The View From Row Z

So, after all that, we were stuck with Chennai Perishing Super Kings in the final again. And it was being held in Chennai itself, the capital city of yellow. Every shade of yellow t-shirt was represented in the crowd, from dubious mustard through overripe banana to bilious canary, and even the bails were a kind of lemony-amber Super Kings hue.

Inevitably the home team was soon enjoying itself, like it was 2010 all over again. One big shot from Suresh even provoked the scoreboard operator to flash up what has to be a contender for the worst pun in IPL history: “It’s Raina-ing Boundaries.”

As the total hit three digits, Shahrukh Khan removed his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes, in the hope that he was dreaming, or perhaps because the insurance for his shades did not include a clause for perspiration damage.

Like many franchise fans, over the last few weeks I’ve loaded up with IPL merchandise. My bathroom is well stocked with Preity Zinta’s Kings XI anti-bacterial wipes, my appliances are fitted with Deccan Chargers rechargeable batteries (charger no longer manufactured) and there’s a punnet of Royal Challengers strawberries in my fridge (each strawberry genetically engineered to take on the facial characteristics of a different player).

But I was most proud of my set of official IPL earplugs. Expertly moulded in luxurious ear-canal friendly foam, designed to fit snugly into even the gnarliest aural orifice, they are hand-painted with the logos of all nine franchises. This mint condition collection sat prominently on my shelf next to Ravi Shastri’s signed moustache comb and was going to be worth a fortune. Sadly it was not to be. Let me explain.

Over the last few weeks I have been training in the “Leaping Couch Potato” form of Kung Fu, and having reached Bruce Lee levels of agility, I can now dive across the room, snatch up the remote and depress the mute button in the time it takes a commentator to clear his throat. Thanks to these new skills, I have managed to avoid most of the output of the one-man noise pollution machine that is Mr Daniel Morrison.

The daily life of the modern sports administrator is full of problems. For example, when completing your expenses form is it acceptable to claim for a round of cocktails on a first-class flight to a meeting in Kuala Lumpur to discuss paper-clip procurement procedures – cocktails you didn’t drink because your secretary didn’t buy your flight tickets, because the meeting was cancelled a week last Wednesday?

And if your boss tells you to come up with a schedule for a new cricket competition, what should you do? At first glance, it seems easy. If the thing is going to last more than a month, just make it a league. Everyone plays everyone else, the best team finishes top. It’s morally upstanding, neat and wholesome. What’s the problem?

Well, leagues, like Test cricket and empires, are a little 19th century. They’re fine for working out which team is the best, but as an administrator you couldn’t give two Haroon Lorgats which team is the best. Your job is to craft a compelling competition with a pulse-quickening climax. And sometimes, leagues don’t come down to the last ball of the last over of the last game. Sometimes they fizzle out with a fortnight to go and then your lovingly constructed schedule becomes a wasteland of low ratings and zombie fixtures.

So farewell to the Kings XI, to Preity, Adam, Praveen and the rest. Once more they arrived at the final game of the group stage like a teenager at his first date, feeling slightly sick, clutching a bouquet of flowers and with only an outside possibility that it might go well. Yet again they ended up going home on their own, with a bunch of wilted roses, soup stains on their shirt and a slapped cheek.

But they couldn’t have picked a better spot to be dumped (again) than Dharamsala. When the camera panned over the pavilion to the mountains, it wasn’t a fleetingly picturesque distraction, like a lingering glimpse of a Derek Pringle tattoo on a cheerleader’s ankle; it was a view so stunning that for a few moments the whole business of net run rates, WWF Maximums and points tables seemed utterly futile.

In fact, David Warner was so busy gawping at the scenery that he completely forgot he was playing cricket and copped a faceful of leather from Ryan Harris. Fortunately the Delhi backroom staff stepped up to the plate and treated us to a 20-minute demonstration of their art, including towel-rubs, eye examinations, blood tests, aromatherapy, crystal healing, some light dental work and a Jungian counselling session.

The time-warping qualities of the IPL are extraordinary. As you set out on your journey, armed with just a remote control, a fixture list and a tub of Valium, the thing seems interminable, a long and winding trail of 72 games stretching on and on and on, as daunting as the prospect of watching three productions of the Ring cycle back to back.

But now we’re getting towards the end and I don’t know where the time has gone. It seems like only yesterday that we were watching dancers gyrating inside giant plastic bubbles or listening to Robin Jackman reminiscing about how a shot by Manvinder Bisla reminded him of Basil d’Oliveira facing up to Wes Hall at Lord’s in nineteen hundred and before you born, son.

Ah, the carefree days of early April. Sarkozy was the French President, the Greeks had a government, Manchester United thought they were going to win the Premier League. In those more innocent times, no one had heard of Kevon Cooper and the people of the earth were blissfully unaware of the horror of all those feeble Richard Levi puns that awaited them.

The IPL’s Fair Play League is a splendid idea, if not an original one. There is, believe it or not, a similar tally of chivalrous conduct in the English Premier League, although given that the spirit of sportsmanship in that particular competition is as fragile as a daisy seedling in the middle of a rugby pitch, the threshold for what is considered meritorious conduct in the EPL has understandably been set rather low.

For example, if upon entering the penalty area, a player does not immediately hurl himself to the turf as though he has been tackled by a horde of invisible dwarves, he will earn maximum fair play points. Points are also given to defenders who are able to walk past a fallen fellow professional without stamping on his knee, spitting on his mohican or calling him something unparliamentary in Spanish.

Thankfully, our sport is different. Apart from that unfortunate business in the early 1930s, and a bit of a kerfuffle at Sydney a few years ago, cricket has a spotless reputation. Oh, and there was that thing with the aluminium bat, Michael Holding booting the timber, the underarm debacle, Atherton’s pocket compost, the career of WG Grace, colonialism, match-fixing, ball-tampering, and chucking.

The IPL’s television ratings may be a few viewers short of a full sofa but those people who are wasting their time watching other shows really should give it a try. It has more preposterous posing than an episode of Jersey Shore, more outlandish dance moves than a Bollywood flick, and some of the strangest hair styles you’ll see outside of English football. There are also sweaty men in polyester, if sweaty men in polyester are your thing.

Most importantly, it is really very close this time. Usually at this stage in the IPL cycle, we are sitting around twiddling our thumbs, trying not to look too bored, and sneaking furtive glances at the calendar when the players aren’t looking. When do the playoffs begin? As battles go, the battle for fourth place is not exactly Gettysburg. Many of the games at the fag end of the league stage have all the gripping tension of the Shopping Channel.

But not this time. As we speak, the IPL is poised as delicately as a priceless Greek vase on a rickety wooden trestle table in the foyer of a really busy hotel. You know it is going to fall eventually. But which way will it fall and when? And how many pieces will it break into? And who will clean the pieces up? And who will fill in the insurance claim forms? You get the idea. Will plucky Rajasthan escape their mid-table peril? Stay tuned to find out!

The Royal Challengers have only been around for four years, same as the others, but somehow they feel like the oldest franchise. Good old Bangalore, the team of Dravid and Kumble, Kallis and Vettori, never won the thing, but that isn’t what they’re here for. They’re the reliable old carthorse in a stable full of show ponies, and when all the others have gone lame they’ll be plodding on to the finish line to take a respectable third.

But this season they have a problem. Over the years Vijay Mallya has gone a little crazy at the sales and now there is far too much stuff and not enough space in the talent wardrobe to put it. It’s the same problem that Pune have and it is the unspoken curse of the IPL. Many a melancholy millionaire will tell you money can’t buy you happiness and having the most overseas players on your books is a burden, not a blessing. How so?

You remember what it was like when you were allowed to go to the sweet shop on the way to school, but only given a limited sweetie allowance. You’d rush along the counter, grab a packet of Flailing Gayles, a handful of Tillakaratne Twizzlers and a scoop of AB Allsorts. But then you really really wanted some Fizzing Muralis, and what about the subtle flavours of the Vettori Twirlers or Old McDonald’s Ginger Dobblers?

Fifty-one games in and I think it’s starting to get to me. There’s no milk in the fridge, I’ve missed at least three birthdays, I haven’t the foggiest idea what is going on in the US presidential election, and sometimes when I try to go to sleep I think I can hear the IPL trumpet taunting me in the distance. So on Tuesday I took a break from the goings-on in franchise land and took to my garden to contemplate the flowers.

It didn’t work. I soon noticed that the blue of the bluebells was exactly the same colour as Mumbai’s shirts and that the angry pigeon squawking in the oak tree sounded just like Harbhajan whenever his team takes a wicket. A straggly blackbird taking off from a statue of Aphrodite reminded me of Sourav’s hair, and when I divided the number of weeds in the hanging basket by the number of fence panels that were in need of repair, I ended up with Kolkata’s net run rate, which as we all know is 0.28 poorer than Delhi’s.

Wandering down to the end of the garden to clear my head, I came across a slightly overweight song thrush hopping about feebly in the undergrowth. It kept flapping its wings desperately but just didn’t have the skills. Not so clever now, are you, the other birds seemed to be twittering. Naturally I felt sympathy for the poor thing. And then I thought of Yusuf Pathan.

Since this is an IPL blog, I probably ought to talk about some of the weighty IPL matters being debated in the media. Will the franchise model continue to be viable in the current economic circumstances? Do the disappointing ratings show that the IPL has reached saturation point and that new marketing strategies are required? How exactly does Sunil Narine get his hair to do that sticky-up thing?