Back from my “Filhaal” retirement!

Well, it wasn’t really a retirement in the Mohd. Yousuf style. Nevertheless, the main reason for my not posting, as I mentioned in my last post, was because the IPL was too congested to actually dedicate seperate blog posts to it. Instead, I went for tweeting for the course of the tournament.

So, what happened between that post and today?

1. Lalit Modi is suspended/fired/(you name it)

Well, after my short campaign to get rid of Lalit Modi, it seems to have bore fruit. Lalit Modi has, according to the BCCI, been suspended.

But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that he will actually be back. The charges laid out against Lalit Modi sound serious and, even if one of those charges are proved to be true, you can be rest assured that cricket won’t be infected by Lalitmoditus again. Heck, he might even migrate to the US and try to take over cricket there!

However, anyone reading this (yes, even the current cricketers and administrators) should realize that I have a power.

We all know that Purna, of Cricket Minded fame, has the power to get cricketers back into the team.

However, with my power, I can screw the person concerned in a big way.

Look at LKM. He was going “Wow” to a Pollard six in the IPL final and, now, there’s a decent chance he might be going into jail.

So, the moral for the day?

Don’t mess with Thiru Cumaran!

2. Chennai SuperKings win the title

Most consider this a big anti-climax since there was a chance that CSK would not even reach the semis after just 2 wins in the first 7 games.

However, with 7 wins in the last 9 games (including the finals), MSD taught us all one thing.

Make sure you win the games that matter.

I’ve always been a firm believer of this concept. It’s no point winning all the league games, only to stumble when it really matters.

A case in point is India. India started off fairly scratchily in the first couple of matches in the 2003 World Cup. However, since they had 7 matches in the group stages, they managed to rediscover their mojo and reached the finals.

Come 2007, the same thing happens, but, TBH, it’s worse. They lose to Bangladesh and find themselves on a sticky-wicket. They have to beat SL to advance to the next round. However, SL was in really good form and knocked them out before the Super 8s.

The point I’m trying to make is, if the 2003 World Cup had a format similar to the 2007 WC, India may not have made it to the Super 6s.

It’s all a matter of who turns up on the particular day. I just had a gut feeling that Mumbai, having not experienced any pressure whatsoever during the tournament, may not be able to withstand the heat.

On the other hand, Chennai had already been through plenty, having had to make 52 runs in 4 overs to get to the semi-finals. Therefore, there was no question of Chennai not being able to soak the pressure. Heck, even S. Badrinath managed to let off a whole load of pressure by sweating a lot! XD

Pollard, IMO, is over-hyped. Yes, he’s changed games, but look what happened when the team really needed him.

Tendlya deserved better. Yes, I am a Chennai fan, but who couldn’t feel sympathy for the only ODI double-centurion, the only 600+ run scorer this year?

3. Zimbabwe beat Australia, again

In case you were polishing your specs and looking at this post again don’t be too worried. It’s true. The Zimbos beat Australia again. After beating them in the T20WC 2007, they’ve beat them again in the Caribbean.

Yes, it was a 15-a-side game, but, still.

Despite Australia being really mediocre when compared to the class of, say, 2005, why do I still get a smug smile on my face when I see the words “Australia” and “defeated” in the same sentence?

4. The T20 World Cup starts tomorrow

Well, this isn’t exactly something that already happened. However, I am genuinely happy to see international teams taking on each other.

Yes, most people are complaining of T20 overburn after having watched a mind-boggling 60 games between 8 “domestic” Indian teams.

However, it isn’t the domesticness of the tournament which has left a sour taste in the mouth for me. It’s the crass commercialisation. I mean, the finals was as crass as it could get, with 2 ads within an over.

That’s right, 2 ADS! The collection of logos on the uniforms also makes it sickening to watch.

However, ICC-sponsored tournaments provide a rare spectacle in that there are no sponsor logos on the tees. Barring a max of one, there is barely anything (some regulations by them which stipulates that teams can’t put the name of their sponsors on their tees).

It is truly refreshing. There’s less nonsense from the likes of Ravi Shastri & Sunny Gavaskar. Instead, we have more of Anil Kumble, Shane Warne (hopefully), Ian Chappell and David “Bumble” Lloyd.

I’d like to raise an issue. Could we not have any more ICC-sponsored events in the Carribean?

Tomorrow’s curtain raiser between Sri Lanka and New Zealand starts at 10.30 in the night! The next match is at 2 in the morning the next day!

!#$***$!#%%^

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Blocked from Lalit Modi’s Tweets!

I have been blocked by @LalitKModi.

Don’t believe me?

Then have a look at this

#lalitmodiblocks

Why?

Because I mentioned him when posting some tweets.

I’ve retrieved some of them. Have a look at them. (From most recent to oldest)

Gambir PWNS @LalitKModi “I cnt b xpctd 2gt all worked up abt comments made by ppl who hv nvr pickd up a bat in dere life” bit.ly/bu5V1u #ipl

@kunaljanu Don’t be 2 surprised if it’s just 4 a limited tym…u really think dat @LalitKModi will let an earnin opportunity pass by? #ipl

@LalitKModi YOUTUBE YOUTUBE YOUTUBE! It’s already on the web!

Live streaming sucks. So shit slow and @LalitKModi sounds like he’s constipating! :@ #IPL

@LalitKModi It’s the deal with youtube, right? How much did they buy the rights for? Just curious! 🙂 #cricket #ipl

@paddlesweep I’d say double ouch, TBH! Lalit Modi finds more and more ways 2 make the IPL even richer! :O

@LalitKModi do you mean da one abt da threats frm Shiv Sena?

As you can see, none of ’em are all too offensive. However, just like how Gambhir got warned for calling the Rajasthan team ordinary, I, too, have been censured for, admittedly, being a bit of a twat, but a reasonable one!

I was, actually, determined not to post anything on my blog for the duration of the IPL. It was because the IPL is so shallow that it is worthy only of tweets.

However, it was actually this article by Samanth Subramaniam on the Huffington Post which gave me the jolt for this post.

So why, when I watch the tournament now, do I watch it with equal measures of fascination and repugnance? Not because the IPL is a symbol of capitalism – far be it for me, a willing beneficiary of India’s adventures in money-making, to complain about that – but because it’s a symbol of capitalism gone horrifically wrong.

The IPL purports to be a free market but is in fact controlled by one man: Lalit Modi, whose power and stature have grown so Rabelaisian in merely three years that Bollywood has already asked to mine his life for subject material. (One player, Ravindra Jadeja, dared to try negotiating a new contract for himself this year. He was promptly banned for the remainder of the season.)

The IPL pursues revenues at the expense of other valuable resources: Test cricket, but also domestic cricket, the inevitable breeding grounds for young talent. In its grubbing for money, in fact, the IPL is dismissive of anything old-fashioned, anything aesthetic; even the four seconds between one ball and the next, held sacrosanct through more than a century of cricket, have been sold for inconsequential advertisements.

Meanwhile, owners buy teams for staggering quantities of money and with the fuzziest possibilities of recovering their investment; they desire only to dice up the risk and sell it in parts to sponsors and other companies, a practice that should surely sound familiar to us today.

Though Lalit Modi talks of a free market, what he does is the very antithesis of a free market.

There are also rumours doing the rounds that Lalit Modi has rejected the franchise agreement sent in by Kochi.

Why?

Because they have some ‘secret partners’.

Apparently, the owners have given away 25% for free to someone.

Who cares?

That’s their business. Why does Lalit Modi always want to butt in to everyone’s business?

To be very honest, he seems like one of those needy children.

He wants to be on the know with regard to every damn thing that goes on in the IPL (even if it isn’t necessary that he knows about it) and can’t tolerate any criticism of himself or his product!

What a prat!

I hadn’t tweeted much about Lalit Modi in recent times. However, because I realized that he blocked me, I’ve decided to go on a rampage with the hashtag #lalitmodiblocks.

Therefore, please bear with me!

XD

Jrod is just plain insane!

Dig this conversation between Lalit Modi and Jrod (of CWB fame) ,with regard to the tie-breaker for the bids, which took place on twitter. In case you didn’t know, the cap for the auction is $750,000. If there are 2 or more franchises bidding for the same player and it reaches this amount, the franchises will have to write their maximum price for the player on a paper and give it. The highest bidder wins and the money over $750,000 goes to the IPL.

Jrod

Can’t they just arm wrestle for the player they want?

Lalit Modi

that would be great tv

Jrod

I’m full of great ideas.

According to some, Modi’s been replying to most people on twitter. Nice to know that he’s engaging with the fans!

How stupid can a closing ceremony be?

All these days, I’ve been watching closing ceremonies which have been fairly underwhelming, but are quite efficient…

However, the IPL closing ceremony is just a great example of the fact that you could just lock up your brains in India and plan the closing ceremony!

How else could you explain the camera shooting, which was horrible, to say the least? The people who were switching camera angles must have been suffering fits! The idiot was changing angles every 2 seconds and it got so annoying to an extent that my cousin had to shout at me to stop mumbling about it!

Another bone of contention was the performance by Akon.

Now don’t get me wrong, Akon’s songs are great (though I haven’t got the opportunity to listen to most of them), and I have no grudge against him, but how do you explain the fact that the song “Smack that” blaring on the speakers but Akon was just strolling on the stage?

Lip-syncing is perfectly OK, but the guy should know that he should be lip-syncing!

The whole “Bollywood-SA”, or whatever that nonsense was called, was also a big farce. Frankly, I always looked forward to the strategic break so that I could see some nice-looking girls, but to actually make it out to be like some Miss World contest is just plain stupid!

To cap off this post, I would like to make special mention of Lalit ‘Monkey’ Modi! (no, no, not in the racial sense, don’t haul me before a court as I only have $5 to pay as legal fees!).

The IPL, as far as my understanding is concerned, is a sporting event. Since when it became a personal gratification even for Monkey is unfathomable.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this is an excerpt of what he said that day..

..I’d like to thank my wife and my children, x, y and z for their immense support…

Can you imagine what Mrs. Monkey would’ve said when he said that he was shifting out of India?

Darling, why don’t you shift the IPL to South Africa? I’ve already been to England, and I think SA would be a great place for shopping…

The children would’ve said something along these lines…

…Daddy, I like Mr. Nel because he makes monkey faces like you, please move the IPL to SA so that I can meet him…

Poor little chap, unaware that Nel is doing his circus tricks in London…

Pakistan not co-hosting WC and Modi finds better ways of making money!

Wow!

OMG!

I can’t fuckin’ believe it!

I never thought the day would come!

Pakistan is not co-hosting the WC 2011…

Did it have to take the ICC so long?

Thank God for that, or else we would’ve had half the teams not going to Pakistan, which would’ve ruined what promises to be a miserable tournament, with or without Pakistan.

As for the I(SA)PL, Modi has brought in a 7.5 minute time-out in between matches so that players can discuss tactics. It is to be taken after the first 10 overs of an innings….

Whatever I may say about Modi, I have to say, he is quite clever…getting $2 million in ad revenue for each time-out is just plain clever.

He has also ordered broadcasters to get in 2000 seconds of advertisments during the match.

Now this is quite impractical, according to the broadcasters, who say that, in theory, they would have to have an ad-break of 40 seconds between overs and 1 minute between wickets. This is considering that each innings will last 20 overs and the team will lose 10 wickets. If not…..

In order to implement all this, Modi has brought in a new set of fines..
– 1st offense carries a $20k fine for the captain
– 2nd offense carries a $20k fine for each member of the team
– 3rd offense carries a team fine of $360k and skip is banned for 1 match..

Well, it’s for you to decide whether Modi is being clever or if we are going to watch only 4-ball overs on TV…