The Mumbai owners wisely have rested their star player Sachin Tendulkar, as well as their million dollar baby Keiron Pollard.  Why risk them on a match whose outcome has no bearing on their chances to lift the cup.  Especially as the semifinals and finals are knock out affairs where one poor day in the office can be the end of all the hard work done in the league phase.

Kolkata on the other hand will take a consolation win, and either end up sixth or fifth in the standings.  Their performance was a 100% improvement on the pathetic performance they had in the previous version of the IPL, but still not good enough.  Of course, the unkind would say that they were also not as entertaining as last time, what with the disappearance of “FakeIPLPlayer” and his anonymous, scandalous, yet hilarious posts.

This time around, the dirt dished has been much more serious than the frivolous musings about “Bhooka Naan” and Co.  The IPL has become such a huge part of the Indian economy that the vultures have begun to circle.  The sleaze started to seep out soon after the surprising revelation that the two franchises to earn winning bids were from relatively minor places such as Pune and Kochi, while financial centers such as Ahmedabad and Kanpur both with official Test match stadiums were not in the picture.

The dueling tweets from Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor regarding in particular the bid from Kochi exposed the seamy side of the IPL.  The recent sacking of Shashi Tharoor, who it is alleged arranged for a juicy and gratis share of the Kochi franchise for his lady  “friend”, was only the appetizer.  The income tax department next raided the IPL’s and Lalit Modi’s offices.  As Indians are well aware, this sort of attention is usually never based on a well document case or proper procedure, but either economically or politically motivated.  Which one it is will soon be known, but if the rumors that Lalit Modi is on his way out as head of IPL and the slimy politician Shashank Manohar of Nagpur green-top infamy is the likely successor then it is likely that it was politically motivated.

Once again Indians are showing the world that they never tire of washing their dirty laundry in public, and squabbling like children fighting for a share of the cake.  One hopes that this does not lead to a “neutral” outsider coming in to supposedly resolve the issue, but in reality to take control.  

The bottom line is whatever the sins of Lalit Modi are, he stands head and shoulders above the half a dozen geriatric BCCI Babus hoping to replace him as a professional manager and administrator.  If he is indeed replaced, chances are the IPL will be run in the same ad hoc, unprofessional way that the BCCI continues to operate, and may enter terminal decline, to be replaced by a World Premiere League (WPL) with international franchises, run by the ICC.  Many around the world would like nothing better.   

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