IPL 2013 or Jumping Jepang Season 1

After watching Sunrisers Hyderabad make it to the playoff, I was convinced of one thing - IPL is definitely the stuff dreams are made of. Only in the world that has IPL can any team, even those whose catchment area produces nothing more than a bunch of schoolboys who get dismissed for 21 in First-class cricket, get a realistic shot at glory. Only in the world of IPL can a team whose players have already thrown in the towel still end up coming third in a league of nine. Only in the world of IPL can Shah Rukh stretch out his arms in public while Lata Mangeshkar's voice croaks," La la la la la la la la la la ( repeat 37 times for effect)".

We are now so much into this whole sports entertainment thingie, that we cant wait to watch the commercials that will be aired on the 26th May ( Promise! Read this if doubt my love for IPL). So much so that we've been trying to imagine what new surprises are going to unfold in the next week, until May 26th, when Ravi Shastri will hand over the highly ornate and grotesque Indian Premier League trophy to the game of Cricket. Here's our list of predictions:

May 21st: Qualifier 1 is abandoned, owing to an unforeseen traffic jam outside the Indira Gandhi Airport, the team bus is forced to take a U-turn and enter the airport runway to catch the last direct flight to Ranchi, where the match will be replayed the following day, due to the fact that the Eliminator match is scheduled at the Kotla the same day.

May 22nd: Crowd anger forces all four teams to reach Kotla. Confusion ensues as the spectators for both the games end up reaching the stadium. A compromise is reached. Two 8-over matches will be played. The first game will be the qualifier featuring Mumbai and Chennai. The second game featuring Hyderabad and Rajasthan.  The crowd for the first game will be asked to vacate seats immediately for those spectators who had reserved tickets for the 9:45 show...err match.

May 22nd, Match 1: The first match begins and very predictably ... it goes down the wire. There's two runs required of the last ball, Mumbai is 9 wickets down with Pollard facing the inimitable Ravindra Jadeja. In the most expected of anticlimaxes, Ravindra Jadeja bowls a quicker one, which beats Pollard, and he's caught plumb in front of the wicket. The Chennai goes up in unison. The umpire Asnani  says, "Sorry. I sneezed just as Sir Jadeja bowled, so I didn't notice. Third Umpire, help maadi!" The TV replays suggested that Jadeja had clearly overstepped, so it was a no-ball. Then in the most obvious of situations, cameras also detected Pollard quickly kicking the ball away immediately after it hit him on the pad. He's declared out for obstructing the field. It's a tie! The super over fell just short of the wire, when Mumbai score 23 runs for the loss of one wicket, while the Chennai openers remain unbeaten on 12. Mumbai proceed to the finals.

May 22nd, Match 2: For the longest time, it seemed like cricket would be the winner. But once the match eventually started at 1: 30 pm in front of an empty Kotla stadium. the organisers made it more interesting by having a bilateral series of tosses between the two captains. At the end of the 5-match series, Hyderabad beat Rajasthan 4-1, with Cameron White displaying his value to the team by coming back from 1-0 to calling 4 consecutive tosses correctly. "After winning two tosses, we didn't want to lose momentum, so I went for the kill", said a calm White. Hyderabad to play Chennai in the Eliminator.

May 23rd, 2013:  When N Srinivasan calls a press conference, one Sreesanth look-alike suddenly appears out of nowhere and hurls a match box and runs away. Out of nowhere (not where Sree look alike turned up) a Dhoni look-alike dives in front of Srini and saves a certain embarrassment with a smart one handed catch. Out of another nowhere, a Bhajji look-alike shows up infront of the Sree lookalike, and gives him one tight slap. " Throwing matches again, are you?", says the proud Sardar. The Dhoni look-alike gifts the Sree look-alike a single match stick to Sree look-alike saying, " At least you'll see some light in jail." At the end of this staged act, we are assured that this is a Guerrilla campaign for Ship Matches - The Real Match Winner!

May 24th, 2013: Just a few hours before the start of the Qualifier two between Chennai and Hyderabad, the trading end season trading window opens, allowing surviving teams to buy players from eliminated teams. Chennai are quick to buy Watson and Faulkner to add to their list of all-rounders. Mumbai buys out Narine, Gayle and Warner to beef up their team. The owners of Hyderabad are too broke, so Sanga, Parthiv, White, Steyn, Ishant, Mishra and Dhawan go dutch and pick up...Venugopal Rao to boost their batting line up.

May 24th, 2013: Everything goes according to the script when Sunrisers pay a homage to Deccan Chargers (basically the  last year's outfits) by getting mustering up a par score of 119/9 in 20 overs. Everything goes as per script when Chennai require three runs of one ball when Ashish attempts a slower yorker only to trip on his own shoe lace, and letting the ball fly directly to the vacant fine leg region. 7 wides are declared and Chennai proceed to the finals.

May 25th, 2013: The whole nation goes dizzy when they wake up to the news of Farah Khan entering the parliament house and teaching all the ministers what dance step to perform every time a state government falls. The Ministers are seen performing the "Jumping Jepang" in super Slo-mo, with Navjot Singh Sidhu providing expert political commentary. 

May 26, 2013: In a moment worthy of Star Plus Nayi Soch award, N Srinivasan turns the IPL Final into a reality show that will be judged by Anu Mallik, Sanjiv Kapoor and Raghu. The winner is decided by an SMS poll by the audience. After three hours of intense drama, which required Harbhajan to pair up with Farah Khan for an impromptu gig, the audience send in millions of votes, and thanks to thousands of votes coming in from Maharashtra and Gujrat, Urvashi Dholakia is declared the joint winner of IPL Season 6 along with...You're right! Cricket. But then, you saw that coming, didn't you?
 

Dust If You Must

 Just read this fine poem and had to share it here. Cant seem to trace the poet, since it seems to be attributed to many. Whoever wrote this one is surely one fine poet.

Dust if you must.
But wouldn’t it be better,
To paint a picture, or write a letter,
Bake a cake, or plant a seed?
Ponder the difference between want and need.

Dust if you must.
But there is not much time
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb!
Music to hear, and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must.
But the world’s out there
With the sun in your eyes,
the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.
This day will not come round again.

Dust if you must.
But bear in mind,
Old age will come and it’s not kind.
And when you go, and go you must,
You, yourself, will make more dust.

Snappy Replies at IPL's Post Match Ceremonies

IPL perhaps boasts of everything any bollywood summer blockbuster can ask for - damsels with great faces and greater legs, overweight men indulging in breath taking action (with a little help from stunning camerawork of course), occasional foreign hand or two ruffling some feathers and raking up some controversy,  opposition captains plotting deviously to upset your happy ending, periodic song and dance,  and of course, three hours of watching damsels with great faces and greater legs. Where IPL makes for great entertainment in each of the aforementioned practices, it loses out greatly in one department - dialogue. The problem is match in and match out, the winning captains and losing captains are subjected to the same drill of post match ceremonies. Coming as it is at the end of the match, the anchor is blessed with hindsight that's fueled by Quikr Super Sixer, Super Fours by More supermarket and Fall of Wickets by IRCTC Tickets. the unsuspecting captains however have no such benefit, given that they don't have the luxury of watching Laxman Sivaramakrishnan doing a Jumping Japang Jumpak Jampak with Rameez Raja while playing the game. That makes it an uneven match doesn't it? So to all the participating captains at the IPL, here's a guide to dish out some entertaining stuff at the post match ceremonies:

Question: As a captain, you must have believed that there were enough runs on the board. what happened after that?

Answer: Well, lads and I decided that we've had a long day at work, so watching an episode of Balika Vadhu will help us relax. It didn't work.

Question: But the home team was dealing in boundaries. Is there anything you could have done at that point?

Answer: Yes. I could have retired from the game, suited up, stepped into the commentary box, and tried
crafting a more creative question.

Question: What does a captain do when everything he tries seems to fail?

Answer: The secret lies in never having a shave before a match. It's moments like these when you can indulge in age old practice of gently stroking your 5 'o clock shadow.

Question: What do you tell your team in the face of such a brutal onslaught?

Answer: I ask them if any of them are downloading a Blue-ray rip of Iron Man 3D on their laptops in the dressing room. At the end of the day, I carry my Portable Harddrive to their rooms and extract some new downloads in exchange for some old porn.

Question: Tell us what was running in your mind when you took that sensational catch at long on?

Answer: If I did not pluck the ball out of thin air as you put it, I could picture the team owners chasing me with power tools after the match. So I had to take that catch.

Question: Now how did you take the skier at the boundary?

Answer: You see I was just minding my own business walking around the park when some geezer decided to take the bowler to the cleaners. Now that would have been quite alright under normal circumstances. But I had to interefere when the ball was headed straight for the...cheerleader's face. Call me old fashioned, but there are better ways of attracting the attention of a pretty lady than throwing a 1 KG projectile aimed at her head.

Question: What's the mood like in the dugout?

Answer: Everyone's busy, checking out their laptops and iPads, signing into to facebook and twitter, trying their hand at writing a #SirRavindraJadeja tweet, or RTing the ones that MS Dhoni wrote on his wall. Just another day in office, I guess.

Question: At the end of the day, it must be very difficult for an international cricketer like you to lead an IPL team?

Answer: Not quite. This is just a fantastic annual vacation. Every year I fly down to Hyderabad, and stay at a 5-star deluxe hotel. We get to check out eight other cities over two months. And at the end of each of the 16 matches, we head out to a club and party till the wee hours of the morning. Occasionally, I'm hungover when I have to board a flight, but a strip of Avomin is a small price to pay in exchange for all the partying and travelling and great food and great women and of course the USD 570,000 that I get paid at the end of it. Yea, I could have probably got more, but hey! That's far better than staying back home in Brisbane without a job.

Question: The crowds here seem to love you. Do you have any words for them?

Answer: NO actually I dont. But lets try: Hey people! Thanks for coming in. And dont forget to follow me on twitter. I'm just 53,096 followers short of a million. Peace!