Crucket

What a stoush is developing in India. Come Monday, when the IPL are scheduled to meet, Lalit Modi could be out on his arse. How did the most powerful man in cricket end up so endangered so fast? Well, let me summarise, over-simplify and distort the story that has come to known as the ‘IPL mess’.

With so much money, personalities and politicians involved in the IPL, there inevitably were all sorts of shenanigans going on behind the scenes, hidden and of no concern to the cricketing public. However, Lalit Modi – having learnt nothing from his experience of shaming Chris Cairns, or maybe learning that attacking people over Twitter has no real consequences – opened the curtains somewhat by blabbing on Twitter the names of the stake holders in the new IPL franchise based in Kochi, bought by a consortium of varied interests, which had been brought together by government minister Shashi Tharoor, apparently for no personal gain.

I don’t know why Modi was so bothered by the Kochi consortium, but it is claimed that he offered them $50 million dollars to just walk away. They didn’t take it however, and Modi’s next move was to reveal the consortium’s silent partners by Twitter.

It was thus revealed that a close friend of Shashi Tharoor had been given a small equity in the franchise. Nothing like a bit of openess. A few days later Tharoor resigned on account of the apparent conflict of interest.

Really, you can’t go chasing goverment ministers out of their jobs.

It was around this time that the Indian government opened a massive probe into the finances of the IPL and the franchises.

Target sights were also trained directly on Modi, with the IPL calling a meeting for this coming Monday to discuss Modi’s fate. As his friends began to desert him, Modi desperately tried to defer his doom by climing only he had the authority to call a meeting of the IPL governing council.

By all accounts, the meeting will go ahead Monday and one’s money would be on Modi losing his job. He still has friend however and ousting him will not be easy or tidy.

It is a stoush for the ages.

Ever wanted to throw a tomato at Lalit Modi? Of course you have. I have, many times. A good, juicy, over-ripe one right in the nose for splitting cricket and getting so many good New Zealand players banned. But even this morning I was tensing my tomato-throwing arm when I read that the ICC had to deny his claims that his Champions 20-20 League had been added to the Future Tours Programme. Who does he think he is?

And I wouldn’t be the first – 2379 tomatoes have already been thrown at him. (I should say though that I am also inclined to give him some applause for creating the IPL and for the Herculean feat of ensuring it ran this year.)

This Connect site, where people are throwing tomatoes and bursting into applause, looks like it might contain countless buried treasures. A quick browse shows that Harbhajan Singh and Shanthakumaran Sreesanth are in a duel for tomatoes (with 484 and 472, respectively). However, Saurav Ganguly is in a league of his own with 7165.

It’s hard to think who is most tomato worthy in the New Zealand team. Ross Taylor maybe for not valuing his wicket more highly. Jacob Oram for all his whining recently. Jesse Ryder for trying to piss his career away. Brendon McCullum for being too big for his boots. Worthiness is not of great importance here though; since it is an Indian site, the most important thing is visibility, and with his gold helmet glinting at the beginning of every Kolkata innings, no New Zealand player is more visible than Brendon McCullum. And therefore McCullum leads the other New Zealanders in pretty much every category, with 1262 tomatoes thrown at him, 3618 roses handed to him, 518 pairs of hand ringing out applause and 3 songs dedicated to him. And then there are the comments: “God’s miracle”, “hearthrob”, “he is best”, “hats off”, “fan!”, “you bloody ghorey” (that last by the way is not so complementary).