Cricket fanatic? Me? Nah

I saw an interesting cartoon by Satish Acharya on CricInfo the other day. The cartoon is funny and witty and is pretty descriptive of how a fan from the subcontinent usually reacts to the game.
However, personally I'm not too excited about the IPL. I've ranted about this several times over about how I feel about the concept.
Sure it looks great on television. I'll also give that it gives the BCCI more money that the rest of the local and international tournaments hosted by India.
Sure it has some great cricket matches and I'll also say that it has some of the best players of the world playing together at the same time.
And let's face it, Season 4 is going to be boring as crap after N Srinivasan announced that there would be no after-game parties.
This means that we won't have an obese Rohit Sharma groping some random actress, we won't see Shane Watson spiking his hair to look 'Very, Very Sexy'.  We already have one VVS and he can't play T20 cricket to save his life. Hell, he can't even play 50-over cricket, yet he's in Team Kochi and will be running the rest of his teammates out.
The only two things that I would love to follow during the IPL are probably Test Match Sofa's ridiculous commentary and Jarrod Kimbler's blog.
When I think of the IPL, I think of this genius like MS Dhoni came up with this afternoon on his explanation to select Piyush Chawla over R Ashwin. "Ashwin's mentally tough, which is why he's not in today's game. He'll do well whenever he plays. Piyush needs some confidence." Going by that theory, players in the side do not have any mental toughness and Sachin, Sehwag and Zaheer are pussies. In the same way, I am not a cricket fanatci because I don't watch the IPL.
And speaking of the IPL, why would anyone want to see Sreesanth captain a side in the first place? 

Why does IPL have such a large following?

For all the years that I've cursed the IPL, I must admit that it makes for a great soap opera.

Sreesanth after getting slapped in
Season1

Season 1: Harbhajan Singh gets banned in his first IPL for slapping Sreesanth. Sreesanth cries at the end of the Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab game.
The Rajasthan Royals is the shittiest team on paper. Yet, the guys go on to take the title. Shane Warne's hailed a genius and people realize that Munaf Patel can actually bowl and field.

Season 2: Lalit Modi decides that the IPL is bigger than the general elections. Wants more security for the IPL and demands that the Home Ministry provides it. The Home Ministry asks Lalit to fuck off and so the INDIAN Premier League moves to South Africa.
The Deccan Chargers, who are the worst team in the first edition of the IPL, ends up winning in South Africa.

Season 3: It's the craziest one of the lot.

Let's fuck Lalit was the Motto
of Season 3

Pakistani players are not auctioned because of 26/11. Shah Rukh Khan says that they should have given them a chance. The Shiv Sena burns posters and effigies of him and he has to apologize.
Neeta Ambani decides that she wants to look like a good humanitarian, so she holds this street kid in her arms during every presentation ceremony of the Mumbai Indians. She even chooses to dance with them when the Mumbai Indians win a game.
N Srinivasan decides that Lalit Modi is bad for the game and wants to fuck him over. The world is watching as there are 22 charges placed against him, including one for fixing IPL games.

Teaser trailers for Season 4: The BCCI decides to eliminate Rajasthan Royals and the Kings XI Punjab for violating laws. There is an agreement and they are allowed to play season 4.
Kochi wants to form an IPL side. Shashi Tharoor tweets about it. The Indian media tears him apart. The opposition wants his head. He resigns and marries Sunanda Pushkar, a Dubai-based beautician, who nearly purchased the team, but backed off at the end.
The Sahara Pune Warriors are formed.
Oh yes, the most important: The IPL decides to reshuffle everyone so that there are new auctions and new teams.

Will slap-gate become murder-
gate in Season 4?

Auction day and interesting facts
1) Ganguly realizes that nobody, not even the Kolkata Knight Riders want him to play T20 anymore. At least, he knows that he will have plenty of time campaigning for the CPI (M) for the West Bengal elections that are scheduled for May, the same time the IPL will take place.
2) Brian Lara decides he wants to come back, but nobody wants him either.
3) This one is my personal favourite: Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds are in the same team. You got to love the Mumbai Indians for this. Instead of slap-gate like you did in Season 1, you may actually see murder-gate.

I've maintained it time and time again that I hate the IPL and T20 cricket for that matter. But going by the way reality television and Bollywood operate these days, it's no surprise that its TRPs top the chart. So here's to Season 4, the cheerleaders, the after-parties, the breakdowns, the scandals and if there's any of it, the cricket.

NDTV and the match fixing connection

While doing a search on Mohammad Azharuddin today, I discovered that apart from NDTV other news channels have also been interviewing him.
NDTV still asks him for his expert opinions on the game.
In the defense of the other channels, they only interviewed him about his political aspirations

Only last week on the Big Fight, they discuss India's poor performance at the T20 World Cup. Expert opinions are from Azhar and Mandira Bedi, along with two other cricket experts.

I just got home to see Azhar and Mandira, as the show went off air.

And yes, Mandira looks hot with her new haircut and to her credit, she can have a conversation with people about the game, which is awesome to see considering how she was during the 2003 World Cup.

But then coming back to the channel, NDTV has a tendency to hire guys who have been involved in the match fixing scandal. Ajay Jadeja and Nikhil Chopra were on their panel of cricketing experts for a very long time.
Am I the only one who has noticed this?
At one point when news and sport's channels wanted brainless entertainment, they hired Navjot Singh Sidhu.
But then again, Sidhu's jokes beyond a point get pissing off and he's hired on special occasions like the opening ceremony of the IPL where he dances while UB40 sings "I can't help falling in love with you".
The only thing left for NDTV to do is call Wasim Akram and Javed Miandad on their panel.
While they have great records to their name and I've loved watching them play, I have a lot of doubts regarding their credibility.
When more than one player accuses Wasim, you know that something is wrong.
In Javed's case, his son is married to Dawood Ibrahim's daughter. Need I say more?

Team India: Post match analysis

India's loss yesterday was inevitable.
You can't blame them. They won two matches in the tournament.
One was a close call against South Africa, thanks to Suresh Raina's century.
One was a team effort. Full of skill from all the players, in the game against Afghanistan.
Two wins out of five games. That is still 40 per cent victory in the T20 world cup.
If they were writing an examination, they would have still passed.
But let's do an analysis of the players.
Raina deserves praise. Barring the game against the Australians, he has carried his IPL form to the national circuit and has performed regularly.
Rohit Sharma had one magnificent innings. If he plays more like he did when he made that 79 against a good pace attack, then India have something to cheer about for its middle order in the future.
Yuvraj is a cunt. Always has been and will never change.
Dhoni just won the IPL. He needs to lose something now. This was the best thing he could lose. And yeah, he had two bowlers bowling like a pair of twats and a batsman who is a twat.
But these are all excuses.
A more astute analysis was given to me by my brother in an email he sent today: India can't play fast bowling. it apparently can't play any bowling or even bowl for that matter. Perhaps we should stick to our unofficial national sport: pocket billiards.

What a bunch of wankers.

Is the IPL to blame?

India lost because they were crap.
In the first year of the T20 cup, India and Pakistan were unstoppable because they were the only two teams that understood the T20 format.
Yuvraj smashed Broad for 36 in an over; Sreesanth was actually bowling maiden overs and RP was the next big thing.
Similarly for Pakistan, Umar Gul was their bowling sensation and carried forward that form to the following World Cup, which Pakistan won. Also, Misbah-Ul-Haq invented the scoop shot that gave him a lot of runs and India the first World Cup.
Then came the IPL. In IPL I and II, since Pakistani players were selected, they got better international exposure and capitalized on it to take the next World Cup.
Meanwhile, England, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and the West Indies were slowly getting the hang of playing the shortest form of the game.
Australia, however, were getting raped, which is why they have come back with a vengeance this year.
This year, IPL 3 saw no Pakistani players. There were more Caucasians than there were in the previous two tournaments. Hell, even Jacques Kallis was selected to represent South Africa for the T20 this year because of his IPL form.
India had just finished off two seasons - one with South Africa and earlier to Bangladesh - before IPL began.
The players felt that money was more important that resting their bodies.
The effect was disaster.
On the other hand, Pakistan hasn't played too much cricket are probably taking the same plane as India is.
So, is the IPL to blame totally? I'd ask Lalit, but he's got his own issues to deal with at the moment