IPL blues!!

Yellow, yellow dirty fellow! Blue, blue God bless you! Do you remember these childhood ditties? It came back rushing to me the other evening when I saw Deccan win the IPL contest. 

Is there something about this blue color that gives the wearer an edge over others? It may sound superstitious but the turnaround of Deccan from their prior performance begs to differ. The only notable change which the team brought on the field was the color! The previous winners of IPL were Rajasthan Royals. And what was their color? Blue! In fact, this time around all the blue adorning teams did well. Mumbai started off well but then Deccan and Rajasthan had a deeper shade of blue, so more of God’s blessing, and the result is there to be seen. Even the cheerleaders were looking prettier in blue than in any other color, I swear! 

I guess KKR can effect this change in their strategy. Call it color therapy or anything but a blue outfit might very well change their luck. If they can afford four captains and as many coaches, then why not consider changing the color of their outfit? At least they won’t step out on the field wearing the color of doom.

Let’s bring out more colors from the IPL closet.

Mandira, the one n’ only Mandira, decided to kick start the IPL campaign with a bang louder than the cosmic equivalent. An ambivalent Modi might have asked her contribution to ensure more eyeballs to the tv sets back home, and Mandira, ever the champion of such philanthropic causes must have obliged gracefully. The opening match - and she came out wearing an outfit supported by noodle (or chow Mein?) straps. Poor thing! She completely misread the fashion thermometer in S Africa, which was resonating in ‘brring’ winter, and had to redo her wardrobe with oversized coats and jackets! Oops! There trips the TRP. No, not as much as it is learnt that she, and others, (I love watching cricket these days!!) did not, however, fail to contribute to the rising global temperature.

One such occasion was the ‘secret singing competition’ held at Cape Town where the competitors were the IPL stars. The IPL stars, as is widely known, include Cheerleaders, SRK, my favorite Mandira, Lalit Modi, and the happening commentators like Danny Morrison, Robin Jackman et al. [The order of names is important.] And, yes, the sundry players were also invited. So this ‘secret singing competition’ saw some new and some latent talents emerge from amongst the who’s who of IPL fraternity. SRK made his presence felt through the satellite (read webcam) when he sang, “Only the lonely.... know how I feel tonight… only the lonely...". The sentiment was well expressed for it is believed that what followed was an uncomfortable silence. Breaking the silence, Mandira raised her voice and person to sing, “Girls just wanna have fun!” and in doing so raised the spirits of Danny and Robin. In moments both were found dancing alongside ma’am and as they broke into sweat people learnt a new law of thermodynamics – the high entropy of a thermodynamic system can have magical effects on nearby thermodynamic systems.

While Mandira did have her moments, the one consistent performance throughout the IPL under all trying circumstances was that of the cheerleaders. Not withstanding the dipping mercury or the minimum protection that they chose to have, their performance was roundly appreciated and applauded. Some cheerleaders, however, did complain that people failed to recognize them when they were not on the field. That is abject falsehood. I, at least, do recall the face of one when she thrust her face into the camera to obstruct the view of her beautiful legs! The extravaganza also put to rest the contention of whether the cheerleaders have brought a breath of freshness to the game. This was efficiently verified by Danny Morrison who risked his life (or wife?) when he shouldered the burden of a cheerleader, quite literally, or on occasions lapped up a conversation with cheerleaders with the beauties quite fittingly sitting on his lap. 

As was expected, the IPL brought to light some exciting talent to the fore. Manish Pandey was one, but even he paled in comparison to the IPL debutant from East London – Dune Kosatz! She is the Ms Bollywood and can be expected to set the screens on fire – with some contribution from MNS workers. For the uninitiated, Ms Bollywood is the evangelical belief of IPL bosses to promote talent to Bollywood. This has been the express intent of IPL and SRK, who have felt that Film Institutes in India are not doing their jobs and a separate platform, never mind if it is cricket, is required to fish out talent. What an idea sirjee!! I suggest Ms Bollywood should be the main event and we can have a couple of matches thrown in to keep the livelihood of some people from going.    

But as they say – all’s well that end’s well. IPL has found its winner for this year. Next year it will be back again with lots of pomp and show, and of course, lots of colors too! In particular – blue. Amen!