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Originally published in the Mirror Click here

It was supposed to be a Super Saturday, when the country would waste a couple of hours watching a bunch of billionaires imagining themselves to be Roman emperors trading gladiators. But, even before the auctions began, yet another chapter in the soap opera called IPL unfolded in full public view.

“Our emotions were never appreciated and many genuine situations were not given due consideration at all. We really feel such one-sided emotional relationship cannot be dragged any further,” Sahara’s statement was less of a press release and more of a jilted lover’s desperate plea.

Why did Sahara pull out in such dramatic fashion on the morning of the auctions?

And would they snap off a decade-long relationship with Indian cricket over $400,000 being deducted from their purse?

IPL – lacking business fundamentals
Everyone knows that IPL has never been about the cricket. Most people are also realising that it’s not about business either because every element of IPL defies business and financial logic.

For example, how could a Pune Warriors India, bought at $370 Million, be more valuable than a Manchester City Football Club, valued by Forbes at $290 Million?

Such glaring flaws aren’t hard to find at every level of the IPL structure. And several franchises are realising the financial infeasibility of running their IPL teams. A few franchise owners have also, supposedly, tried selling their stake, unsuccessfully so.

The consortium owning Kochi Tuskers Kerala did manage to put a team together, but couldn’t bear the expenses coming with the team, with almost none of it recovered.

Lalit Modi’s inflated vision
Modi wanted to build the most valuable sports property in the world. And, it seems, he wanted to do it in one day.

Consequently, he grossly over-valued the property and used his natural charisma to get many veteran businessmen to buy into his idea.

As a result, right from the first year, Modi was under pressure from franchise owners to show them the promised riches.

No wonder, every element of IPL was oversold. From rights, to TV spots, to in-ground advertising, to rebranding of cricket terms, Modi left no inch blank while generating revenues for teams. The promised revenue that team valuations were based on.

But despite everything that Modi did, IPL remained unviable. Things got only worse after Modi left.

Team owner profiles
For some owners, like the Ambanis, it’s small change to play around with. For some, like the Mallyas, there’s too much pride involved to let it all go. And there are those unknown owners with unverified sources of income, who have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

For these owners, business fundamentals or the lack of it in IPL and its teams make little difference.

But, there are some team owners with limited pockets and legitimate businesses. For them, their teams are like white elephants who can bleed them to bankruptcy. These are the teams that will find it difficult to survive in the game for much longer.

What about Sahara?
Sahara, for one, definitely doesn’t fall in the last bracket of owners. Their pockets should be sufficiently deep and their business isn’t exactly public.

Then why are they pulling out?

From their emotional press release, it seems that they are unhappy about being treated as second grade citizens of the club. They have seen teams like Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, and Royal Challengers Bangalore enjoy privileges and bending of rules. But, when it comes to their requests, they have faced complete obstinacy on the part of the BCCI.

Brace for unpredictability
There’s still a likelihood that a backroom deal may be struck, Pune Warriors may survive and Sahara may continue in IPL. But one thing’s for sure, in a tournament so fundamentally flawed, this kind of news will not be few and far between.

You can listen to the Fake IPL Player’s live commentary during match hours on www.pitchinvasion.in

Originally published in the Mirror Click here

Chepauk, Motera, Mohali, Wankhede, Lord’s, Trent Bridge, The Oval, Kotla, Eden, MCG, SCG, WACA, Adelaide – this is a list of historical cricket venues that have packed themselves over the last year in anticipation of Sachin Tendulkar’s 100th international century.

In the meantime, 117 international centuries have been scored by 59 different players, including by batsmen like Kierron Pollard, R Ashwin, Mushfir Rahim, and TMK Mawyao. Michael Clarke and Kumar Sangakarra have, in fact, scored six each in the same period.

During this time Shahid Afridi has quit captaincy, retired from international cricket, taken the PCB to court, annulled his retirement and has also made a successful comeback into international cricket. While India’s wait for the Mahashatak continues endlessly.

So much has happened that one can barely remember when Sachin’s 99th century occurred. It was on March 12, 2011. At Nagpur. In that world cup match against South Africa that we lost after being 266/1.

It really was the good old days, when we were still fretting and fuming over Piyush Chawla. A time when Anna Kournikova would show up first on a Google search for Anna. When the Akmal behind the stumps was better known for dropping catches than taking them. When Kapil meant Dev and not Sibal. It was a time when there were ten year olds who had never seen India being whitewashed in a test series. Now they have seen it twice.

But it’s not been all in vain. Through the two white-washes, Tendulkar’s finally washed off that long-standing and unjustified accusation that India loses whenever Tendulkar scores a century. Now we know that India loses even when he doesn’t score one.

Silver lining for Dravid too
Rahul Dravid’s been bowled nine times in his last eleven innings. Given that wickets aren’t safe in his charge anymore, now he can rest easy that he’ll never be asked to keep wickets again.

Winter camp at Sehwag’s school
Sehwag International School recently advertised a winter camp for all cricket hopefuls. The first person to enrol in it was Sehwag himself. Gambhir has used his contacts with Sehwag to get himself a discount.

More people are expected to turn up at the camp than at the Bangladesh Premier League.

At least make an omelette
As far as Indian cricket is concerned, Jagmohan Dalmiya discovered the goose that lays golden eggs, Sharad Pawar fattened it up, and Lalit Modi showed how to kill it.
Now that the goose is almost dead, nobody quite knows what to do with the eggs left behind. If only Modi was still around, he could have at least made an omelette out of them. And what better an omelette than a reality show.

With TRPs plummeting and advertisers losing millions every day, Modi would have created a reality show to discover the new messiahs of Indian cricket – an unknown batsman and an unknown bowler who would be sent to Australia for the fourth test to win the match and restore India’s pride.

With thousands auditioning and millions watching on TV and voting for their candidate, the show was sure to be a winner. Not that the result on the field would have been any different, but most people would have tuned in to the match to see how the two guys performed.

At least some excitement in this ‘mother of all non-events’.

You can listen to the Fake IPL Player’s live alternative commentary during match hours on www.pitch-invasion.in

Originally published in the Mirror Click here

The much-touted Agneepath series has, so far, proved to be ‘agnee’ for the Indians and ‘path’ for the Australians.

In the first two tests, the Indians have scored a measly 26 runs per wicket compared to the Australians’ 51 runs per wicket. The Australians have scored 3 centuries including an unbeaten triple while the Indians’ highest score is 83 scored by, believe it or not, Gautam Gambhir.

So mismatched has this contest been that the ‘Border-Gavaskar Trophy’ has been reduced to the ‘Border-Rohan Gavaskar Trophy’.

It doesn’t augur well for film producer Karan Johar who would have hoped that this tour would do to his upcoming film Agneepath what the 2007 T20 world cup did to Chak De India.

All that the series has managed for his film so far is half the nation calling it the ‘agony-path’, a description that should have been reserved till at least the release of the film.

But the guys who are turning out to be the smartest of the lot are the producers of The Dirty Picture. For not succumbing to the temptation of piggybacking the other slogan being irresponsibly bandied around by the channel – Thunder Down Under.

Securing the Indian team

After getting their fingers taped by the team management, the Indian team finds itself woefully exposed and vulnerable. Quite understandably, the team has asked for extra protection from the dangerously aggressive Australian crowds.

Given that there have hardly been any missiles from the crowd, the security team was hard spent to find out what it is that they are supposed to protect the Indian team from. It’s only when Virat Kohli explained to them the verbal volleys he was subjected to, “the worst he has ever heard”, the officials finally understood the magnitude of the problem facing them.

They have acted swiftly and decisively, and gifted each Indian player a pair of earplugs.

Masala cricket update

Mumbai Indians needed a wicketkeeper-batsman almost as desperately as King’s XI Punjab needed hard cash. So, they have spent $2.35 million of Mukesh Ambani’s hard earned money to buy Dinesh Karthik from King’s XI Punjab.

To celebrate the occasion, Dinesh Karthik promptly scored a duck in the next match he played against Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy semi-finals.

Pssst…Dinesh, Mumbai is not Mumbai Indians.

Last year’s bottom-rungers Delhi Daredevils have compensated for their lack of on-field daredevilry by buying Kevin Pietersen for $2.3 million from Deccan Chargers who had bought him for $650,000 in the last auctions.

Kevin Pietersen’s buy sets a new record for the biggest IPL blunder, breaking the previous record set by the creation of Kochi Tuskers.

Bangladesh Premier League or BPL is set to take off later this year. Their franchises went under the hammer recently with Chittagong emerging as the most expensive franchise at $1.2 million.

In a magnanimous move, the BCCI is offering each franchise a BPL card.

The next big Patel

A young medium fast bowler who goes by the name Harshal Vikram Patel has hit the headlines by taking two consecutive 8-fers in the Ranji Trophy knockout matches.

After Dipak Patel retired and Parthiv Patel’s career refused to hit puberty and Munaf Patel’s good name was dishonoured by Bobby Darling, Harshal Patel has emerged as the next big Patel hope in cricket.

Although, given how big Samit Patel is, bagging that title will certainly not come easy for young Harshal.

You can listen to the Fake IPL Player’s live alternate commentary during match hours on www.pitch-invasion.in

Originally published in the Mirror Click here

Reality TV star Greg Chappell has landed himself another job where he’ll do what he does best – do a whole lot of talking without any actual accountability for results. He has been allowed entry into the Australian dressing room with the job of demystifying Sachin Tendulkar. Like after 22 years and 184 test matches, there is anything left to demystify about his batting.

If you can ignore your negative feelings for Chappell, you can see the reason why Cricket Australia has picked him for the job. Other than having been a brilliant batsman in his time, Chappell also has to his credit the distinction of messing with Tendulkar’s mind as coach of India like no other bowler has ever done.

And if you thought that Chappell can unearth nothing except what we already know about Sachin’s vulnerability to the ball cuts back and that he can be lured into driving away from his body, you are wrong.

As per reports emerging from the Australian camp, Chappell has already given a couple of lectures on his chosen subject. Using graphs, archive footage of Sachin’s batting, and a detailed cluster analysis of his scores, Chappell has shown how Sachin is most vulnerable in his 90s. As per his strategy, the Australian bowlers should let him get to the 90s as early as possible and then plot his dismissal.

In a special session with captain Michael Clarke, Chappell drew upon his personal experience and disclosed that Tendulkar can be tamed if he is made to bat at a position he doesn’t like. Clarke is said to have approached Dhoni asking if he would be willing to play Tendulkar at No. 6 in exchange for allowing Chappell unrestricted access to the Australian players, something he knows is more advantageous to India than anyone else.

Ishant ‘Smart Alec’ Sharma
After four years of international cricket, Ishant Sharma has come of age like only an Indian fast bowler can. In this time, he has lost pace, zing, movement, wickets, and his hair. The only thing he still has from that dizzy 2007-08 season is that Adam’s Apple of his, which the World Human Anatomy Institute wants to rechristen as the Ishant’s Apple.

In these four years he has, however, learnt how to talk smart. Recently, he said that the Australians are better at playing mind games than the game itself. And to prove how grievously injuring their mind games can be, he has got himself injured before bowling even a single ball.

Mental disintegration Dravid style
When Steve Waugh came up with his mental disintegration theory, he had no idea the guy who would write the foreword in his autobiography would also turn it on its head and make it his own.

In his Sir Don Bradman Oratory, Rahul Dravid has re-invented that pop classic ‘Killing me softly’. By citing how Indians and Australians have fought shoulder to shoulder in the two world wars, how Australia was the first country the Indian team toured as an independent nation, how thousands of fans were dejected at Bradman’s snub in Calcutta, and how Bradman was our pre-independence symbol of fighting the oppressor, Dravid has made the Indian team an object of love and affection in the Australian cricketers hearts.

Reports suggest Siddle starts weeping as soon as he sees Dravid and Warner now sleeps with a teddy bear with Viru embroidered across its chest.

Statue of a statue
A statue of Shane Warne at the MCG was unveiled this week. This is the first ever statue of a statue, which is what Warne has become after Liz Hurley personally sculpted him into a “bronze statue” vaguely resembling Shane Warne.

You can listen to the Fake IPL Player’s live wacky commentary during the India-Australia series on www.pitch-invasion.in
Tune in during match hours.

Originally published in the Mirror Click here

Given my prophetic powers, if betting were allowed in India, I could make a fortune on two predictions.

1. Another fixing scandal is around the corner
2. Nobody will ever slap the ICC president

Prediction 1: Another fixing scandal is around the corner
Vinod Kambli has shocked us again. Not by his look this time, but by what he recently disclosed. Kambli feels the 1996 world cup semi-final match between India and Sri Lanka was fixed.

Noooo! Who’d have thought that? So what if it was played in the 90’s match fixing era, or if proven match fixers like Azhar, Jadeja, and Mongia were playing in it, or if crores were riding on that match, the thought that there was something amiss about that match never crossed our minds.

But the most unsurprising part of the ‘Kambli disclosure’ has been the BCCI’s reaction to it. “He is mad. He doesn’t know what he is saying. Matter close!” is the BCCI message, loud and clear. There’s no enquiry, no talking to players who played that match, no explanation from Kambli, no quoting of previous investigation reports. Nothing.

In his recently published memoirs, Outlook editor Vinod Mehta reveals that the then BCCI President Madhavrao Scindia was aware of Indian players fixing matches back in 1993. Mumbai top cop Rakesh Maria had intercepted telephone conversations between bookies and top Indian cricketers in 1994. Anirudhha Bahal had started investigating match-fixing in early 1997, the year Pradeep Magazine unraveled the bookie-cricketer nexus. Everyone knew, except the BCCI. Or, so they would like us believe.

The time bomb finally exploded in our faces in 2000.

In a world changing at supersonic speed, it’s heartening to see that the BCCI has remained unchanged. They continue to deal with situations exactly like in the 90’s.

Recently, Goa captain Swapnil Asnodkar offered a draw in a match they could have won. He was initially banned for two matches by the Goa Cricket Association, which was lifted soon after his apologized. The BCCI isn’t investigating the matter any further.

Earlier in the week, speaking with me on Internet radio station Pitch Invasion, Pradeep Magazine said that match-fixing murmurs have resurfaced with the advent of the IPL. He feels that young players getting sucked into the IPL glamour world are especially vulnerable to completely unregulated agents whose credentials and sources of money are unknown and suspect. Even Ajay Sharma, he recounted, first came in contact with bookie MK Gupta when he was 15, when Gupta shoved a 100 rupee note in Sharma’s pocket after the latter had scored a century in a DDCA club game.

Given that the decibel level of these murmurs is fast reaching the levels of the mid 1990s, and that the BCCI is being BCCI, I predict another major fixing scandal to hit us in the near future. And this time, the sport may not survive the jolt.

Prediction 2: Nobody will ever slap the ICC president
Oops!

Late News:
Harvinder Singh, whose palm came in contact with Mr. Pawar’s cheek, has caught the attention of the Indian selectors. “From what we have seen, he has a natural ability to find the sweet spot of the bat. He can solve our No. 6 problem in Australia,” one selector said. “Did you notice how he was pointing his knife at Mr. Pawar? This boy is definitely used to lifting his bat after scoring centuries,” another selector added while stroking his chin.

However, the incident has caused some grief to Virender Sehwag. He is ruing that he couldn’t paste a Sehwag International School sticker on the knife beforehand.

You can hear the Fake IPL Player’s live match commentary during match hours on www.pitch-invasion.in