Emotions are no doubt mixed among the cricket lovers of the world now that the IPL is done for another year. There can be no doubt, however, that most of them will be based on wistful regret, especially for Gujaratis after Sunday’s final in which the Royal Challengers from Bengaluru retained their title with a five-wicket victory against the Titans.That’s because most cricket lovers in the world are Indians, and they are justifiably proud of a product that’s revolutionised the game and placed their nation firmly in charge of the sport from an administrative and broadcasting perspective — not to mention on the field.It’s purely a numbers thing. The BCCI is fundamentally not very efficient at administrating and has never, ever cared about the spectator experience for anybody other than the highest-end VIPs ― because they don’t have to. They have no first-hand experience of competing for an audience. The people come and pay, no matter the conditions. And because there are so many of them, the money flows.Speaking of numbers, the man who conceived the IPL and was its commissioner in the formative years says the tournament is still in its infancy. He is living as a sort of tax fugitive in London, but that hasn’t kept him quiet. Last week Lalit Modi said it was “inevitable” that the tournament would expand to occupy six months of the year and that such an arrangement was “exactly what the sport needs”.Modi compared a six-month IPL to the English Premier League and Europe’s other top football leagues, which dominate the sport’s calendar, forcing international competitions to be played in small, designated windows. Modi is commonly referred to as a “visionary” and a “genius”, so he may well be right. He is also a narcissist who instructed the broadcast directors to ensure he appeared on screen at least five times per innings at every match he attended when he was in charge.Perhaps that clouds his vision to the most obvious difference between football and cricket ― the number of formats in each sport. There is also the matter of tribal loyalty in football, which sees club allegiance handed down through generations. It is not a sport that places most of its players into an auction every three years and boasts some players who have played for six or even seven of the 10 teams in the league.It has become tiresome writing about the demise of Test and ODI cricket over the years.The 50-over format is certainly struggling as a bilateral entity, and Test cricket is being marginalised as never before outside of the Ashes countries and their series against India.Perhaps it’s time to stop fighting on behalf of Test cricket and leave the ultimate form of the game to fend for itself. Maybe it’s time to remember that, without exception, the world’s best, most skilful cricketers recognise the five-day game as the greatest challenge.If their bodies allow, they will always choose Test cricket above anything else. Some have even foregone huge paydays in the IPL to prioritise it.It may seem irrelevant that non-Indian cricket followers find the current 10 weeks of IPL tedious to watch and the overseas players say it is emotionally arduous to play. But the global audience, dwarfed as it is by the Indian one, is still important to advertisers and sponsors, and the overseas players are a critical component of the package.Isn’t it possible that further IPL expansion will increase the ennui of the worldwide viewership and increase the number of mercenary journeymen international cricketers on the field while the very best players preserve their skills and emotional sanity for competitions and formats which mean more to them than a paycheque? Anyway, it was with a sense of relief that that much of the international audience said goodbye to the tournament for another year on Sunday night, which is not to say that it doesn’t have its place in the calendar and that cricket doesn’t benefit from it.And how about 37-year-old Virat Kohli, 75 not out, guiding his team to victory with two overs to spare? Now he really is a genius. And he has always said that nothing in sport compares to Test cricket.