IPL 3 Finals

The Location : Mumbai - Office

There I was, watching the finals, in a room full of really crazy Mumbai fans...as the solitary supporter of the Chennai Super Kings. The others were okay with all my ‘YaY’s and running around when Dhoni had hit those God-like sixes to take us into the semi-finals (whatay match!), but they weren’t going to tolerate any of that against Mumbai and/or Sachin. Strictly speaking, only a fool would shout against Sachin anywhere in India.

So then, CSK had done a really good job and there I was, sitting coolly in a corner of the room smiling just enough to irritate the others in the room. They were looking at the screen, hoping for a miracle when Pollard walked in.

55 runs in three overs with Bollinger getting ready to bowl...

I was confident, but I was slightly scared. They still had Rayudu and Pollard at the crease.  That over went for 22 runs - 4,6,2,4,0,6 – wham bham pow! The world was suddenly beginning to rotate faster than usual and there were celebrations all over the room, with people jumping all around the place going ‘Pollard! Pollard!’ I was staring at my laptop screen just so people didn’t know I was scared. Still tried to keep that smile on my face, but was nearly sure I might be crying at the end of this. Of course, we did lose in 2008 after I’d started celebrating our victory.

‘This isn’t happening’, I kept telling myself.

Albie Morkel stepped in to bowl...One of the more expensive guys in our line up. People started celebrating in Mumbai. Crazy thoughts kept running in my head. ‘20 runs off him and we’d be buried well under the ground’...‘Why did Murali have to finish his four already? Damn, damn, damn’...well, that was the general idea. While Rayudu took two deliveries to get one run, Pollard started the proceedings with a boundary.

Then came the dot ball. 

The crowd on and off the screen were still rooting for Pollard and I was hoping for another dot ball. 5 off 4 deliveries was awesome at this stage. Run out! Run out! Rayudu walked back. Pollard would have had to know magic to win it from there, but of course, people believed that he did. 

And then, he got out. 27 off the last over : No Pollard : ‘Bowling’-er stepping up : Mua ha ha !

I was walking across the room with that smug smile that usually irritated people...no jumping in joy, running around or anything that would get me beaten up. Bollinger finished it quite easily and people were still staring at the screen in disbelief.

Oh yea, baby, We had won.

PS: Wrote this long back but had not posted it anywhere for reasons I can't remember.

Indian Premier League 3 - Lalit Modi and the Pakistani advertisement

All the rumour mills say the same thing. "Lalit Modi's brilliant masterstroke of threatening the franchises not to hire Pakistani players paid off. It's all the ad he needs." Could this be true, we wondered?

At first, we met a furious Afridi. "I am the man", he told us a while ago, "I single-handedly lifted the 20-20 world cup for Pakistan and these guys are insulting me and my nation!" When he asked us if 'single-handedly' was a single word, we realised he was paid for every word he said, by someone. Any guesses?

We caught up with the Chairman, Lalit Modi, at his sprawling mansion in Karachi to see if all these rumours of Ignore-Pakistan being a big advertisement held any water. "Nonsense", he dismissed it in one word, "Even the current Australian team had no takers, did you know? Now you'd say they protested against the Australian govt for the alleged racist attacks?" While we gave it a thought, he followed it up with a quieter, "My! How did I miss this one?"

Then we met this author's ex girlfriend and Punjab franchise's owner Preity at her house, to ask her the most intriguing question of the lot, "Why Kaif?" She asked the reporters to send her love to this author before saying with a smile,"We have a funny guy in our team who drops catches, irritates us to no extent and manages to get slapped by members of the opposing team before our boys could get their hands on him. Kaif is a good fielder, they say. So we plan to keep him around Appam so that he can catch every ball Appam drops." An intelligent reporter retorted, "Why wouldn't you just drop (from the team) the guy who drops catches?" Preity's reply was instant. "Where's the fun, then? Moreover, Lalitji pays us big time for every game he plays."

In another related incident, Sohail Tanvir came to our office and demanded that his interview be taken. We started with, "Well, you, along with Kamran Akmal, let Rajasthan Royals rot in hell last season. If you weren't political, you should have probably given up your citizenship for the game. Why didn't you? Weren't the Royals cheated then? They were pathetic, we say. Did they claim any compensation from you?" He said a forty 'erm...'s but is yet to answer us.


- The Fakking news team

Note: Every line in this post that precedes this line is obviously fictional. On a serious note, if there was even the slightest possibility that a player may not be able to participate in the tournament, I wouldn't pick him. Accusing a govt for this is utter idiocy. I am not sure if any Government would rather hatch a conspiracy in a sports tournament cum fashion parade, when it has poverty, terrorism, economic depressions and an Hon minister of state for external affairs to deal with. Ridiculous, yes? Boy, reality's funnier than fake news.