion and fire are needed along with skills and hard work. Human emotions are required and winners never say die, ever. Virat Kohli's sparklingly enduring example needs no over-citing here. The guessing game is a foolhardy pursuit: Those who gamble on IPL matches and those who consider most of them to be fixed, are clearly not sports lovers. Anyone who has played the game with all his heart knows that it takes blood and toil to succeed. And cricket has a way of making inherent experts look foolish as well. Casual observers stand no chance at all! Money makes the world grow rounder: The IPL is a lot about money. Many a foreign player has sought permission to sit outside in the dug out for his IPL team while his domestic side back home or his international squad is playing actively! Money makes a lot of people click and tick. For sure. Public memory is very short: One swallow does not a summer make! One failure or even a couple do not mean a disastrous season. And last year's heroes are already forgotten! Abhishek Sharma has had a so-so season by his very lofty standards even though he played some scintillating knocks! But Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has hogged the limelight and almost the entire social media space! Wasted time is not always wasted: The number of players who spend an entire season sitting out and doing nothing virtually, is not funny! Yet the youngsters who spend time over meals and journeys with stars like Mitchell Starc are bound to grow every day. Their moment will come one day and such learning moments will count! Individuals matter more than the system: Whoever thought that regimen and SOPs can make for a successful campaign, better think again. People matter a lot. Even today. And individuals can turn around shoddy organisations unrecognisably. Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting did exactly that for half the season for PBKS. Alas, not for the whole of it! Who would have thought these learnings could accrue from an event that exemplifies razzmatazz? Which means it is not just that. It is sport after all....