The tamasha of IPL

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is picking up some Tamil and refusing to call the match between the Chennai Superkings and Kings XI Punjab a face-off between him and Yuvraj Singh. He writes in the Hindustan Times:

I know Friday's game was being seen as Sourav versus Rahul and Saturday's game being spoken of as Dhoni versus Yuvraj, but at the end of the day it will be teams who will take each other on, and not just a couple of individuals.

That's just fodder for advertisers to whip up excitement before a game, and does not translate into actual rivalry. Fortunately, I am not a bowler otherwise the hype on the 'Dhoni-Yuvi face-off' would have shot through the roof! Yuvraj is an aggressive cricketer, and I know that he will come hard at my team, but that's the charm of this format since it pits you against your teammates and teams you up with your opponents. I have been meeting Yuvraj quite a few times since Thursday, and there have been no cold vibes between us.

In the same paper, Poonam Saxena is fed up of the non-stop IPL chatter on Indian new channels.

In keeping with its time-honoured tradition of giving us Rakhi Sawant day and night, Headlines Today did a hundred-hour interview with her about the IPL ... There were three of them in the studio, asking her penetratingly intelligent questions such as which of the IPL videos she likes best (and why she isn’t in any of them), which team is her favourite and so on. Rakhi wiggled her eyebrows and eyes, often both at the same time, and gave equally penetratingly intelligent answers (she favours the Vijay Mallya video because he’s in the company of men for a change).

In the Mid-Day, Anand Naik has some tips for those who want to come to the stadiums to watch the IPL games.