Thursday, May 29, 2008

IPL Daily Dose – 29/05/2008 - Srikkanth, Arun Lal and Raj Thackeray win non-cricketing IPL awards

The league stage of the IPL is over and the knock-out games start tomorrow. Like the American leagues we will also hand out awards separately for the regular season and then for the knock-out round. In today’s daily dose we will first hand out the non-cricketing awards. Part two will have all the cricketing awards.

Award for the ‘Best Fan Attire/Apparel’ goes to the Blue Chiffon Saris worn by the female fans of the Rajasthan Royals. Forget the jerseys and the Tees; this is as truly Indian as it will ever get. And full marks for original thought. Historically the Rajputs have worn saffron to battle but blue seemed to have done the trick this time round.

Award for the ‘Most Inhospitable Team’ is jointly shared by the Kings XI Punjab and the Kolkata Knight Riders. These teams don’t even have enough accommodation for their own players. On second thoughts the award only goes to the Punjab side. They are part-owned by an hotelier for god’s sake.

Award for the ‘Most Unsporting Parent’ goes to Krishnamachari Srikanth. He disappeared into thin air the day his son made a disappointing debut in the IPL. He didn’t have the gall to make his customary post match player bashing appearance. We wanted to hear his analysis of Anirudha’s performance.

Award for the ‘Most Indigestible Comment’ goes to commentator Ranjit Fernando. On being asked to comment on the poor early form displayed by the Kings XI Punjab, he commented that the foreign players from Sri Lanka were taking a while to get settled as they were suffering from jet lag!!!. Has the island nation drifted away and become part of the American mainland?

Mr Fernando kindly stay back on the stage please. We have another award for you.

Award for the ‘Most Abused Remark’ also goes to Ranjit Fernando. Till the time I could manage to keep count he had already used “and that is the best thing about the IPL format” 23, 387, 543 times. Everything that he saw had to do with format it seems. The world was not created on the day the IPL started, Mr Fernando.

In a manner similar to the way congressman fall over each other in trying to praise Sonia Gandhi, IPL commentators were trying to out-do each other in their efforts to praise Lalit Modi. The theme was to eulogize him as the great visionary who started the IPL. The winner of the ‘Praise Lalit Modi’ suck-athon is Arun Lal. He happened to know that Lalit Modi wasn’t second to Subhash Chandra in thinking about a league like this and that Modi had dreamt of the IPL long before anyone knew. So how did Arun Lal know? Was he in bed with Mr Modi, when the IPL commissioner was dreaming about the IPL?

The Award for the ‘Best Proof that India is far ahead of the World in Gender Equality’ goes to the male cheerleaders in the IPL. Many countries now have female heads of State. But no nation has thought of semi-clad male cheer leaders. Who said there was nothing for female fans in the IPL?

Award for the ‘Worst Team Owner’ goes by a landslide margin to Dr Vijay Mallya. No time to wax eloquent about his efforts. We have more awards to hand out.

Award for the ‘Best Incentive provided by a Team Owner’ goes to Preity Zinta and the kisses handed out by her. No wonder the guys in her team are rocking. Her team also saved on spending for a brand ambassador.

Award for ‘Most Uninterested Politician’ goes to Raj Thackeray. The Mumbai team was playing a ‘Bihari Bhaiya’ in the form of Saurav Tiwary. That there was no reaction from Mr Thackeray and his cohorts is proof enough that he gave the tournament a complete miss.

Award for the ‘Biggest form of Chamchagiri’ goes to all the film stars who came out to support SRK’s Knight Riders against the Mumbai Indians. This game was played in Mumbai and these Chamchas were all decked out in gold and black against a city which has meant a world to them. They also win the Award for ‘Most Disloyal Fans’. Hope their fans turn disloyal too.

And finally the Award for ‘Best Holiday Travel package’ goes to Mr Lalit Modi. By creating various quota requirements for the teams, he ensured that there was tremendous scope for free loaders – guys who were in the sides just to make up the numbers. These guys got to travel with the players, stay in the five star hotels, practise with the game’s greats, sit in the dugouts and run on the field to celebrate. Cricket –mad people in this country will pay a fortune to get such an opportunity. Is there a better holiday package available in this country?

Thanks all of you for coming. We will be back shortly with all the cricketing awards

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5 comments:

Vanjul said...

avi... only one point to differ n tht to not totally... i think Srilankans were cominmg off from West Indies as they were playing a series there n rushed to join IPL... so Ranjit Fernando might have used Jetlagged word for his lankan buddies....

Amit said...

Not that it is an excuse to not play well but vanjul is right in saying that the SL players were returning from Windies and not coming for SL.

Unknown said...

Point taken completely. I guess I will take the award from Ranjit Fernando and keep it for myself.

Anonymous said...

Disinterested Politician award was uncalled for.I know you will say "take it in good humour",but it is better to not delve into these things.

Anonymous said...

ha ha ha... superb post... hilarious... real good one.