The Back-Benchers' Blog

The grand Tamasha of Cricket comes to an end. And boy, what an epic tamasha it has been! On the field we’ve had har kar phir se harne wala KKR, Irfan Pathan running in like Shoaib Akhtar and bowling at the speed of Venkatesh Prasad’s slower leg-cutters or Kumble’s quicker leg-breaks, or Yuvraj Singh flopping match after match and singing “Batting ki nayya hai ram ke bharose, apni bhi nayya ko paar to lagao ji” with Neha Dhupia.

And off the field, we’ve witnessed the certitude in life when big things are at stake, the Lambu Attaism – “Aaj Cricket aur politics ek hi baap ke do harami aulad hai”

Everyone’s had their moments, you give some you take some but in the end, somebody wins and somebody loses, with KKR invariably being on the losing side.

That’s why, the most befitting tag line for this IPL-3 would be -Kat Gaya, because it’s been an IPL filled with kats and KLPDs. And for that it’s lived up to the expectations of entertainment.

As Ganguly said during the IPL awards, “Yeh Zindagi Voh Khel Hai, Koi Sab Jeete Sab Koi Haar De, Apni To Haar Hai, Yaar Mere”

In the Kat Gaya series, the first up is our beloved star Preity Zinta. The sight of her team being butchered worse than KKR, with Irfan Pathan being hit for more sixes than Agarkar and the prince of Punjab failing to to make a mark on the pitch but never failing off it was too maudlin an affair.

Goodness gracious me!! Has Irfan actually bowled a yorker?

But the worst is yet to come. Shilpa and Raj rub it in..

“Honey, both our teams suck. Mine started sucking after I took over but yours sucks even more.”

And then we have the king of good times Dr.Vijay Mallya almost getting to the lips of Shilpa.

Damn that paunch! Perils of Kingfisher.

Like father, like son.

That’s why this is hard to digest. Another kat-gaya moment.

No, this guy’s not a slumdog. He’s a millionaire, well not quite, but will be after his dad writes his will.

His name is Aryan Khan and we’re told that he likes his dad’s movies.

“Aaahhhhhh….” — Murali Kartik.

Korbo, lorbo, jeetbo reeeee

Looks silly? Kaun? You would have been staring at those anyways but now I’ve given you a legitimate reason.

And then the Sardar giving Mukesh some tough time.

If putting up a fake smile watching this from the stands wasn’t enough then Harsha Bhogale put the icing on the cake by labelling it as a “fantastic perforamance by Harbhajan Singh”.

IPL, the saga of month-long entertainment, was never just about cricket. When you had Rahul Dravid facing Murali Kartik in a T20 match all that was left for your entertainment was Cheerleaders.

But damn those Chennai people, spectators ka hi kaat diya. How insensitive especially when the captain of your team takes pride in visiting red light areas of the city on a bike?

Lest we forget, the god-of-all-things from cocaine to cricket, Mr.Lalit Modi the hitherto IPL chief commissioner being given a miss to a kiss.

“If you wanna hang out youve got to take her out; cocaine.”, who better to tell this to than Mr.Modi?

But probably a citi moment of a success for Modi after all.

Are you reddy, Sameera?

Kaise karte ho yaar yeh? Hamein bhi fundae do thode.

And then his bête noire Dr.Shashi Tharoor, the man who had a complete KLPD with losing both the stakes in Kochi team and also the ministry. Kya kare, sab ganda hai par Sunanda hai yeh!

As the dialogue from Gunda goes, “Pehle to dono khasam khas the, dono ek sath baithate the, Modi idhar se Tharoor udhar se match dekhte the, lekin ab dono mein lafda ho gaya.” After Tharoor tried to pressurize Modi, Modi got pissed, khada ho gaya, gusse se ek ek baal khada ho gaya Modi ji ka.

That led to the ouster of Tharoor from the ministry after his last-ditch efforts to save himself by making his friend Sunanda surrender her sweat equity/
Setting the trail of events, Pranab da seized the opportunity to corner NCP and also show Modi his place. He sent the IT goons, the most dreaded criminals people of the 90s, to scrutinize all the aspects of IPL.

And that ends in Modi’s ouster from the IPL. A latest addition to the kat-gaya brigade.

Is that why Robin Uthappa (who didn’t get a well-deserved chance in T20 world cup), Suresh Raina (under whose captaincy Chennai did very poorly) and Modi standing as if they’re covering up for something?

But the man who surpassed all of them in his candid admission of his failure with a third consecutive year of a disastrous campaign is none other than King Khan. Thanks to KKR King Khan has gotten so used to being beaten by cricketers that every time he sees a cricketer on a pitch, he shouts “maar lo, maar lo” and seems to derive masochistic pleasure out of it.

But it’s when he said that to Gilchrist during the awards ceremony that it turned a little awkward and ludicrous. Or it’s just us who are reading too much between the lines, after all it’s just a Karbonn Kamal catch by the photographer.