If ever there was a very colourful outburst of glitz, glamour, hype n hoopla, color and lights with a sea of people thrown in, it wouldnt have matched the IPL. Add to this 2 things which make India go crazy: Bollywood & cricket and every logic goes for a toss. The initial build-up to the IPL by virtue of its aggressive media campaign splashed all over the newspapers, TV, net & radio was something any marketing guy could learn from.
This massive IPL seduction ensured that the other IPL (Indian political league, which so many channels had cunningly christened to garner some miniscule viewership) had to be content with a shrinking fan-following.Surely, it did overshadow the election drama which failed to make an impact, at least in mumbai. Mumbai with its extended weekend had only 2 out of 5 people polling. Appalling to say the least, considering the whole hue n cry raised after 26/11 and the 'wake up' campaign. And you thought educated people would go all out to vote.
Anyways, back to IPL,some very interesting things of note;
1) The spotlight was more on the owners than on the performers. Rather it seemed as if the owners 'paid n performed' rather than 'paid the players to perform'.
2) Controvery stalked SRK like his shadow.
His gimmick of distributing golden mukuts failed miserably.
His 4-captain theory was rubbished by the pundits and thrown into the dustbin even before it came into effect ( A very popular anecdote doing the rounds on sms suggested that the 1st captain was for the toss, the 2nd for choosing the team, the 3rd for effecting the field changes and the 4th as a substitute captain)
3) Yet another anecdote on SRK after his team took a beating from every other team in the tournament was the one which likened him to Mahatma gandhi since both of them were 'insulted' in south africa!
Fair say..The knight riders had their daylights knocked out
4) Rains played spoil-sport in the initial parts of the tournament and transformed the T-20 matches into T-10 & T-5 matches (glimpse of the future??).The mathematicians had to work overtime to calculate the new scores. And the players were paid millions.
5) Men were auctioned off to the respective franchisees to the tune of millions. The only time when Shilpa & Preity would have fancied fighting over a man( in real life).
6) Man of the match awards have gone out of the window the window after Preity's "Jaadoo ki jhaapis". Shilpa" Hot" Shetty could well have her own brand of cricket (different bats,balls,cricket gear etc) just like "shilpa yoga".
7) JP duminy - $ 950000, Kevin pietersen - $ 1550000, Dada - $ 1092000.
Cheer-girls - $$$$$$$.....Priceless.
There are some things money cannot buy and those are the most attractive ones!
8) PVI - Paisa Vasool Index which measured the performance + brand value of a player, was invented . (Not long ago we discovered the zero)
9) Lalit would have had his heart in his mouth firstly when the elections knocked off any ideas he entertained of having an 'Indian' IPL and when the heavens opened up in south Africa. But he is currently on a splurging his excesses albeit for charity work in SA.
10) Its becoming increasingly difficult to decide which team to support.
I have changed my allegiance at least 4-5 times now.
(It started off with rajasthan since they won the last time, they failed miserably this time - > Mumbai indians 'cos of a dashing opening partnership, till their losing spree started...then chennai and lately its Kings Punjab. I luv Preity tll then..)
Regards
vish
