The Indian 'Say No to Drugs' League!!

I watched ten minutes of the Indian Pensioner's League(IPL)—sorry any league that has Pollock, McGrath, Warne, and Gilchrist can only be a pensioner's game—that is not the point.

The IPL began with huge fanfare on Friday evening—so they say. I cannot see myself watching a T20 game—I am a sucker for the longer version—I enjoy moments like the Ishant Sharma spell to Ponting and the Sidebottom spell to Tendulkar and T20 doesn’t offer me such moments. I kept myself away from it until a close friend messaged me about McCullum's knock. Anyways, I was driving to the airport to see off my brother and his family. That night over and the next morning, I wake up to front-page photographs of Shahrukh Khan and his son cheering for his team. May be I am missing something.

Come Saturday afternoon/evening, I was caught up with something else that I totally missed the matches. I was once again woken up the next morning by newspaper items suggesting that for the second straight day, the matches have been a sellout. Wow, that must be something!

Therefore, I decided to catch up some IPL action on Sunday. Somebody told me that Arun Lal and Sivaramakrishnan were on the panel of commentators—I decided to “mute” the sound—my views on them are clear—they are the modern-day versions of Kader Khan - Shakti Kapoor combination. The wicket was a shocker and the cricket was even more pedestrian. Come on, the world's most talented cricketers were on display, so proclaimed Lalit Modi! The cricket on display reminded me of those Suniel Shetty XI versus Sachin Tendulkar XI —obviously this was better than those 'Say No to Drugs' matches—only just.

Later in the evening, I stepped out with my wife to go to a neighborhood Cafe Coffee Day outlet for a post-dinner chai. People were on the streets—all along I was led to believe by the media and Modi that people would be engrossed in a Mumbai Indians match, something like the India-Pakistan match at Centurion on the Mahashivaratri day of 2003—I was fooled by Modi and his PR machinery! I must point out that there were (many) more TV sets blaring even during the Perth Test match than last evening. When we reached the CCD outlet, the match was being shown LIVE on the TV set—nobody was watching—people were in their own converstaions rather than bother about Harbhajan bowling to Boucher (I hope to have got it correctly, ignorant ass that I am).

My wife, the better half that she is, asked me in an Alec Smart-ish tone, "Why don't they put on MTV? Atleast, people will watch some music videos." I had no ready answer. My mind went back to those days when industrialists donated money to charities in exchange of some governmental favors. Probably, this time around, and in a deregulated economy, the industrialists (Sharukh and Preity included) are loosening their purse strings and investing in their own version of 'Say No to Drugs' matches, probably some tax rebate, somewhere!

I returned home to watch some EPL action to look for similarities between the IPL and the EPL (we were told by Shri Modi that the IPL would be on the lines of the EPL). My wife, the Alec Smart, tells me that EPL is sport and IPL is not. I got my answer.