The Fake IPL Player’s blog is great fun. Each post gets tonnes of (deserving) comments. Whoever is behind this blog has hit upon a brilliant idea
Take this .. About John Buchanan, he writes: "I think he wants to send his laptop in to bat the next time, given the amount of time he spends with it. Maybe if he spent half that time with us players, we may win a match or two"
He reserves the most acerbic comments for Appam Sreesanth: "Appam has this uncanny ability to piss off anyone who’s unfortunate enough to come within 2 kms of him."
How popular is the FIP ?
So far, 41,502 people have voted on the fake IPL player blog(Fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com), to determine whether the anonymous blogger, purportedly a member of Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team, should disclose his identity. Needless to say, 64% of the voters feel he should stand by his word and disclose his identity at the end of the popular Twenty20 cricket tournament.
The blog, which has been offering visitors dressing room gossip, occasionally peppered with interesting accounts of life in the KKR team, has taken the online world by storm since it was launched on 18 April. The blogger’s inclusiveness and pointed irreverence certainly are selling points among cricket buffs who rarely have the insider’s view on what is considered a gentleman’s game.Firms are now paying attention to blogs, using them as an informal network to get the opinion of customers

Why is he a runaway sellout ?
Let’s face it, we as a society love our reality shows and love gossip…we’ve never had access to gossip on cricket and the blog is catering to that need. While much of the content on the blog could be classified as fiction, it was something that readers could relate to, much like the book The Zoya Factor by Anuja Chauhan, which tells the story of an advertising executive who is regarded as a good luck charm by the Indian cricket team. Even Times of India tried to encash teh popularity by runnng a column saying “Here you get to hear from the ‘Real IPL players’,” it read.

The Fake IPL player blog had at its peak, on 26 April, 150,000 visitors, who each spent 15 minutes on the site—which adds up to about 37,000 hours spent on the blog in one day. Putting it up there with popular individual led blogs such as Aamir Khan’s blog at its peak with about 170,000 visitors. Much of the interest in the fake IPL blog has stemmed from cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore, even though the blogger apparently belongs to the Kolkata team.

Why is he spitting venom ?
Well the whole idea of a negative blog is to say: you have a right to your own opinion. The last time it happened in India involved Barkha Dutt of NDTV . The media company took a blogger to court for criticizing Barkha Dutt on her coverage of the terror attacks in Mumbai, and won. Internationally, Domino’s Pizza Inc. faced a lot of flak after a video on YouTube showed an employee preparing a food order with cheese he had put up his nose. The company failed to act in time, losing a crucial opportunity to contain the crisis.

While both the management of IPL as well as KKR have tried to maintain a silence on the fake IPL player blog, its growing popularity is likely to a definite impact on the brand KKR and their sponsors. In this tough competetive times all publicity is good publicity; specially these economically challenging days, when notoriety is also aspired for however, at times, when negative publicity is relentlessly targeted at a certain individual or a brand; that too by a nameless, faceless Internet entity, then it can have very serious implications. In this case, it generates mistrust among teammates thereby causing a rift in the team and to continue to be happy with the association despite the fact that the team hasn’t fared too well would definitely be tough .

My two cents...
My bet is on this concept being the brain child of some media manager or PR expert from the team. Good to see non-traditional media being used to create excitement around the event. What say friends ?

Think about it .. there has been so much in so little a time that the mind at times takes a sigh . Multi captain theory ,Dada – no dada , Fake IPL player , security concerns moving making IPL Internatinal Premier League,Strategic breaks , Million dollar english sand babies flopping . first ball goldern ducks , beer sipping fielders and McGrath sitting out . Fixing scandals and Miandad’s “joke” All this and more makes me think if it is a “league”

The Indian Premier League 2009 was in troubled waters even before its start, when the Government of India had refused to provide security to the extravagant tournament due to its clash of dates with the General Elections.

There was anger all over with rumours about the second edition being scrapped due to security issues. But before something unfortunate happened, Cricket South Africa came to the rescue of the tournament and its fans. Political parties making hay terming it as a “national shame ”. However the first edition was a winner hands down! It had the perfect start with a mammoth 158 flowing out of Brendon McCullum’s bat in the very first match. And there was a dream ending too – a mighty close encounter between eventual champions Rajasthan Royals and MS Dhoni led Chennai Super Kings. No one, in their wildest dreams would have thought that the de-glam squad of Rajasthan would lay their hands on the gorgeous trophy.

Things haven’t changed much even now in the sense that there still prevails uncertainty in the extravagantly lucrative tournament. The 2009 edition has been full of surprises so far and there have been incidents that have left a bitter taste in the mouth of fans forcing them to draw comparisons with IPL 2008. Let us have a look at a few mis-hits of the second edition.

Kolkata Flight Riders


No one expected Kolkata Knight Riders to take the exit route even before half the number of games in the competition was played. No ‘build up’ to the series, no PR activities, no advertisements and no star power worked. No one Korbo-ed anything, so the lorbo and jeetbo part remained out of the question, completely. And yes, the over hyped ‘Multiple Captains Theory’ did not work, or better, was a blunder.

Depriving Ganguly of captaincy, calling in Sanjay Bangar and keeping the expensive Mashrafe bin Mortaza to warm the benches in the cool Kingsmead were only a couple of the innumerable mistakes that the SRK owned team committed. Keeping one of the most successful captains of international cricket away from the helm of all action is something that no management in proper mental sanity would do. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan had once said on national television that Sourav Ganguly would remain the captain till the time he owns KKR. Talk about a change of heart…Bollywood style!!


Strategic Time-Out


This one is a complete torture, honestly. Seven and a half minutes of stoppage time after 10 overs in every innings takes away the seriousness and the set mood of the viewers. Such a long break in a micro format is absolutely not required. It is not good for the spectators and not even for the players. It has already received flak from all corners of the cricketing fraternity and the irritation is spreading big time amongst its audience.

The strategy break might work in favour of either team in the match. The break gives both the teams to analyze their progress in the match and change their approach if required. The gap breaks the concentration of the batsman and as we have seen, in almost every match, there has been a wicket or two falling in the 11th over of the game. The strategic time out might work for the team that has been on the backfoot as they get the time to resurrect their plans while it might put brakes on the team going all guns blazing.

The main objective, however, is to generate revenue. Seven and a half minutes of break gives the IPL generate ample revenue from its advertisers, twice in a match. Lalit Modi, the chairman and commissioner of the IPL, has said that it will definitely be a part of the ongoing season. As of next year, it will be decided after the tournament.

Competitive Pitches, Dropped Catches


First ball ducks and wickets in the 11th over (thanks to the strategic break) have become a common sight in the latest edition of the IPL. There are bets being laid on first ball ducks and inning scores of less than 150. Being a T20 game, the spectators expect a cracker of a match with runs flowing out of the blade like water from a broken dam. They do not want to see wickets at regular intervals and scores of 120-140 being chased for victory.

The 20 over format has, more often than not, been a high scoring format and that is what is expected out of it. We want to see the bowlers being thrashed and bashed out of the park. Ironically, this IPL has seen only one score of over 200 in all.

Catches are dropped more than they are taken. Run-out opportunities missed in a fashion that can be related to gully cricket, or even worse. Till the 33rd match of the IPL (Rajasthan v Bangalore), 55 catches had been dropped, with Kolkata (ahem, ahem) leading the table.

Flop Shows
Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Brendon McCullum, Chris Gayle, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff…whew…! Big names, small show. The above are only a few to name. The English duo of KP and Freddie were the most expensive catches at 7.5 crores each, but neither could do much for their respective teams, and now, have returned with their hefty pay packets to their homeland to play West Indies.

Delhi Daredevils captain Sehwag and his deputy, Gambhir, are known to be tailor-made for the 20 over format. Fearless hitting is their characteristic, bludgeoning the opposition, their charisma. But both have failed to give their team a rock solid quick start. Thanks to the middle order suspension, they have sustained the top order shocks and scares comfortably. Gambhir, however, looked like getting back to his best when he won the Man of the Match award for his 71 off 57 balls versus KKR (31st match).

Brendon McCullum’s stint in IPL can only be remembered by his 158 n.o in the very first match of the IPL in 2008 - a perfect start that a tournament like the Indian Premier League could get. Nothing could have been better. Chris Gayle set the stage ablaze with a scintillating century in the first match of the T20 World Cup in 2007, but it seems like someone has poured a bucket of water on his fiery blade in the IPL.

With the bigwigs (in context to both names and age) like Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Matt Hayden, Dravid, Adam Gilchrist and Gibbs performing well, it would be great if the rulers of the format come to the fore and take the series to a different altitude altogether.

DLF Maximum or CITI Moment of Success?

Is it all about money honey? Yes it is. IPL is all about money, money and more money. Millions of dollars to buy players, hefty advertising costs, security budget etc. It’s raining cash in IPL.

The latest addition is the renaming of a SIX. It is now known as the ‘DLF Maximum’. A crucial wicket is called a ‘Citi Moment of Success’. Gone are the days when commentators spoke just for the love of the game. Sadly, it is just about the commercial proliferation and we get capitalist fabricated emotions to hear when an exciting moment comes in a game. Needless to say, it takes away the beauty of the effort and leaves us with an incomplete feeling. But as they say, ‘In Rome, do as the Romans do’, we must also take a cue and leave the poor commentators do their ‘job’ of making their sponsors happy and keep the money flowing.

Australian Rajasthani for Beer

Hopefully, you readers know what is being talked about here. Yes, it is the ‘sip of beer’ on the boundary lines by none other than the very cool and mischievous, the Australian Rajasthani, Shane Warne in the match against the Royal challengers Bangalore.

The spin legend was captured on camera gulping a mouthful of beer from a mug that was supposedly offered to him by a spectator. Now if that is something to be angry over, be amused or just enjoy the video, is up to the viewers to decide.

Did the Kolkata Knight Riders deliberately lose their IPL match against the Bangalore Royal Challengers?

The Knight Riders scored 173. Till the 15th over of the Bangalore innings, Kolkata looked set to win. Then, it all fell apart.


Someone has brought to Modi's attention that the match might have been fixed, while the BCC! has brought to my attention that the match might have been fixed.

The amusing thing is that the reason explained in this article, for the match being potentially fixed, is that Brad Hodge was not playing and was sitting in one of the hospitality boxes.

What connection exactly does sitting in a hospitality box and match fixing have?

And while they're at it, i.e. investigating match fixing in the IPL, maybe they should pay some attention to last night's match as well - the one that Deccan Chargers lost to the Delhi Daredevils.



Well if scoring 52 runs of the final 4 overs to win a match cannot be achieved without some match fixing, then how can 7 wickets for 12 runs be?

And why stop there?

Investigate today's match as well.

Because it looked like some players of the Royal Challengers Bangalore had fixed the match and wanted to lose it.

While some of them pulled a Rashid Latif and snatched a victory from the Chennai Super Kings.

Go on, give the ACU, or whoever the anti-corruption lot are at the IPL, something to do.

"I think he is an overrated bowler and so I think he was a great target for us to go at. He always loses his cool under pressure and I think tonight was a good example of that,"


In yet another cricket controversy for the DLF IPL 2009, we now have Australian Matthew Hayden calling Sreesanth an overrated bowler. Sreesanth went for a lot of runs when he was bowling to Hayden. When he finally got the big Aussie out by getting him caught at the personal score of 89, Hayden did not take kindly to the words that Sreesanth addressed to him as he walked back to the pavilion.


Matthew Hayden specializes in using choice epithets for some of the hapless bowlers that have the misfortune of bowling and he reserves the choicest ones for Indian bowlers: about a year ago Hayden’s comments about Harbhajan Singh were much in the cricket news, when India was touring Australia. Readers will recall it was a particularly acrimonious tour with allegations of racial slurs and counter allegations of name calling.

At that time, Hayden had very famously called Harbhajan an obnoxious little weed. “It’s been a bit of a long battle with Harbhajan, the first time I ever met him he was the same little obnoxious weed that he is now”, Hayden had said on Brisbane radio. Then there was also the allegation that he called Bhajji a ‘mad boy’ which he countered by saying that he said ‘bad’ not ‘mad’ which Bhajji should be “flattered” by since it was a clothing range.

Hayden had also famously referred to Ishant Sharma as a “stringbean paceman” and had expressed the desire to meet him in the boxing ring. “At the end of the day you are 19, why don’t you just worry about your bowling for a while,” Hayden was reported in the cricket news as having told Sharma

This latest cricket controversy also is caused by the wonderful compliments that Hayden seems to reserve for Indian bowlers who seem to get under his hide with shocking regularity. So when Hayden was in full flow and was stopped in his tracks at 89 by Sreesanth, the bowler seemed rather overwhelmed and as he often does, he overreacted. He hurled some abuse or harsh words at Hayden, and Hayden then responded with his withering scorn, the contempt that he keeps especially for Indian bowlers.

As for Sreesanth, this is far from his first run in with cricket controversy. Readers will remember last year’s IPL which saw Sree in floods of tears because Harbhajan Singh allegedly slapped him. This is just the sort of thing that Indian players need to avoid, such a display of childish immaturity. When our chaps behave like this, can you really blame Hayden for taking pot shots at them!

Deccan Chargers 104-2 (Gibbs 43no, Sharma 36no) beat
Kolkata Knight Riders 101 (Hodge 31, RP Singh 4-22) by eight wickets
Scorecard


Adam Gilchrist led his Deccan Chargers side to an impressive eight-wicket victory over Brendon McCullum's Kolkata Knight Riders in the fourth match of the 2009 IPL in South Africa.

Gilchrist smashed 13 in 11 balls as his side made light work of chasing down a modest target of 102 to win inside 14 overs with eight wickets intact.

Herschelle Gibbs, in front of his home crowd, played a starring role backing up a fine catch to dismiss Kolkata's top scorer Brad Hodge for 31 with a typically belligerent innings of 42 not out in 26 balls, winning the match with a crunching four through extra cover

VVS Laxman (10) blasted a six and a four before being run out but Rohit Sharma kept the score moving along nicely, finishing on 36 not out with three fours and two sixes.

Kolkata's innings never got going as left-arm pacer RP Singh picked up four for 22 with slower bowlers Pragyan Ojha and Scott Styris grabbing two apiece.

Batting was not easy under lights on a damp pitch, but batsman after batsman gave their wickets away with only Hodge lasting for more than 20 balls in a massively disappointing display for the men in gold and black. They were blown away by an outstanding all-round display from the Chargers, resplendent in a new all-blue outfit for the new season.

Meet Kamran Khan, the tennis-ball cricketer with no first-class experience, but who may soon shine for Rajasthan Royals


Mohammad Kamran Khan's mother's only wish was to see her son on television, playing cricket.


Mohammad Kamran Khan, who signed a Rajasthan Royals contract on Sunday, bowls in the nets. PIC/Narendra Dangiya

But when he could be all set to grace the big stage in the Indian Premier League (IPL), his mother is not alive to see it. The 18-year-old rookie left-arm speedster from Azamgarh signed a Rs 12 lakh contract with IPL champions Rajasthan Royals, late on Sunday evening.

"I can't express how happy I am. I knew I would play for a big team one day, but I never thought it would come so early," a delighted Kamran told MiD DAY yesterday.




Kamran came to Mumbai with his coach Naushad Khan five years ago but left a couple of years later when his father expired. "It was tough to leave my mother alone. More than my father, it was my mother who wanted me to play top-level cricket. She always wished to see me on TV. Now that I am so close to fulfilling her wish, she isn't there to watch me," added Kamran, whose mother passed away a year after his father's demise