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It's that time in the IPL when competition for the fair-play award starts to heat up. Once dismissed as a meaningless consolation prize awarded arbitrarily by umpires, the award is just as rabidly fought over as the main prize itself, if not more so, with teams often adopting underhanded and controversial tactics in order to appear more gentlemanly than the others and garner more points.

In fact, so heated and cutthroat has the competition for the award been this year that the powers that be are reportedly considering introducing in the next edition of the IPL a fair-play award for teams competing for the fair-play award.

The following is just a sampling of the controversies that have already plagued this year's competition for the prize.

Should cricketers only be allowed to appear on our screens when they are actually out in the middle playing cricket? This admittedly rather censorious suggestion nipped into my head this week after watching one bland IPL post-match interview too many and then coming across a glossy new TV advert featuring a couple of England players. Our heroes, so sublime and graceful on the field, seem to often transform into bewildered or bewildering automatons off it whenever a camera comes near them, though in some cases this isn't really their fault.

Take the post-match interview, for instance, in which the number of genuinely illuminating answers given by players per season could be written on the back of a business card. This is hardly surprising, of course, when Ravi Shastri's startling interrogation technique involves asking questions while thrusting the microphone towards his interviewee's face as if he's stabbing a pumpkin with a knitting needle. Similarly, Danny Morrison's tactic of shouting his queries in a voice loud enough to take off his unfortunate victim's skin generally induces awkward fear rather than responses of any actual interest. Even in-play interviews with the batting bench - a relatively innovative phenomenon - rarely offer us much aside from how the "lads are working hard" and, occasionally, news on dew levels. Dale Steyn took the ennui of the in-play chat a step further the other week when he was asked what he made of his team's current batting performance. He replied he hadn't been watching because he was playing on his iPod.

It's in the commercial sphere, however, that cricketers can really excel at proving they are cricketers rather than screen idols. There has been the odd triumph in cricket-themed adverts, such as Kevin Pietersen batting blindfolded to advertise a popular hair cream. Can you see the link between the premise and the product there? No, me neither, but at least it was quite compelling viewing.

Some people have been concerned that the reappointment of Peter Moores as England cricket supremo represents a backward step. Not so. It will all be very different this time.

Previous Moores regime: Coach proved himself unable to deal with star players.
New Moores regime: Not going to be a problem because England no longer have any.

Previous Moores regime: One-size-fits-all approach to training.
New Moores regime: Each individual player can choose the colour of cones he will be running around 100 times a day while being shouted at.

Do you suffer from feelings of inadequacy? Are you experiencing anxiety at work? Have you been rendered impotent by an over-inflated sense of self-worth? Do you find yourself unable to perform with your customary abandon because of a newfound "guilt" over how precious you are?

Perhaps you recognise the following symptoms:

An overwhelming desire to be swallowed whole into cracks in the pitch.

Rail travel micturition, tectonic turbulence, financial concerns and chicken. You know, the usual stuff.

Even the strongest marriages, it is believed, are susceptible to what is known as the seven-year itch, the stage when a hitherto happy union starts to become a bit fraught. Those lovable little habits of a partner start to turn into excruciating annoyances. Those once-cute little quirks start to seem like huge character flaws. Toilet seats get left up more frequently. The best efforts at DIY get criticised and put down mercilessly. Some couples turn to therapy, but all too often reintegration of the heart is impossible.

No one would ever suggest that the IPL has been the perfect cricketing marriage - unless, of course, the bride and groom are breathless razzmatazz and Danny Morrison respectively - but it is undoubtedly a coming together of entertainment, skill and innovation that has endured despite, to say the least, a few ups and downs: the two years, including the present one, when it has been evicted from its home and forced to lodge with friends abroad; the year some of the in-laws got into a little bit of financial bother, placing a huge strain on the relationship; the continued insistence of franchises that buying Ishant Sharma to be their strike bowler might be a good idea. All of these obstacles have been overridden. Yet this year, the tournament's seventh, it seems as if something is just slightly amiss, with the resultant drop in quality perhaps born out of cosy complacency.

Some of the batting, not least from defending champions Mumbai, has had all the class and finesse of a squaddie's stag do. We're not just talking about mistimed hoicks and top edges flying comfortably for six - complaining about something as integral to the IPL as those is akin to grumbling The Sopranos had too much swearing - but just basic strategy and match awareness, with Steve Smith's cute Super Over nudge against KKR being a rare canny exception.

The England Test team is unusually unsettled at the minute. This has led to any number of different players putting their hands up, knocking on doors, coming to parties, and generally making some sort of case for selection.

It's an exciting time for those of us at home who like to play armchair selector, but if you're putting yourself in James Whitaker's soft leather shoes, how would you set about this challenging task? With so much to weigh up and so much at stake, you need the right approach.

Tea leaves
Always a good fallback - tea leaves can tell you anything. Is that silty sludge depicting a shark? Sharks have fins, so maybe Steven Finn should be selected. Or is it a Sussex Shark? If that's the case, perhaps the remnants of your hot beverage are pushing for Chris Jordan's inclusion? The shape's really hard to make out because it's so small. Oh, wait - does that mean James Taylor?

The world's most glamorous, brash and controversial cricket tournament is underway. Critics have said that the "product" is a mechanical, naked pursuit of entertainment above all else, a money-driven thrill-seeking orgy of commercialism and spectacle. Its champions say much the same. Whatever the fact of the matter, it is impossible to deny that this is the richest, most dynamic, most obscene and most important sporting contest on the planet.

It is, of course, the County Championship, played in England and, in an example of the transcendent power of sport to heal deep wounds between nations, across the hotly contested border with war-torn Wales, home of the Glamorganshire Glamorgans.