So the IPL 3 is finally over and CSK have won. But the cat-fight between Lalith Modi and BCCI has just begun. Throw in a few cabinet ministers and a intelligent, good looking, foreign educated ousted one with an attractive friend and you’ve got something that’ll do more to ad revenue than perhaps even the IPL final.
Honestly I’m quite ambivalent about the whole saga surrounding the IPL. Modi is perhaps getting more than his due for the heavy handedness that he’s personified, the BCCI may escape without getting it’s due of rotten tomatoes and worse.
On the other hand, it is sad that India and Indian cricket’s image is taking a hit; its face is now marred again with the soot of corruption and match fixing. Whether people admit it or not (for fear of BCCI’s financial clout), the skepticism surround match-fixing that was almost buried after the Sharjah era is in all fairness back. It is now almost ok to ask if the final was fixed and whether that was part of the reason for sending Pollard in down the order. But it is also baffling. Perhaps that is why I fell asleep half way through Mumbai’s innings maybe it was too lacklustre to be true (but I made up by watching the entire post match ceremony till 2 am).
This time it will take longer to douse the suspicions. But life will go on. With the T20 World Cup only days away, even before the withdrawal syndrome sets in, we’ll be discussing why Dale Steyn isn’t overrated.
VM\'s Random Ramblings 
Pollard down the order was classic SRT overthink, was like the previous years when MI batting was all over the place.
Pollard was always brought 1 or 2 positions lower than where he should have been batting. It had worked for MI and I was expecting it to fail atleast once.
The match fixing whispers are really painful though.. Some IT guy said somewhere that Modi was involved (really??) in betting and all tabloids (all media has turned into yellow journals now) jump onto the bandwagon.
And the BCCI itself may have fed some of those rumors.. it’s like cutting your own nose to spite others.. Well done BCC!
That’s right, BCCI is slinking out in the background of all this despite its massive bulk.
@NC, I like the term SRT overthink. Somehow we thought that got fixed; only he seemed to have found it just to use in the final
@Namya, I haven’t followed MI as closely as you seem to have. BRC used Uthappa similarly, only that ploy seemed to fail more often. đŸ™‚ As for betting and match fixing, I think the stories will get increasingly bizarre. Maybe one can bet on both teams playing thru different bookies – like the buy long and sell short?
@SB, pity isn’t it. That’s where the cleaning out should start. But doesn’t look that way
the media seems to have created some kind of smoke screen through which everything looks pregnant with probabilities of something fishy… it’s time we ask ourselves some questions like do we sincerely believe that player of the level of sachin can be a match fixer or the party of match fixing…?
can kumble who’s integrity can not be questions and its only his words that only one side were playing cricket in spirit of game and whole world listned and tool note off… can be party to this thing…?
the players like dravid, dhoni etc will be happy to rake in extra moolah by involving in such practices… if honest answer is yes… then we should all move on… the league will die its own death… why care…?
@SP, I can feel your frustration, but there is no smoke without fire. Even if it isn’t a full fledged one. Though it can be difficult to fix a match without a captain’s involvement, it is possible. There is a lot of overreaction about match fixing, but the truth I think is that it is neither completely false/true. I believe the post-match-fixing era cricketers – Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid, Kumble et all are clean. But everyone may not be. I don’t know what could reinstate the unquestioning faith, maybe that could be just a good game of competitive cricket. Maybe after the World T20, we may not be complaining as much.