Wednesday, 15th February
Derbyshire today revealed that they had turned an enormous loss into a marginally smaller loss by offering their ground as a wedding venue. This excellent idea should encourage other counties to find ways to generate a little extra money and to help them along, we’re launching a new feature called “101 Uses For A County Cricket Ground”. Here are three from the top drawer:

1. With their prime locations, Lord’s and The Oval could be turned into exclusive business heliports, enabling millionaires/billionaires/international fraudsters to get easy access to London’s financial district or alternatively, to make a quick getaway.

2. By turning their outfields into arable farmland, counties could swap their piffling ECB handouts for massive EU agricultural subsidies. Each county could specialise in a particular vegetable and the County Championship would be replaced by the Friends Provident Harvest Festival, judged by Geoffrey Boycott and Alan Titchmarsh.

3. With England running short of landfill sites, what better way to celebrate the summer game than to create 18 heritage waste dumps where unwanted copies of Alastair Cook’s third volume of autobiography (How I Scored Some Runs In Different Countries) and Graeme Swann’s Swanny In A Spin DVD (now three-for-the-price-of-one at “World Of Tat”) can be safely disposed of.

Thursday, 16th February
Chris Gayle’s spell as top earner for the Rand Rhinos in South Africa’s Money Money Money Trophy maybe in doubt after the ubiquitous leather abuser suffered another injury. Gayle, who was already struggling with a swollen bank account and had been managing his condition with regular cash injections, has now been diagnosed with diary strain and could be out for up to six weeks.

It was revealed that Gayle had been carrying the injury throughout January but had managed to turn out for Sydney Sausages in the BBL, Barisal Boredom in the BPL and as Widow Twankey in the Southend Repertory Company’s production of Aladdin and the Golden Handshake.

His engagements in the Tahitian, Iranian and Uzbekistan Premier Leagues are now in doubt, but doctors are hopeful that a course of remunerative treatment in Bangalore later this spring may enable his wallet to make a full recovery.

Friday, 17th February
Good news, franchise fans. The Sahara Pune Warriors will be taking part in this year’s IPL (“IPL 5: The Shrinking”). Kochi have already gone and, as Lady Bracknell would almost certainly have put it, to lose two franchises due to opaque contractual, administrative or financial disagreements looks like carelessness.

Sahara’s epic sulk, which included the termination of their sponsorship of the Indian team, the withdrawing of the Pune Warriors from the IPL to take part in the Pune Warriors Premier League (against Pune Warriors B, Pune Warriors Under-15s and the Harlem Globetrotters) and a parliamentary motion to have the words “Indian, premier, league and cricket” removed from the dictionary, is finally over.

A deal was done earlier today and, whilst BCCI officials were adamant that they had not bowed to Sahara’s demands in any way, they did reveal that they had made the following concessions in the interests of themselves:

1. Pune Warriors to be allowed to field 14 players during home games

2. A fresh box of a dozen jelly doughnuts (no sprinkles) to be at Mr Roy’s door by eight o’clock every morning for the duration of the IPL

3. A reform of the discriminatory and outdated rules on bat size, allowing Pune Warriors batsmen to employ three-foot wide blades

4.The words “Champions 2012: Pune Warriors” to be engraved on the IPL trophy before the tournament begins, “just in case”.

5. Ravi Shastri to insert four agreed phrases into the finely woven oral thread of his commentary narratives, specifically:

a) ‘This Pune team are unstoppable!’
b) ‘You’d have to fancy Pune for this one!’
c) ‘If you ask me Pune can go all the way!’
d) ‘There’s Subrata Roy, what a handsome man he is!’

Saturday, 6th February
While the cricket world is engrossed by a fascinating Test series in Dubai and the Commonwealth Bank ménage-a-trois is just warming up, into our consciousness barges the IPL, like a messenger in a ten-foot-tall peacock outfit interrupting a village wedding to announce via a solid-gold loudhailer that the Maharajah will be holding a bacchanalian orgy and concubine market at the Palace and all are invited.

Or to put it another way, it’s IPL auction time. As usual, some of the world’s finest cricketers were on offer at completely random prices, which is what makes this game show so entertaining. The eager contestants queue for their chance to give the Wheel Of Crazy Money a spin and see what wacky prizes they end up with. Vinay Kumar $1 million! Sunil Narine $700k! Somebody bought Mitchell Johnson! Crazy!

In keeping with IPL tradition, there were a few English bridesmaids, and we now look forward to another post-auction ritual: guessing which of the unsold Englishmen will be the first to declare (whilst wiping away a tear) that they never wanted to play in the thing anyway and that their first priority has always been international cricket/turning out for Nowhereshire/spending April decorating the spare room.

Monday, 6th February
So, after a short but spectacular run, the England Test team’s touring show, Carry On Dubai is over. But if you’ve enjoyed their madcap mixture of clumsy footwork and hapless swiping, you’ll be pleased to know that the ECB has scheduled two more spin-themed farces later this year. Chaos In Colombo will open on March 26 and there are high hopes for the autumn production of Nonplussed In Nagpur.

Not all the reviews have been positive, but Andrew Strauss insists that England got better as the series went on and the stats back him up. They lost by a narrow 71 runs today, compared to a massive 72 last time and at this rate of improvement, they should finally be gaining the upper hand towards the end of the 2107-08 series.

Having already used up their stock of excuses, the English media have been a little short of plausible explanations for this unfortunate third outbreak of failure and so have fallen back on sniping about how slowly Azhar Ali bats, which is a little unfair. He may not be a dasher but the drowsiness induced by an Azhar innings is as nothing compared to the powerful sedative effect of a Cook-Trott partnership.

Anyway, enough of the losers, let’s talk about the winners, who are currently at the high point of the Pakistan Cricket Cycle, which is a bit like the economic cycle, or perhaps the life-cycle of the phoenix, and has four stages:

1. Chaos.
2. New captain harnesses the available abundance of talent to secure surprising triumph that promises much for the future of Pakistan cricket.
3. Someone does something silly.
4. Chaos.

At the moment it’s hard to see any of the players or coaching staff coming up with something silly, so I guess it’s over to you, PCB. There’s not a lot to work with, but maybe you could sack Misbah, appoint the Interior Minister’s nephew as opening batsman or even withdraw from the ICC? You’ll have your work cut out to turn this triumph into disaster, but I’m sure you can do it if you put your minds to it.

Saturday, 10th December
Today we had a poignant reminder of the franchise that touched all our hearts with their cheerful clothes, crazy boardroom antics and unlikely defeats. The Kochi Calamities are holding a fire sale. Shrewd bidders can grab themselves a bargain at the auction and here are just some of the items available at a knockdown price:

1. Thirty-seven polyester orange and purple shirts, with matching trousers, baseball caps and man-bag accessories. Some tear stains. Ideal for children’s entertainers, holiday camp attendants or circus performers.

2. Two thousand copies of the Kochi theme song, “If Any One Can, Kochi Can”, autographed by Ramesh Powar’s cousin.

3. Sreesanth, fast-medium, reasonable condition, slightly wonky. Headband included.

4. Flat-pack trophy cabinet. Some assembly required.

5. Giant inflatable elephant featuring Mahela Jayawardene on one side and Parthiv Patel on the other. One puncture, in need of some repair.

But not all the IPL news is bad. One of the tournament’s most hated features could be on the way out. No, don’t worry, Ravi’s safe. I’m talking about the strategy break.

Surveys have shown that viewers rate this the least popular 180 seconds in all of human experience. It came in ahead of the long uncomfortable pause after you ask someone to marry you; it was less well liked than those unpleasant moments between when the doctor asks you to roll up your sleeve and when he jabs you with the needle and it was considered more frustrating than the interminable time it takes your stupid computer to get going in the morning because you really need to check your emails.

So the news that the company who sponsors this interval of pointlessness is pulling out is splendid. Hopefully others will get the message that associating your brand with a period of time in which absolutely nothing happens other than a dangerous increase in viewers’ blood pressure is not great for business.

Monday, 12th December
The news of Shane Warne’s incapacitation is a blow to the Bacon Butty League as it struggles to persuade us to upgrade our passing interest to something more bankable. But this unfortunate frying-pan related injury is just part of an ignoble tradition of cookery disasters befalling the greats of the game.

WG Grace was a panther at the crease, but when it came to alfresco snacks, he was far less nimble and in 1902, suffered severe beard singeing when he set himself alight whilst trying to toast marshmallows during a camping holiday in the Forest of Dean.

Geoffrey Boycott infamously missed the 1975 Australian tour because of wrist strain brought on by the excessively vigorous whisking of a soufflé mixture. (Geoffrey claimed that he’d been stirring a manly Yorkshire pudding batter, but his dinner guests later confirmed that he had indeed served up a soufflé of delightful whimsy and ethereal delicacy and that furthermore his crème caramel was to die for.)

And then there was the significant dental trauma sustained by IT Botham in 1979 when the free-spirited allrounder refused to conform to the establishment line that you couldn’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

But Shane’s unfortunate sarnie disaster also highlights a new social problem. In the era of central contracts, the modern player is insulated from the real world and grows up lacking even the most basic of life skills. When released into the community upon retirement, they are clearly a danger to themselves.

So this Christmas, we should all do our bit to support these bewildered ex-pros and help them adjust to a world without room service. Could you teach Matthew Hayden to butter his toast without blinding himself? Or spare 10 minutes to help Murali empty his Hoover? Maybe you could pop round to Darren Gough’s house to explain the dangers of eating peas with a knife?

Shane only wanted a tasty snack but now his BBL career is in tatters. It didn’t have to happen. Together, we can help keep Test cricketers safe in the kitchen.

Wednesday, 30th November
As Sri Lankan cricket’s temporary cash-flow crisis enters its 214th day, there’s good news for Tillakaratne, Kumar and friends, who have taken to living under the covers at the Premadasa Stadium, eating grass cuttings and burning Mahela’s spare bats to keep warm. The politicians are on the case.

“The sports ministry is making arrangements to resolve this issue,” said a man in a suit. “The players will be paid very soon. They need not worry.”

I suspect that if I hadn’t been paid since April, I would long ago have abandoned worry, worked my way steadily through perturbation, consternation, despair and hysteria and would by now be angrier than Jade Dernbach when he discovered that Craig Kieswetter had stolen the last wildebeest sausage at England’s annual braai.

It’s true that SLC doesn’t have a lot of spare cash at the moment, but that is not the players’ concern. Last spring I was a little short myself as I was waiting on an unpaid debt (I’d confessed to a friend that watching Sky’s cricket coverage often drove me to blasphemy and he’d wagered that he could endure a whole weekend of Gower and Botham without resorting to that kind of language. In the end, he did 20 minutes.)

Anyway, until he could stump up the money from his congregation, I was left in a bit of a hole, gas-bill wise. So I laid it all out to a cheerful sounding chap at the GasCorp call centre, assuring him that payment was most definitely imminent and that he was not to worry. At this news, he lost his call-handling joie de vivre, turned decidedly frosty and began to prophesise all manner of dire consequences of a legal nature.

And with hindsight, I can see his point. So it’s a minor miracle that Dilshan and chums have not yet downed bats, face guards and athletic supports and staged a sit-in, followed by a march around the outfield bearing placards. But then, perhaps I’m missing something. Perhaps their recent on-pitch debacles were a kind of protest and a pretty tasty threat too: pay up, SLC or the defeats keep on coming.

Thursday, 1st December
The first PCB get-together of the post-Butt era was a great success. Everyone who is anyone in Pakistan cricket was there, Ramiz had a new hairdo, and a splendid time was had by all. Many of those present had fallen out with old Ijaz for one reason or another and hadn’t visited PCB Towers for months, so there was much catching up to do, and I have it on good authority that the gossip was of the juiciest quality.

In fact the whole affair turned into something of an epic. It lasted nine hours and we know this because they were trying out the new Alastair Cook egg timer, designed to measure interminable intervals of time. The device was upturned when Mr Ashraf politely coughed to signal play and by the time a third administrator had passed out and the meeting was declared closed, only half of the sand had fallen from the top of Alastair’s glass leg glance into Alastair’s glass boots.

Sadly, there was no time to decide on a new coach but there was an agreement in principle to create a committee to look into streamlining the committee-creation process, and a meeting was pencilled in for next month to discuss the desirability of monthly meetings.

Friday, 2nd December
With a late entry for the 2011 Superfluous Sacrifice Award, Samit Patel has ruled himself out of next year’s IPL auction. He’s not the only one. I’ve also excused myself, as have the Dalai Lama, Newt Gingrich, the racehorse Kauto Star, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Mrs Ethel Makepeace of 17, Elder Grove, Nantwich, who has a lot of knitting to get on with ahead of next April’s trip to Eastbourne and so has had to reluctantly decline an imaginary offer of $2m dollars from Rajasthan.

Sunday, 18th September
To some people the Champions League is like a big fat slug lurking at the bottom of your garden. It isn’t particularly attractive, you don’t see the point of it and you can get through the autumn fine without ever seeing it. But every part of the cricket ecosystem has its place, and to many of us the Champions League has become as familiar a part of the cricket calendar as a Shahid Afridi retirement or Somerset not quite winning a trophy.

It’s a jumble of flavours, a mix of cricket cultures that you just don’t get anywhere else. For instance, if there is a more unlikely cricket match this year than Somerset v Kolkata Knight Riders, I’ll eat Duncan Fletcher’s sunglasses.

And there’s something for everyone. You can have fun spotting players you thought had retired (good grief, Sanath is here!) and learn about teams you’ve never heard of before (welcome to my brain, Ruhuna, I’ll forget about Ronnie Irani to make room for you).

So who will you follow in the race to lose to Chennai in the final? It’s tricky. I don’t like snakes so the Cobras are out, and calling yourselves The Warriors is asking for trouble. Trinidad are a Bravo short, and though it might be fun to follow Somerset or Leicester, they have been shepherded into some kind of quarantine playoff system, designed, quite rightly, to keep the riff-raff out.

But while you’re deciding who to support, you can marvel at the unnecessary innovation. This year’s silly technology is a high-definition camera in a pair of sunglasses, so the viewer will be treated to wobbly footage from the vantage point of fine leg as he shuffles a touch squarer, live coverage of the drinks break, or if the glasses are being worn by a particularly inept fielder, the heart-stopping terror of a mistimed slog sweep heading directly towards our television screens.

Monday, 19th September
So Kochi are no more. The IPL just won’t be the same. The Tuskers were my favourite team, partly for their daring choice of colours, partly for the presence of Sreesanth, but mainly for the fact that they nearly called themselves the Indi Commandos (kind of like the A-team with orange shirts). But now it’s all over. They haven’t so much gone down in a blaze of glory as got their ankles tangled up in red tape, pitched over in the board room and knocked themselves out on the coffee table.

I did try to read up on why Kochi were kaput but then I found myself drifting into a daydream and when I woke up it was Tuesday. When did the IPL get so complicated? You need an MBA and a law degree to follow the goings on in franchise land. Perhaps IPL5 should dispense with the cattle market for players and introduce a lawyer auction. A star batsman may help you get to the final, but you need a crack legal team to make sure you’re allowed to play in it.

Tuesday, 20th September
Apparently there will be no investigation or post mortem of any kind into the unpleasant events of the summer, thus ending a very brief episode of CSI BCCI in which the charismatic Detective Srinivasan took a brief look at the crime scene and shrugged, concluding that India’s tour clearly just died of old age or something, and anyway it doesn’t really matter. Case closed.

Questioned at a press conference today, he first asked an aide why the “eject” button he was jabbing didn’t work, but was informed that the ejector seats fitted to the journalists’ chairs had been switched off due to doubts about the technology. So instead he called for his Big Box of Excuses and grabbed a few, handing them to his aide to read out while he tucked into a bag of tortillas. Those excuses in full:

“Sehwag wasn’t playing some of the time.”

“The weather was inclement.”

“Don’t forget to tune into the Champions League!”

“Srini for President!”

Tuesday, 5th July
Chris Gayle and Kumar Sangakkara have a lot in common. They are supremely talented players whose careers have been interrupted by lesser men. But they are dealing with it in different ways. Chris composed a moving piece in 33 paragraphs based around variations on a theme (the theme being “It’s Not Fair”). Kumar looked further than his own future and made an eloquent and impassioned plea for the reform of Sri Lanka’s cricket establishment.

And the response of Sri Lanka’s sports minister to these thoughtful, reasoned and articulate remarks? He stuck to the code of administrators worldwide, cranked up the pomposity dial to maximum and let off some self-righteous steam. The most significant thing he noted about the speech? That Kumar should have sought permission from the board in order to criticise the board.

But this is worse than just a few more puffed-up men in suits and fancy moustaches, stroking their egos. This is corruption we’re talking about, you know, that “very bad thing” that we were all so determined to root out a few months ago. Have we forgotten about that? Or is corruption only a problem when it involves players?

Wednesday, 6th July
Exciting developments, franchise watchers: the Kochi Katastrophes might be for sale! This news had me rooting down the back of my sofa for small change and ringing my elderly relatives to persuade them to invest their life savings. Having supported the purpley-tangerines in their debut season, only to see them blow it in a series of let-downs, flops and disasters, I thought I might as well buy the thing and sort them out.

And they can’t be that expensive. They finished eighth. They barely have any sponsors. Their gate revenue was puny, they couldn’t get a new stadium built and their shirts are revolting. Surely they’ll be going for a knock-down price? What’s that? US$ 333.33 million? Hmm. Well how much for Sreesanth’s head band?

Friday, 8th July
Things are getting out of hand in the shires. The wickets are littered with dummies and the county championship’s traditional soundtrack of four hands clapping is being drowned out by John McEnroe-style protests and language that would make a Premier League footballer’s mistress blush.

So what is going on in snoozy-time land? Are they putting something in the tea? Are there bonus points available in the championship this year for petulance, swearing and generally carrying on like a three-year-old on a long car journey? No. The Professional Cricketers Association believes the problem is twofold. First, the DRS is to blame. The players, having watched cricket on telly, want to emulate their heroes, but when they make those cool T-shapes in a county game, nothing happens. Naturally, they become disillusioned.

The second problem is slightly duller and has to do with some kind of umpiring feedback thingy. The PCA’s head Nursery School Supervisor explained:

“I think it's important that the players have a mechanism for giving feedback and that they have the confidence in it so that they don't get frustrated.”

The poor dears.

But why exactly are players commenting on umpires? Do schoolchildren fill in questionnaires rating the performance of their headmaster? Umpires are not in the service industry; they don’t need to be sensitive to the needs of their clients. They are enforcers. They are there because: a) the players can’t be trusted to play nicely and b) the players don’t know the rules.

I suggest that, in addition to fines, bans and stiff talkings-to, errant pros should be forced to write, “I must not undermine the umpire’s authority,” a hundred times on the pavilion blackboard. And an hour or two on the naughty step wouldn’t hurt either.

Saturday, 28th May
Watching Cook and Trott bat today it occurred to me, in those brief moments between naps, that the medical profession is missing a trick. Such is the anaesthetic potential of England’s most prolific run-gatherers that it can’t be long before doctors are prescribing a dose of Trott and Cook for insomniacs, and anaesthetists are playing unedited highlights of their exploits to patients about to undergo minor surgery.

How to describe them doing their thing today? It was like watching two brick walls, each recently painted a different shade of grey, in order to find out which would dry first. And when they weren’t dull, they were annoying, particularly Trott, whose excavatory habit has reached the outer limits of screamingly irritating. Watching him is like sitting on a train next to someone who continually drums their fingers. Or listening to Danny Morrison commentate for more than 45 seconds.

Sunday, 29th May
IPL viewing figures are down. This is not surprising. There has been much talk of a tipping point in audience interest, but I think it’s not so much a tipping point as a choking point. For example, I think I’d enjoy being hand-fed from a bowl of peeled grapes but not if 74 grapes were shoved into my gullet in rapid succession whilst someone was pinching my nose and holding my jaws open. It would be even less pleasant if the forced grape-gorging were to be accompanied by Siva shouting in my ear that I was experiencing a Citi Moment of Indigestion.

Monday, 30th May
What a silly match. Some argue that this is the beauty of Test cricket, that for four days nothing occurs, then, long after everyone has gone home, something happens. This isn’t much of an argument or a selling point. It’s like promoting a package holiday tour and promising that 80% of the time you’ll be bored out of your skull, but things will really pick up just before you catch your flight home. Fine, well, in that case, let’s just cut to the chase. One afternoon, 20 overs a side. We could even give it a catchy name, like “Twenty20” or some such.

The final day’s high jinks were not the only silly thing about this Test. A year ago KP was undone hilariously by Shakib Al Hasan, and in Cardiff his contortions against Herath were similarly comic, his limbs flailing in all directions, like a giraffe learning to ice skate, as he contrived to discover hitherto unseen menace in one of Rangana‘s slow straightish ones. But like the punchline to your favourite comedy sketch, the fact that you know it’s coming doesn’t make it any less amusing.

Tuesday, 31st May
I’m not sure how many times Shahid Afridi has retired. Statsguru is no help on the matter, since it fails to list this or many other statistical player essentials, such as number of breaches of the ICC Code of Conduct, pages in autobiography, tweets per day and so on. This latest Afridi sabbatical would require a new column in the records as it is a “conditional” retirement – conditional, that is, upon the entire PCB being replaced. I love Shahid, but he is flakier than a crate of breakfast cereal, and he has now achieved the remarkable feat of making Ijaz Butt look like a reasonable man for five minutes.

Saturday, 21st May
Though the market for Ashes literature may be more crowded than an elevator at an obesity convention, it seems there’s always room for one more, hence the existence of Andrew Strauss’s new effort, Winning the Ashes Down Under: The Captain’s Story. Described by one reviewer as “another bloody Ashes book”, it is a stirring tale of how a team of professional sportsmen battled against the odds to beat another team who weren’t quite as good. This epic rollercoaster story is told in three parts:

Part One: Arrive in Australia
Part Two: Beat lower-ranked Test opponents
Part Three: Return home

Sunday, 22nd May
It is a peculiar thing, this Morgan situation. A man makes himself available to play Tests for England, flies all the way back from India to take part in a trial game to demonstrate his readiness to play Test cricket, and then has to answer questions about his priorities. It seems quite straightforward. He wants to test himself against the best players on the biggest stages, so he spends his early season time playing high-pressure cricket in the IPL rather than pottering around in the shires accumulating easy runs. What’s the problem?

Tuesday, 24th May
Pakistan’s visit to the Caribbean has come to an end with a 1-1 Test scoreline that left the viewer wondering whether these teams were equally good or just as bad as each other. An intriguing if peculiar little tour also threw up the following thoughts:

1. That the captaincy of the Pakistan cricket team is as inconstant and unpredictable as the world of haute couture. Right now, it seems that thirtysomething veterans are back in, Misbah is quite the thing and suddenly that hand-clapping, floppy-fringed look that everyone was raving about a few months ago seems to belong to a quainter time, like bell-bottomed trousers and responsible investment banking.

2. That West Indies is the new south Asia. As it happens, I like low, slow, crumbly result pitches that take prodigious spin. I just don’t like them in the Caribbean. That’s the wrong place for them. What chance have the next generation of Ambroses, Walshes and Marshalls got when they charge to the crease, let fly and watch the ball splat into the earth with a sigh and trundle towards the batsman at knee height?

3. That two Test matches is not a series, it is a pair of isolated incidents.

Sunday, 15th May
Former player Akram Raza has been arrested, allegedly for trying to place a bet. If it’s true, then well done the Pakistani police. I only wish the British constabulary offered a similar service. How useful it would be if, as you approached the counter, clutching a hastily scrawled slip, you felt a heavy hand on your shoulder and heard a voice deep with authority and wisdom:

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, is it sir.”

Quite right, constable, don’t know what I was thinking. Worcestershire to win the County Championship? Forgive me, I’ve not been well lately.

Betting is a drug; it distorts your experience. For example, the normally tolerable inanities of the commentary booth become unbearable when the team you backed at 10-11 is floundering, but on the other hand, as the chap you picked to top-score goes to his century with a towering six, the voices of Danny Morrison and Pommie Mbangwa are as a chorus of angels.

Why do we humans do it? Because we want action. Not being involved ourselves, we don’t just want to be spectators. We want our pulse to be racing. We want to feel like punching the air or kicking the turf too. Betting packs the terror and elation of the human condition into one short space of time, a period of living with the illusion that your senses are heightened. Although they say the same about heroin.

If the charges are true, it raises serious doubts about Akram’s judgement. It is not just that he was allegedly trying to place a bet; I heard he was allegedly trying to place a bet on the Delhi Daredevils. Perhaps he was arrested for his own well-being.

Monday, 16th May
This isn’t how it was supposed to end. It looks like Shane is bowing out amid a tawdry farrago of fines, fake tans, skin creams, celebrity dating, furious tweets and absurd defeats. Suitably, the last nail in Warne’s career coffin was delivered by an Englishman, Nayan Doshi, who brought a touch of Tavare to the hit and giggle: 13 balls, 0 runs. His breathtaking subversion of the format was almost sexy.

So Friday it is. I’ll be honest, I’ve started to dip in and out of the IPL. I like it, but I like trifle too, and six weeks of trifle leaves you feeling queasy. But I’ll be tuning in on Friday. It’s the last time we’ll see that menacing amble to the wicket, the beauty of that fizzing legbreak and those well-rehearsed expressions of disbelief. There are only four overs, 24 balls, of Warne to go. I’ll be watching every single one.

Tuesday, 17th May
The chaps still don’t get it. Here’s Scyld Berry in the Telegraph, contrasting the popularity of the IPL with the near-empty stands during the first Test in Guyana:

“Even if it is not what it was, at least the IPL can claim to be not half as desultory as much of Test cricket has been made by its administrators.”

Now I enjoy beating up on administrators as much as the next man with a blog to write and nothing to put in it. But I’m not sure how they can take the blame for the dwindling interest in Test matches, unless their error was to allow more exciting and popular cricket to exist, thus diverting the wayward spectator from the true faith? That appeared to be Peter Roebuck’s argument last week.

But what if the problem isn’t the IPL, the administrators, television, Kerry Packer or the BCCI? What if the problem is Test cricket itself? Before we carry on with our efforts to resuscitate the format, perhaps we ought to ask the big question: Could it be that the era of the week-long cricket match is nearing its end? And more importantly, if nobody wants to watch it, then what, exactly, is the point?

Tuesday, May 10th
The plot has thickened in Rajasthan. Someone or something, though more likely someone, told the chaps in electric blue that they had to play on pitch A and not pitch B. Just a few short hours later, they lost to Chennai. Coincidence? Probably. Chennai are better. But Warney reckons strange things are afoot. The BCCI say no team can choose which pitch to play on. Who’s telling the truth? Who knows? Who cares?

Let’s be honest, the great Jaipur pitch switch is a bit disappointing; the Delhi Daredevils of conspiracy theories. But it is a cunning way of explaining a Rajasthan thrashing. Warne is the cat burglar of excuses, pretending to be at a society party, whilst all the time Twittering his way over silent rooftops, slipping quietly through a window and leaving a card marked “The Blame” on the Jaipur groundsman’s pillow.

Wednesday, May 11th
Mr Ijaz Butt has spoken. In an interview with the Complacent Administration Monthly he announced that he had succeeded in eradicating “Player Power” - an undesirable state of affairs in which players have too much influence in Pakistan cricket, and has instituted “Butt Power” - an altogether more satisfactory arrangement in which a benevolent, grey-haired leader rules over the sport forever.

He also revealed that the PCB are planning to cash in on the sudden popularity of a small area of northern Pakistan. The Abottobad Premier League will feature franchises made up of locals, sightseers and journalists. Keiron Pollard has already signed up to play for two of the teams.

Thursday, May 12th
In unsurprising news today, Pope Benedict XVI made a statement confirming that he was still a strong adherent of the Catholic faith; the Forestry Commission announced the complete success of their campaign to encourage bear defecation in deciduous woodland; the earth was noted to have rotated once on its axis and Kevin Pietersen lost his wicket to a left-arm spinner.

Friday, May 13th
After research commissioned by Cricket Australia revealed that South Africa is not the same as Sri Lanka, Greg Chappell has announced a radical new selection policy. This year the selectors will be picking different squads for different tours, according to the prevailing conditions. Personally I think they’ve gone for the right option.

Those other options in full:

1. Pick the same squad for both tours regardless (“The Hilditch Option”)
2. Pick different squads for different tours but get them the wrong way round
3. Fail to pick a squad for either tour.

Tuesday, May 3rd
The word ashes has many meanings. It’s the plural of a well-known species of tree belonging to the genus Fraxinus. It’s the correct phonetical transcription of the sound the Queen makes when she sneezes. But to Graeme Swann, it’s the name of the greatest sporting event on the planet. Don’t believe me? Here’s what he said in today’s Independent:

“The Ashes is the greatest sporting event on the planet.”

Told you. Graeme’s a likeable chap so let’s give him a chance. Is there any way in which this statement could be correct? Is there another dimension in which this might be true? Can it really be the case that an event watched by a small minority of people in two of the world’s 193 sovereign countries is the greatest on the planet? No, almost certainly not, and no.

It isn’t really his fault. Cricket hereabouts runs on Ashes time (for instance, it’s currently quarter past Ashes) and everything that is not Ashes exists in a haze of dreamy indifference, which might perhaps explain the continued existence of the County Championship, the world’s oldest living museum. He is a product of his cricket culture and his obsession with a little brown pot is, I suppose harmless.

And he does a nice line in old fashioned English understatement:

“We want to be No. 1 in both Test and one dayers. We’ve got a better chance of doing it in Test cricket, whereas the one-dayers might take a bit longer.”

Just a bit, Graeme…

Wednesday, May 4th
As he gleamed under the floodlights, his burnished skin the colour of a nicely done barbecued sausage, Captain Shane knew the game was up. There was nothing left but to resort to that thing he does involving his nose, his forefinger and his thumb that looks as though he is trying to prevent a nosebleed but is actually his way of saying that he’d like to use the thick end of a cricket bat to bludgeon his colleagues to death one at a time, if cricket etiquette didn’t frown upon that sort of thing.

Stuart Binny was the main culprit. But as a fielding duffer myself, I enjoyed his performance, particularly his first error, in which the ball appeared to pass straight through his navel en route to the boundary. It is always reassuring to get a reminder that most professionals hate fielding just like the rest of us do. Let’s be honest, its an unpleasant, time-consuming and tedious activity, only enjoyed by a few South Africans and the odd Australian who has spent too long in the sun.

Thursday, May 5th
What a splendid idea! Three captains! Everyone agrees that having a captain is a good thing. Far better, for example, than not having a captain. So three captains must be three times as good! And England have added a nice touch, ranking their captains based on the calibre of their private school. Extensive analysis reveals that their innovative three-headed skipper strategy will have the following outcome:

1. After a poor series against India and having relinquished two-thirds of his power, Andrew Strauss will be under intense pressure to step down.
2. Deputy Alastair Cook will be unavailable, a broken man, having dropped himself from the one-day team due to a strike rate of 7.00.
3. Deputy deputy, Stuart Broad, will be serving his third ban of the summer, this time for setting fire to the umpire’s shoes after a marginal wide call.
4. In the absence of anyone else, a fourth candidate will emerge, unite the three formats and lead England into a glorious new age of arm-waving, top-of-the-range sunglasses and flashy defeats. All hail the second coming of KP!

Saturday, 30th April
So it turns out that the West Indies selectors can, after all, just about find room for Ramnaresh Sarwan in their exciting new team of all the talents. And who knows, if the young fella applies himself, he might one day be a regular, like those stalwarts, Marlon “Misadventure” Samuels and Devon “Disappointing” Smith.

Ramnaresh’s return from the naughty step does not, though, imply that his fellow troublemaker Shivnarine Chanderpaul will be forgiven. He is currently engaged in a duel by letter with Ernest Hilaire, and though the details of the spat are too wearisome to go into, it is vaguely charming in this electronic age to see two men slugging it out the old-fashioned way: via the postal service.

Sunday, 1st May
Indian pitch in “spin-friendly” shock! Yes it’s true. The wicket in Jaipur was so constituted that it enabled spin bowlers to cause the ball to deviate sideways more easily than might otherwise have been the case. Scandalous. Mumbai have complained, or not, depending on your point of view, and Shane Warne has hit back at the unwarranted slur/non-existent accusation.

So what happened to the Jaipur pitch? I tried to find the answer on the internet. As far as I can gather, the moisture is being sucked up by a giant invisible alien tree planted in the outfield by Martian gardeners with links to Pakistani bookmakers, in exchange for crates of counterfeit brandname sports gear, stolen iPhones and pirated copies of Yuvraj Singh’s debut album, Yuvi Love.

Probably.

But what’s the problem? So what if the surface at Jaipur was dryer than a packet of sand-flavoured crisps? Who cares if Kochi’s pitch was crustier than the rejects bin at Pies Pies Pies Plc, the world’s leading pie and pastry purveyor? Pitches, like wine, should reflect the character and soil of their locale. India is a generally dry and dusty country, ergo most Indian pitches will be dry and dusty. And if that sometimes makes life harder for lazy sloggers, then splendid.

Monday, 2nd May
Watching too much top-class sport can be a drag. Real Madrid versus Barcelona is all very well but too much of that kind of thing and you start to yearn for the gritty pleasures that come when the mediocre take on the ordinary. What do I mean? Well, take today’s game between Delhi and Kochi. The Daredevils, as we know, are all top hat and no trousers and Kochi do as well as a team can be expected to do whilst dressed like the Muppets on a trip to the seaside.

When two not-very-good cricket sides go to war, a half-decent score is usually enough and so it proved. But just to put the purpley-orange cap on the thing, up stepped Irfan Pathan, to remind us all that the key to being just short of top class is a thrilling and unpredictable inconsistency. His opening over provided a benchmark of inaccuracy with some delightfully curving leg-side wides that the wicketkeeper hadn’t a hope of stopping.

Keep this up Kochi and sixth place is yours!

Saturday, 23rd April
So what is burnout, exactly? Is it that feeling you get some mornings, you know, when you’re dog tired, you lack any motivation, you can’t face another day working with the same old people and you wonder if you’ll ever get a break.? Is that burnout? No, of course it isn’t silly. And why? Because you aren’t a professional cricketer, that’s why, so get out of bed and get to work, you idle layabout!

Proper burnout is what happens to the top sportsman when he decides he wants some time off, perhaps because his golf handicap is slipping or he really wants to get started on that house extension. Or sometimes because his contract is up. And burnout is such a powerful phenomenon that it can even be cited before it’s happened. For example, we read today that Andy Flower might be at risk of burnout in the future and so will need a really good deal from the ECB. Unless, of course, he gets the India job.

I suppose fast bowlers like Lasith Malinga might be entitled to complain about burnout, or more accurately, the gradual disintegration of their more important limbs. If Larwood, Hall, Lillee or Lindwall had been forced to tear in, jam their foot into the dirt and twist sideways at speed in three different formats all year round, they’d be retiring from Test cricket in no time. But how exactly do coaches burn out? Laptop strain? Press conference fatigue? Selection anxiety?

Sunday, 24th April
What’s the big talking point in cricket at the moment? Chris Gayle versus the WICB? The make-up of the 2015 World Cup? The identity of India’s next coach? All of that is very interesting, I’m sure, but the Long Handle is more interested in the human angle. We want to know about the people behind the news. Specifically, we are fascinated by the incredible smoothness of Shane Warne’s orange face.

The story of his complexion is a modern version of an Oscar Wilde classic. The Moisturiser of Shane Warne stars an ageing but virile spin bowler who is offered the chance to stay young forever, and even to look a little bit younger, if he will sell his soul to a cosmetics company. No worries, says Shane. He agrees to promote a tub of cold cream and uses the money he gets to pay for a bit of facial renovation.

Of course that’s just a fairy story. It couldn’t actually happen. Still, the fact remains that he is becoming spectacularly multi-coloured. The white teeth, the tangerine face, the electric blue shirt; it’s quite a sight. And he can still bowl a bit. On a dusty day in Ahmedabad, he took Kochi apart. They were like unwary purple and orange sheep who had wandered into a tiger enclosure. And, provided you didn’t sit too close to the television and wore protective sunglasses, it was lovely to watch the old boy in action.

Monday, 25th April
Kamran wants to play for his country again. Referring to his less than splendid performance against New Zealand in the World Cup, he complained:

“I have one of the highest dismissal rates among all the wicketkeepers who have played for Pakistan.”

That may be, but he benefits from the fact that the stats do not include columns for “Oopsie daisies”, “Sorry, skipper she just didn’t stick” and “I was sure I had that one”.

But then, it isn’t Kamran’s fault that he kept being picked despite the mounting evidence that entrusting him with the gloves was a little like asking your rollerblading-addicted seven-year-old nephew and his pet macaw to mind your porcelain shop for the afternoon.

And having finally de-gloved him it would be a shame if Pakistan decided to dispense with his batting. The Kamran cover drive is something spectacular; it hits you like a slap in the face from a good friend. It is a stunning piece of batsmanship. It would be a shame if that shot were not to be seen again in international cricket.

Tuesday, April 19th
With the imminent abdication of Andrew Strauss from the one-day international throne, we are entering King Lear territory. Strauss is the ageing monarch. Alastair Cook is Cordelia. And Stuart Broad and KP are the ugly sisters, entirely unsuited to the position, but nevertheless jostling their way to the front of the media’s attention. Perhaps Strauss might stick to the script and divide the captaincy between them?

Last week, Bambi let it be known that yes, he’d quite like to do the job some day, but personally, he thought Straussy should go on for ever and ever. KP wasn’t quite so subtle today and inevitably found time to mention what happened the last time he was in charge. He said that it was water under the bridge, though this particular stretch of water has been recycled a number of times and is starting to look a bit murky.

But though the entertainment value of another KP captaincy stint should not be underestimated, I’m not sure that what England need to lead their rebuilding is a man who looks good in sunglasses. He should probably stick to what he’s best at: hitting huge sixes, communicating complicated emotional states in 140 characters or less and finding imaginative ways to lose his wicket to part-time left-arm spinners.

Wednesday, April 20th
Chris Gayle today demonstrated the efficacy of a new sportsman rehabilitation programme. Based around the recuperative power of the dollar, the new approach is believed to work directly on an individual’s bank account and involves significant transfusions of money. The effects are remarkable. Yesterday, Chris was injured. Today he is fit again and on Friday he will be able to play for Bangalore.

Cynicism aside, I have every sympathy with Gayle. The only thing that I don’t like is that these players are so coy about the choices they make. Why would you put your body through the strain of a five-day match, watched by nobody, for a modest wage, when you can play a more exciting brand of cricket in front of an audience of millions for a fortune? Country versus franchise? No contest.

Thursday, April 21st
At long last, the crisis that threatened to slightly disrupt Sri Lanka’s preparations for a not-very-important Test series is over. At a press conference today, a spokesman for Sri Lanka Cricket read out the following statement.

“First of all, let me say that in no way would we give in to pressure. The BCCI may be a large, powerful, and if I may say so, a deeply attractive, charismatic and fragrant organisation, but we make our own decisions. I can reveal that we did have a fruitful and productive meeting with Indian officials and we were persuaded by their arguments, particularly the points made by their associates with the baseball bats.

As you are aware, earlier this week we demanded that, if they could be bothered, our better players might like to consider turning up in England on May 5. We believed that two weeks was necessary to adjust to English conditions. We now realise that this was complete nonsense and that 24 hours and a jolly good nap on the plane is sufficient acclimatisation. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Go Kochi!”

Friday, April 22nd
A Chris Gayle century is never dull and his debut for the Royal Challengers was typical in its spectacular brutality. Perhaps the best part though was when Virat Kohli realised he was in danger of pooping the party and denying Gayle his ton. Two runs to win, three balls to go in the over and the professional thing would have been to plunder the runs. But the watching millions did not tune in for a display of hard-nosed professionalism. We want drama, excitement, entertainment and, occasionally, a little human interest. Well done, Virat, for seeing the bigger picture.

Wednesday, 13th April
I’ll be honest. I’m fast falling out of love with Kochi. First there was that business with the shirts. I mean, orange? Really? They said nothing about orange when they bought the franchise. Perhaps that was what all the squabbling was about. But there was no clue on the logo. I was expecting a regal purple outfit, with cool embroidered silver tusks. What did we get? Bilious tangerine. They look like fast-food servers on their lunch break, or street marketers promoting a new brand of orange juice.

And then there’s the not-being-very-good problem. This is a real hindrance to the committed supporter, particularly those of us who got carried away pre-IPL and had a little wager on the orangey ones to win the thing. We are in a for a rollercoaster ride, of the kind you get at illegal fun fairs, where the track isn’t quite finished and it all ends in disaster. Today, for example, when Yuvraj fell, I was leaping up and down like Javed Miandad on a trampoline doing his Kiran More impersonation. But a few balls later, I found myself committing an act of violence upon an innocent cushion as Jadeja completed his spell with one of those innovative “hit me” full-tosses.

Perhaps it’s the shirts, perhaps it’s the name, perhaps it’s presence of Sreesanth, but I am afraid there is no other word for it: Kochi are flaky. In fact, they are the new Kings XI Punjab. Yes, it’s as bad as that.

Thursday, 14th April
We’ve all been there. You’ve finished washing your baby. But there’s a problem. The bath is full of both baby and water. What to do? Do you carefully extract your baby then tip away the water? Or do you throw the whole lot out of the window? Well, kudos to the WICB. In dropping Gayle, Sarwan and Chanderpaul, they have shown us that there is a third way: lose the baby and keep the bath water. And if anyone carps, you answer them by saying that the door is not closed to the baby, he can always make a comeback, but it’s time we had a look at what the bath water can do.

Friday, 15th April
Exciting news for the nation of New Zealand with the arrival of Australian philosopher and motivational spreadsheet guru, John Buchanan. Professor B enjoyed great success across the Tasman Sea with his innovative five-point strategy:

1. Pick Warne
2. Pick Gilchrist
3. Break for tea and scones
4. Pick McGrath
5. Leave inspirational Post-it notes at the bottom of players’ cereal bowls

“I’ve learnt a lot from my time in Australia,” said the man himself, “Specifically, that Post-its can go a bit soggy if you pour milk onto them. So my first step as Emperor of New Zealand Cricket will be to scour Ebay for a decent Post-it note laminator.”

And the man they call John enthralled a snoozing press corps by outlining his belief in the transformative power of talking at length without really saying anything.

“Philosophy has a lot to offer our sport. I think it was Socrates who said that a small kiwi can down a kangaroo if it knows how to use a gun. Or it may have been Aristotle. Now I come to think of it, it could have been Groucho Marx. Anyway, my aim is to intellectualise the New Zealand cricket collective with a series of lectures on the Impossibility of Existence, a visit to Michel Foucault’s favourite hardware store and compulsory Esperanto lessons for anyone with a central contract.

“After that, it will be a simple matter of identifying three players exactly like Warne, Gilchrist and McGrath and the renaissance of New Zealand cricket can begin.”

Saturday, 15th April
Yesterday Kochi beat Mumbai. This might suggest that they are quite good. But I'm not fooled. I've been here before with Kings XI. One day they're thrashing Tendulkar, the next they're all out for 57. It's the essence of flakiness. Don't get sucked in, people, they'll let you down when it matters.

Saturday, 9th April
This year the IPL and the County Championship began on the same day. It makes for a startling contrast. Flicking between the two is like travelling in time: from cricket 21st-century style to the late Victorian era and back again. In entertainment terms it’s like choosing between a frenetic weekend trip to a packed out theme park and a wander around your local door-handle museum on a wet Tuesday afternoon.

And internet forums are full of people prepared to argue to a standstill to prove one or the other is best. These days you can’t be a cricket pluralist; you’re either an empty-headed, face-painted Twenty20 fan with the attention span of a goldfish, or you’re a sad old fuddy duddy at war with the modern world, hankering after a colonial past in which the sun never set on the dullest way of playing mankind’s greatest sport.

But why must we choose? Why deny ourselves one or the other? Let’s cherish cricket in all its forms. Personally, at the moment the county version doesn’t really float my boat. But if fate allows, post-retirement I intend to spend many long afternoons quietly snoozing in the shires. The County Championship is like Parliament, the Law Courts and open-heart surgery. I don’t really want to watch it, but I’m glad it’s there.

Sunday, 10th April
Pune have more players than anyone else. This is clearly unfair, but it does bring with it a particular problem. When Yuvraj sits down to pick his XI, he must feel like a schoolboy given the keys to a sweet shop. The temptation to try everything must be overwhelming. Where do you start? Picking an IPL team must be like trying to complete a crossword puzzle in which there are 27 answers to each clue.

Pune won today and so did Malinga. He caused more bruised toes than a short-sighted hippopotamus learning to tango. There’s even a dance named after him. It’s called the Malinga Shuffle and it’s easy to learn. Shift your weight to your right. Crouch in anticipation. Stare helplessly into the middle distance as though trying to spot a pouncing snow leopard in a blizzard. Then double up, hop backwards and try to hit yourself on the foot with your own bat. Falling over is optional.

Monday, 11th April
Today something interesting happened at New Road. No, not the fact that Worcestershire’s latest brief visit to the First Division began with a nine-wicket loss in three days. It was the fact that Adil Rashid took an awful lot of wickets. This is rather inconvenient. If he carries on like this, things might get rather uncomfortable for those on the England selection committee currently suffering from Rashidophobia. When we need a second spinner against Sri Lanka, could it be that they will be left with no choice but to pick the talented youngster? Or will they give John Emburey a call?

Wednesday, 6th April
Graeme Smith hasn’t Tweeted since March 16th. This has upset some in the cyber wilderness who feel that they have been abandoned, Twitter-jilted, and can’t get closure without 140 characters from the man who used to be South Africa captain. It is true that he gave a press conference that was reported on by every sports news outlet in South Africa. But this isn’t enough for the Twitterati.

So to help him out I’ve come up with a tweet that will resolve this little unpleasantness and satisfy his disgruntled fans. He is welcome to cut and paste:

“Hello Losers. World Cup over. We didn’t win. Not captain anymore. Move on.”

That should do the trick

Thursday, 7th April
The next World Cup will be limited to the 10 Test-playing nations, or more precisely, the nine Test-playing nations and the one that is still sitting on the naughty step, or even more precisely, the eight Test-playing nations and the two that are only ever likely to win a Test match if their opponents are on strike, abducted by aliens, or get driven to the wrong ground. Or if they play each other.

The purpose of this piece of tournament butchery is to remove one-sided, boring games from the World Cup. An admirable aim, but surely doomed to fail. Can we really predict dull games in advance? Take England versus Ireland. Expected to be dull; turned out to be hilarious. What about West Indies v Pakistan? Could have been exhilarating, instead it was excruciating. Boring cricket matches are like Monday afternoons or stubbing your toe against a table leg: an inevitable part of life.

Friday, 8th April
Its IPL time again! The players are the same, but they have been shuffled around. It’s a bit like a game of musical chairs in which the chairs have been replaced with huge piles of money and the music doesn’t stop. Hopefully most of the players have worked out who they’re playing for by now and the rest will figure out they’re in the wrong city when they find someone else’s underpants on their dressing-room peg.

We also welcome back our old friend, the incongruous advert. I feel that some of these companies are missing a trick by only focusing on the successful and praiseworthy. Surely there is just as much exposure in associating your name with the mundane and the inept? The three-times-fumbled lob with which Yusuf Pathan entertained us today was a Caramel Crème Dropped Sitter if ever I saw one, and there was at least one Laxx Mobile Come On Surely That Was A Wide Call.

Saturday, 8th January
I’m not sure the PCB have quite got the hang of this anti-corruption thing. The dial on their administrative machinery appears to have two settings: “suspect no one” and “suspect everyone”, and at the moment it is stuck firmly on the latter.

Danish Kaneria has not been charged with any crime and is not under investigation by the ICC. And yet he is persona non grata in Pakistan selection circles, as likely to get a game as Barack Obama, Rolf Harris or “President” Asif Ali Zardari, veteran spinner and connoisseur of the cut.

Why is this so? I have a theory. The PCB, having been late converts to the benefits of fighting corruption, are now zealots in the cause and, like all zealots, have to take things that little bit too far. And what’s the only surefire way to prevent players from fixing cricket matches? Simple. Don’t ever let them play in any matches!

Sunday, 9th January
The work of conceptual artist Lalit Modi continues to make waves. This weekend, the Situationist collective known as “The IPL” staged a live “auction” at which cricketers were led onto a stage one at a time and “sold” to “franchise owners”, who threw sacks of gold coins at the mediocre players but completely ignored the good ones.

Said one leading art critic:

“The way they subverted cricket’s outmoded patterns of talent hierarchy was breathtaking in its artistic vision. I particularly liked the bit where they put $400,000 next to Michael Yardy’s name. That was hilarious.”

Sourav Ganguly was unavailable to comment (although he is now available for after-dinner engagements and pantomime at very reasonable rates.)

Monday, 10th January
This winter’s disagreeable turn of events for Ricky P has caused a certain amount of introspection in the little fella. He wants nothing less than a review of the whole structure of Australian cricket. Next month Merv Hughes and Jeff Thomson are to lead a fact-finding mission to ECB headquarters to find out just what kind of futuristic, state of the art, next-generation set-up we’ve got in England that has enabled us to produce players of the calibre of Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott.

To help speed the process along, I’ve summarised the key changes that the Aussies will need to make if they want to be more like us.

Break up those large, uncompetitive states with their concentration of resources and streamlined scouting and coaching networks and replace them with 18 or so smaller teams who will not be accountable to anyone.

Ideally, incorporate the word “shire” or “sex” into the titles of Australian teams. For example: Victoriashire, Queenslandsex, South Australiashire etc.

Quadruple the amount of cricket played domestically and introduce two new tournaments, at least one of which should be in an irrelevant format, such as, say, 35 or 43 overs.

Ensure that most of the money generated by Cricket Australia is shared amongst the chairpersons of the 18 teams, who in turn are advised to spend it on foreign cricketers, ugly new pavilions and luxury trouser presses.

Identify the 10 most promising players in South Africa and send them complimentary Australian passports.

Obviously there is a little more to it than that. Cricket Australia might also find it useful to try doing absolutely nothing for 20 years, and if questioned, explain that these things have a habit of working themselves out and that it’s all cyclical anyway.

So don’t worry Ricky. Just follow our example and before you can say “Allen Stanford!” the plastic replica of the Ashes urn will be back in Australian hands.

Saturday, 18th December
In their ongoing attempt to ensure that as few Pakistan fans as possible can see their team play, the PCB are apparently considering holding some of their games in China. The advantage of a Chinese adventure is clear: Chinese newspapers are unlikely to be interested in investigating the off-field activities of cricketers, and even if they were, they probably wouldn’t be allowed to tell anyone about it! Nice move, Ijaz!

Sunday, 19th December
A bigger IPL requires a fresh format and those hip young administrators at the BCCI have come up with a sexy new schedule that is sure to draw in the crowds. And responding to criticism that it looked a tad complicated, they have, for the benefit of us laypeople, produced this Dummies Guide to the arrangements for IPL4:

“Each of the participatory sporting entities will be engaged in a schedule of commitments commensurate with preceding editions; to whit, a quartet of reciprocal hosting arrangements in addition to a fourfold non-reciprocal fixture agreement, with the residual participants engaged on a home and away basis, followed by a meritocratically structured eliminatory interregnum, upon the conclusion of which, the venture will be considered to have satisfactorily attained a state of termination.”

Let the party commence!

Monday, 20th December
Ricky Ponting is a doubt for the Boxing Day Test after going down with a nasty bout of shock on the second day at Perth. Michael Clarke remembers what happened.

“Yeah, well Mitch had just taken a wicket and I remember looking over at Ricky and the guy was like, open-mouthed, like he was in shock or something. He just froze in that position and we couldn’t shift him.”

The spasm of surprise was so bad that for the rest of the game the Australian captain had to be carried out onto the field like a statue and moved around on Michael Beer’s skateboard. Cricket Australia remain concerned at his condition.

“The biggest danger in a case like this,” explained Doctor Hilditch, “Is that with the mouth frozen in the open position, he is at risk of swallowing a fly and because he’s still in shock, he won’t know why he swallowed the fly. Perhaps he’ll die.”

Tuesday, 21st December
Wikileaks has revealed that there were suspicions about the egregious Allen Stanford as long ago as 2006, including rumours about bribery, money laundering and political manipulation. But though this is embarrassing for Stanford’s former chums, the ECB, they have introduced measures to ensure they are never caught out again, as shown by this leaked internal memo:

Procedure for Satisfactorily Establishing the Bona Fides of Johnny Foreigner

1. If a chap you want to do business with appears to have a lot of cash, it is jolly important to ask him first how he came by it. I am aware that this is terribly bad form, but it isn’t Henley or Glyndebourne, this is the ruthless world of modern cricket. You must shake the fellow firmly by the hand, look him squarely in the eye and ask him straight out if he is a bounder. Write down his answer on your ECB memo pad.

2. Your second and final question must be equally blunt. Brook no argument or prognostication, but incline your head quizzically, finger your tie and ask him where he went to school. You may find the following table helpful:

Eton: Sound chap
Harrow: Good egg
Winchester: Decent fellow
Radley: Treat with caution
Other: Oik and potential bounder, be wary
State school: Probably an intruder. Call security.

Saturday, 4th December
It can’t be easy to be a fan of the Royals, the Kings XI or the Kochi Calamaties. Should you bin your Ramesh Powar tea cosy, unstitch your embroidered Graeme Smith underpants and try to learn the theme tune of the Super Kings? Or do you put your fingers in your ears when the IPL news is on and look forward to the player auction (whenever it may be) as though nothing has happened?

We don’t yet know, for example, whether Rajasthan will be involved in IPL4, but they are being allowed to take part in the auction. This is rather like letting your daughter choose some new goodies from the toy shop but warning her that she might not be allowed to play with them when she gets home. At the time of writing, we don’t know how many teams will be taking part, what the format will be or who will be playing for whom. By the time the IPL gets a grip, we may no longer care.

Sunday, 5th December
Congratulations to Darren Sammy and his chaps. Not losing is a significant step forward for Caribbean cricket and not losing in Sri Lanka is almost as praiseworthy an achievement as not losing in India. And though there was more than a hint of dampness around, the West Indians were not, unlike our favourite cousins from the Antipodes, praying for it. The rain merely spoilt the series, it didn’t decide it.

But it is heartening to see that complaining about the weather is just as popular in Sri Lanka as it is England. Speaking for elderly women at bus stops everywhere, Kumar Sangakkara complained that, “The weather’s all topsy turvy these days”. He wants the authorities to investigate rainfall patterns, but to be honest, I’m not sure the ICC will prove any more adept at meteorology than it is at cricket administration.

Monday, 6th December
Australia’s inability to take a wicket is becoming baffling. They’ve tried everything: wide balls, full-tosses, half-volleys, balls that don’t spin, non-swinging balls, slow balls: nothing has worked. Some are suggesting Australia are losing because they are too nice and have forgotten how to be snarly and growly. Cricket is a manly game, for men with hairy chests and incidents such as Ricky’s complaints about the sledging on the first day are a namby-pamby embarrassment.

But, aside from being an interesting insight into the peculiarities of the Australian psyche, this is a misrepresentation of the facts. Ricky was not complaining about the unpleasantness of the sledging, but the feebleness of it. The legacy of the Chuckle brothers and of Dennis, Rod and Jeff was being insulted by the dainty name-calling and wishy-washy chat of Prior, Anderson and baby Finn. Michael Vaughan, on Test Match Special, described it as “chirping”. Chirping is a high-pitched sing-song noise made by delicate little creatures that can become intensely irritating. Sounds about right.

Tuesday, 7th December
The Dilscoop is a circus shot that cannot fail to entertain. If it comes off, it’s an “oooh look at that” moment, like a daring highwire somersault. If it fails, it is funnier than a collapsible three-wheeled-van packed full of clowns. Today’s effort from Brendon, The Incredible Tattooed Man, was of the latter variety. Bravely, he went down on one knee, wafted his bat up and down like he was trying to fan a small fire, missed the ball entirely and finally toppled over into the dirt. It was quite possibly my favourite Dilfail of 2010.

Saturday, 27th November
Kochi are in. Rajasthan were out but they might be in again. That said, Kochi might still be out. The head of the BCCI said he would need some time to study the latest developments. I don’t blame him. I’ve put some of my brainiest brain cells onto the job and I still can’t make any sense of the thing. Then again, business talk always numbs my neurons. Share options, equity, consortium… excuse me, did I nod off there? Most of these IPL stories could be repackaged as lullabies.

Besides, I much preferred the old IPL, the one where all the dodgy stuff was done behind the curtains. You knew it probably stank, but they at least had the decency to keep the mess out of sight. No one wants to go and watch a play in which the director spends the first hour explaining why the set is a bit rickety and the plot is full of holes. All this openness and probity is a big yawn. Let’s get back to what it’s all about: silly hype, silly money and silly cricket. With fireworks. And blimps.

Sunday, 28th November
“Owww!”

What on earth could that be at three o clock in the morning? A night prowler falling foul of a well-placed bear trap? Mitchell Johnson striving for extra accuracy and catching the square-leg umpire on the ankle?

Nope, it is the sound that David Gower makes when Nasser Hussain drives a chair leg into his toe. I’ve every sympathy for DG. No one wants to be woken up suddenly like that, especially not when they’re at work. Of course it could be that the chair thing was just a fabrication, to cover up the true reason for Gower’s existential yowl: the realisation that he might have to watch Alastair Cook bat for three days.

Monday, 29th November
A tricky time of year for those of us obliged to take part in Christmas festivities has just been made a whole lot easier. Got a cricket-loving adolescent in the family? Then they’ll love the new James Anderson book, Sledging for Beginners. Page after page of barely audible insinuations, surefire pouting tips and lower-lip workouts. Aimed at 10-year-olds, or possibly eight-year-olds with attitude, it is set to be a bestseller.

As a little taste of what the reader can expect, stump microphones in Brisbane picked up this exchange during Australia’s sleepy second innings:

Anderson: “Mumble mumble mumble.”
Batsman: “I’m sorry could you say that again?”
Anderson: “Oh you heard!”
Batsman: “Actually, no I didn’t.”
Anderson: “Yeah right, mumble, mumble.”
Batsman: “I’m sorry, I really have no idea what you’re saying…”

Ouch! Vicious stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Tuesday, 30th November
You might think that getting selected for the Pakistan team is a straightforward affair. A chap only needs to remain out of jail and in possession of a passport and a bat to get a go. But it isn’t as easy as all that. You still need some kind of hook, some catchy selling point. And, if you’re Kamran Akmal, you need a damn good one if you’re going to grab that 17th chance to prove yourself.

So Akmal fans will be pleased to hear that the toothy one has spotted an opportunity.

“Every Pakistan team needs a scapegoat, but at the moment we don’t really have one. So I’ve been working hard on certain areas of my game, like taking the blame, copping the flak and being the fall guy. If I get another chance, I believe I’ve got many years of being called names at the top level left in me.”

Tuesday, 16th November
IPL fans will be pleased to hear that preparations for the next installment of the world’s favourite Indian cricket league have been unaffected, despite all of the litigious shenanigans of recent weeks. There have though been one or two changes to the format. IPL 4 will consist of an initial round-robin stage of legal actions, counter suits and disciplinary hearings, at the end of which the last franchise to be disbanded will claim the title. In the event of two franchises being banned at the same time, the one with the fewest of Lalit Modi’s relatives on its board will be declared the winner.

Wednesday, 17th November
Giles Clarke’s ongoing campaign to ensure that no one can see the England team play cricket today suffered a setback. It emerged that ITV will be showing highlights of the Ashes for free. Yes, you heard it right, for free. It’s a scandal. Fortunately, the highlights will be on the middle of the night and viewers will have to apply to the ECB for a special exemption certificate if they want to partake in this act of wanton selfishness. And of course, it’s on ITV, which is itself something of a deterrent.

The big question is who will be in the studio? Normally, the advantage of employing ex-internationals is that they can offer us valuable insights. But this is the Ashes. The only thing that the likes of Alec Stewart and Graeme Hick can tell us about playing against Australia is how to lose in the shortest possible time. They probably won’t even show up until the last Test, when, with the pressure off and expectations suitably low, the men from the nineties will turn in a stirring, but ultimately futile display of punditry.

Thursday, 18th November
The Ashes offers many opportunities for spin-off publications and I see no reason not to cash in. I am currently working on my own book, entitled “Deconstructing the Soundbite: Semantics in the Post Modern Sporting and Media Milieu. For Dummies”. There is no shortage of material. Take this from Troy Cooley:

“Mitch brings a nice set of skills to our team and we accept that with his action, he’s not going to get 100 balls in the right area at the right time.”

What does this tell us? Firstly it reveals the enormous admiration Cooley has for the tattooed slinger. He looks upon Mitch as a figure of prodigious strength and power, reminiscent of the mythical giant Briareus, capable of bowling 100 balls simultaneously. But at the same time he is preparing us for the possibility that not every one of Mitch’s 100 arms will be functioning with optimum accuracy and that low flying aircraft in the Brisbane area should take particular care next week.

Friday, 19th November
Harbhajan isn’t happy, a situation that is not good for India, for Indian cricket or for the furniture in Bhajji’s apartment. According to India’s premier allrounder, most of the pitches in that part of the world are like roads. Coincidentally, many Indian roads are like five-day old pitches. Perhaps some sort of exchange programme between groundsmen and road maintenance engineers might be the answer?

Saturday, 23rd October
Flicking wearily through the “Ashes Hype” pull-out section of my daily newspaper, I came across an interesting quote from Professor DK Lillee, of the Perth Institute for Biological Sciences, who has claimed that Nathan Hauritz is “still evolving”. He is confident that by November 25th, Hauritz will have grown an extra thick forefinger (to help him spin the ball) a bat-like echo location system (to help him locate a good length) and the roar of a lion (to deter vultures and Steven Smith).

Sunday 24th October
As a keen conservationist I was delighted upon tuning in to today’s game from the Nehru Stadium to find that the ground authorities had, by clever use of tarpaulins, arranged a network of lakes, ponds and puddles, clearly designed to encourage the endangered Goan Crested Newt. I spent many happy minutes watching live footage of the water features and listening to the distinctive sounds of the locale, such as the haunting mating call of the wild vuvuzela and the distant crash of a collapsing sightscreen.

Monday, 25th October
There are only 30 press conferences to go until the start of the Ashes and on today’s agenda was Andy Flower, who told a packed assembly of desperate hacks that he expected great things from Kevin Pietersen this winter. In response to a shouted question to “say something interesting that we can use” the England coach followed up his opening remarks by revealing that Alastair Cook had recently had to renew his car tax and that Graeme Swann had had two sausages for breakfast.

He also had to apologise for KP’s absence. The man himself had a prior commitment launching a range of exciting products designed to penetrate new markets as yet untouched by the magic of KP. This Christmas, consumers around the world can look forward to the KP yak-pacifier, the KP luau firelighters, the KP ice-fishing rod and the KP llama poop-scooper. For Ashes couch potatoes, there will also be a new KP beer (shiny can, exciting bouquet, goes flat after a while) and a KP corkscrew, specially designed to make things easy for left-handers.

Meanwhile the UN has expressed concerns that prolonged exposure to pointless Ashes speculation may have negative side effects. Governments around the globe are reporting a dramatic increase in cricket-related ennui, and in China today, several people were arrested trying to deface a 20-foot high poster of Jimmy Anderson. Psychiatrists are also warning of the dangers of an epidemic of post-Brisbane depression when viewers realise that neither of the teams involved is particularly good.

Tuesday, 26th October
The IPL continues to break new ground, even in the realm of boardroom feuds. In an attempt to outdo the internal squabbles at Liverpool FC, the Kochi franchise has become the first sporting club to fall out with itself without ever having put a team onto the field. Nevertheless they are hopeful of being ready in time for the IPL’s Contraction Season 2011 and have already launched their logo. The emblem of the Kochi Calamaties features a pair of bickering elephants rampant, holding court papers in their trunks and carrying enormous sacks of golden coins on their backs.

Saturday, October 9th
Bangalore is Kumble land and the man himself was in the house, aloft in the stands, looking on like a benevolent cricket god. His every appearance on screen provoked roars from what looked suspiciously like a full house. The faithful were compelled to view their cricket through barriers, which at first I took for another example of the appalling way paying cricket fans are treated in this part of the world. Then I realised these were not nets designed to pen the audience in but an enormous mesh erected to protect the public from the giant marauding insects of the locale.

In an unfortunate piece of scheduling, the Association of Winged Invertebrates (Karnataka Branch) had arranged their annual convention for the first day of a crucial Test match. Insects are, in my experience, a stubborn bunch and so, despite the arrival of 15 men in white, they continued about their business regardless. The effect on the viewer was disconcerting, as an occasional wing brushed the camera and, periodically, enormous creatures loomed into view. I’m sure at one point I saw Mitchell Johnson catch one with his tongue and begin to chew. Always had my doubts about that one.

Sunday, October 10th
You may think it drastic that the new IPL chiefs have expelled two franchises, but when you read the full details of what these franchises were up to, you’ll see they had no choice.

Rajasthan, it appears, had not cleared their headed notepaper with the Branded Stationery Authorisation Committee, and Kings XI Punjab fell foul of the little-known “Apostrophe Accuracy” clause in the franchise regulations, since it wasn’t clear whether the XI belonged to one King or several Kings, or indeed, whether it was a team comprised entirely of kings. They had been given three years to clear the matter up, so they only had themselves to blame, really.

Proper and full implementation of all regulations and a rigorously ethical approach to administration are, as we know, the hallmarks of the BCCI. Still, although we are all no doubt glad to be free of these two evil franchises, you have to feel a little sorry for the television producers. What on earth will they be able to focus on now that Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty will no longer be pitch-side? The cricket? Miss Zinta’s antics in particular were the most compelling part of the Punjab effort; she certainly showed more energy in the cause than any of the men in red, white and silvery bits.

Monday, October 11th
Blessed are the peacemakers and few are more blessed than Mr Ijaz Butt. In his ongoing efforts to heal rifts and bring about reconciliations, he has sent a letter to Younis Khan. Claims that Younis has not received the communication are nonsense. I happen to know that Mr Butt personally scribbled something illegible on a post-it note, wrote, “To Younis Khan” on the other side and dropped it out of his office window. Having made all reasonable efforts to contact the batting fugitive, he cannot be held responsible for the failures of the Pakistan Postal Service.

It is not clear what significance we should attach to this letter. Until recently, the words “Younis" and “Khan” were outlawed at PCB HQ and the chap in question was at all times to be referred to as “That Man”. His offence, as I understand it, is that he hasn’t yet apologised for his as yet-undisclosed naughtiness that led to a ban, which was subsequently rescinded for no apparent reason.

If Lewis Carroll were around today he would no doubt be adding a new chapter to his most famous work, in which the heroine wanders into a PCB office by mistake and is reduced to a gibbering wreck by the goings-on therein.

Friday, August 27th
More IPL news, this time about the auction before last. I may not have entirely understood, but it seems that the big cheese at the Chennai Catastrophes attempted to rig the auction to ensure that he didn’t end up with Flintoff. The deal was that the yellows would make a pretend bid of $1.55m but would then graciously withdraw. But the plan went wrong and they were lumbered with the big man with the dodgy ankle. Understandably, Chennai were upset. I think that’s it.

I don’t really know, to be honest. I didn’t realise that auctions, let alone multi-million dollar auctions, were supposed to be the acme of transparency. This whole IPL business looks like one of those blazing rows in a soap opera that conceal an underlying heartache. Any minute now, someone will say, “It’s not about the auction, Lalit, you know it’s not about the auction!” I hope it’s some time soon, because this IPL stuff is like watching the business news. No, it’s duller.

Saturday, August 28th
Pakistan have gone in the brain, says Nasser Hussain. Again. It isn’t an elegant phrase, but we know what he means. Still, as someone who enjoys reading about the golden age of cricket, it was lovely to see a re-enactment of Edwardian fielding including some gentlemanly ushering of the ball to the boundary, a marked reluctance to bend down and a dignified, patrician silence. Shabash, Kamran? No, okay then.

Sunday, August 29th
I’m still in shock to be honest. Couldn’t even bring myself to turn on the television. Who cares about watching cricket? Unbelievable. The kind of thing that makes a man despair about civilisation, no, about humanity as a whole. What are we coming to when an 18-year-old can make a mistake like that, with their whole careers ahead of them? If I’d wanted anchovies on my pizza, I’d have ordered anchovies on my pizza. What is wrong with the youth of today? Give them a moped and a fancy crash helmet and they think they’ve made it.

Monday, August 30th
A second man has been caught on tape, bragging about another spate of fixing dating back 20 years. He claimed to have fixed the results of 52 Test matches and 68 one-day internationals involving England between 1988 and 2000 and to have links with up to 189 English internationals. “You needed to know a lot of players in those days, because they kept changing them. No sooner had I groomed one fast bowler, than a new guy came in. I was always buying new address books.”

“I can’t believe we got away with it, to be honest. As time went on, we had to find more and more elaborate ways to lose, but the press never cottoned on. They kept saying it was cyclical, or blaming county cricket or calling for a new captain. The players were well up for it. Sometimes they collapsed without me even asking them to. Calm down, guys, I had to tell them, you can’t do it every game, someone will start asking questions. But they never did.”

Wednesday August 11th
We learned today of a cunning plan by Mr Modi in his long-running yet entertaining tussle with the BCCI. It appears that he had asked for two members of the disciplinary panel to recuse themselves. This, it turns out, is not an obscenity, but a legal term. His Modiness wanted the duo gone because he was concerned they were biased against him. It was a clever move, for had they accepted the principle that the deposed IPL Overlord could only be judged by people not in anyway ill-disposed towards him, the BCCI would find themselves unable to fill a panel, or indeed a phone box.

Unfortunately for Lalit, they did not accept this request and so the show goes on in the same compelling yet impenetrable way. The opacity of proceedings is partly due to the exotic tangle of business gobbledook and thorny legalese through which the outsider must hack his way in order to make sense of it all. Like a modern Hollywood spy thriller, the audience for The Modi Supremacy and its apparently endless sequels has only the merest sliver of a clue as to what the hell is going on but we do at least know who is supposed to be the bad guy.

Thursday August 12th
The Clydesdale Bank 40, for those who are unaware, is not the collective name for a group of individuals wrongly convicted of a theft of gold bullion. It is the title of a rather splendid little tournament that takes place throughout the spring and summer and that ends, hopefully, some time soon. Today I thought I’d catch up with county affairs and settled down to watch the Outlaws against the Bears. Once again, the team named after people triumphed over their zoologically titled opponents.

Before the cricket though, this being an English August, there was a certain amount of dampness, which forced Sky back onto their plan B. This involved Ian Ward talking to Mark Ealham and sometimes to David Houghton. I’ll be honest, it was quite dull. That isn’t their fault, of course. They are or were cricketers. Their job is or was the manipulation of a small round leathery thing about a field, not entertaining bored couch potatoes who should have better things to do of a Thursday afternoon. Still, next time that moisture seeps into proceedings, it might be better to go with Plan C and let us watch the groundstaff going to it with buckets and sponges.

Friday August 13th
Today I treated myself to watching something I’d recorded yesterday: highlights of the 1992 World Cup final. The early nineties was a golden era, a time when men were men and the moustache was still a fashionable means of self-expression*. Of course I enjoyed Inzamam’s nonchalance, Fairbrother’s guile, and Wasim's blowing away of Chris Lewis with an invisible inswinger. But there was even more fun to be had listing the subsequent careers of the participants. Coach, commentator, umpire, agent, journalist, Member of Parliament and drug smuggler: all human life was there. And the whole thing introduced by Richie Benaud from his mother-in-law’s back bedroom next to a giant vase of chrysanthemums. It was television cricket gold.

* No prizes, but a warm feeling of smugness to the reader who can come up with the correct number of moustaches on the field of play during that famous game.

	Shortness of breath and nausea are among the effects of exposure to IPL telecasts, scientists have found © AFP

Last week saw the publication of a survey, presumably conducted by the Department of the Glaringly Obvious at the University of Duh!, which found (and you might want to be seated for this) that mid-over adverts during the IPL were not, repeat not, popular with television viewers. I know, surprising eh? Who could have guessed that being subjected to a continuous stream of visual marketing junk might begin to rankle a teensy bit with the watching public?

Now, in the interests of fairness, I should say that advertising can have beneficial side effects. For instance, yesterday, in search of distraction from my list of chores, I slumped onto my sofa and flicked through a few channels. In no time at all, I had racked up a new record of eight consecutive adverts without seeing a single scheduled programme. I was so irritated, I decided to clean out my fridge instead. Thus, thanks to advertising, my kitchen no longer smells and I burned a few more calories hacking away at encrusted ice with a screwdriver.

It is also worth pointing out that the cricket watcher’s relationship with brand peddling is not a straightforward one. Certain ad campaigns, if they are sufficiently well conceived and interwoven with the cricket, can become part of the experience. For example, the short sequences on a fictional Caribbean beach that ran during the recent World Twenty20 were almost entertaining, which is pretty much the pinnacle of advertising achievement.

However, I will be honest, I would have to think twice and possibly seek a third opinion from my subconscious to recall precisely which product it was promoting. And it isn’t just me. Apparently half of IPL 3 viewers were unable to remember the main shirt sponsors of their favourite team. Even more astonishingly, a quarter of respondents could not name a single IPL advertiser. And if that doesn’t warm the cockles of your heart, then you are probably Lalit Modi. Or an accountant.

Those of us who watched the IPL from these damp and clammy shores were fortunate in that we did not have to endure the mid-over brainwashing. I cannot imagine what it must have been like. The sheer effort required to maintain concentration in the face of such a barrage of nonsense must have been enormous. And the necessity to press the mute button so often must have left Indian cricket viewers with the most muscular thumbs in the developed world.

Now the IPL, it is true, is not the typical cricket event. It is an enormous, powerful, magnificent elephant of a tournament, with far too many people trying to squeeze into the howdah. But this overloading of the viewer’s plate with great steaming piles of commercial propaganda is symptomatic of how the cricket spectator is seen. We are not real people, we are demographics, we are potential market share, we are viewing figures, we are just the saps who buy the KKR pyjamas and the Yuvraj tea cosies.

Commentators are no better. They think we have the attention spans of goldfish on caffeine, and so they shout gibberish, make bad jokes and generally carry on like holiday-camp entertainers. Expert summarisers think we are too stupid to understand technical matters and so lard their punditry with dollops of lazy, can’t-be-bothered observations. Isn’t it about time the viewer got a better deal? After all, without us there would be no IPL.

	You know the IPL is over when you begin to miss Mandira Bedi © AFP

The post-IPL landscape is strewn with bleary-eyed and confused souls, people such as you and me, fellow cricket tragics, who must somehow soldier on in a world where intervals of time are not sponsored and big beige balloons go unworshipped. Ahead of us, a bleak, barren prospect, with no bat on ball action to look forward to for three long, tedious days until the World Twenty20 gets underway.

And behind us, an implausible seven-week long party that seemed as though it would never end, yet suddenly did, at eight o’clock on Sunday night. The IPL final has already passed into my subconscious and I can only recollect it dimly, like a man with a hangover trying to reconstruct the night before. Were there really hovercrafts? Did Harbhajan bat at four? Was there a 50-metre high cricketer? Or was it the gin?

So as I sipped my coffee on Monday morning, my skull still reverberating to the echo of a tumult of horns and drums, I pondered how best to sum up the IPL. But how do you begin to describe the ineffable? Perhaps with carefully weighed judgements, sober analysis and objective conclusions, delivered with the gravitas of the seasoned cricket journalist? That would be one way, certainly, but it wouldn’t be the Long Handle way.

Instead, I decided to thank the people who make the IPL what it is. And where better to start than with that multitude of corporate bodies without whom, as we all know, cricket would not exist. The odd name check here and there is a small price for the viewer to pay, so I’d like to give my own tribute to the companies that brought us the IMF Maximum, the Caramel Cream Catch and the Silly Moment of Success. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.

Then there are the commentators, whose steadfast, dogged loyalty is a shining example to employees everywhere. For example, during the final, Robin Jackman was standing up for the Spidercam, an expensive contraption that requires three men and a NASA control room to operate. Viewers were invited to vote on whether it was a good innovation and 15% of respondents displayed a distressing independence of thought by clicking on ‘no’. “I’d like to know who those 15% were,” chuntered Jackers. Don’t worry Robin, I’m sure Lalit knows where they live.

Still, if I might digress for a moment, at the risk of incurring the wrath of Robin, I have to admit that I sided with the 15% on this one. There is no denying that Spidercam offers a unique perspective. Specifically, it offers the perspective of a drunken vertigo sufferer bungee jumping from a moving crane. Startling, no doubt, but what it adds to our understanding of the game is not immediately clear, unless it is part of a campaign to boost IPL viewing figures in that all important arachnid demographic.

And finally, thank you to ITV4. I’m going to forgive you for helping to perpetuate the punditry career of Mr Ronald Irani for three reasons. Firstly, for your opening title sequence. It was lovely. Secondly, for Mandira Bedi, whose sparkly presence alleviated the suffocating banality of the all-male studio ensemble. And thirdly, for Simon Hughes, who possesses those precious qualities rarely displayed by the ex-cricketer on television: an enquiring mind and an interest in cricket.

	Yo coach, this bat needs some time in the sin bin © Indian Premier League

Earlier in the week, a reader invited me to discuss the unfortunate allegations made against the IPL. I am not qualified to stick my nose into financial matters, so will restrain myself on that score, although I will say that one unforeseen and of course regrettable consequence of the tamasha of the last few days was a significant reduction in Lalit Modi screentime during Thursday’s semi-final, a decline in the televisual value of the Modi that some estimates put as high as 100%.

Instead of the lovely Lalit, we were treated to more views of the blessed blimp (of which more anon) and that towering monument to all that is bling: the IPL trophy. The diamond-studded monstrosity has been hidden away for much of IPL 3, presumably because it might discourage the players, but now that the financial storm clouds are gathering, a tidy solution presents itself. Why not return the trophy to the House of Tat from whence it came for a tidy refund? Let us all hope that Lalit kept the receipt.

The game itself reeked of nervous tension. The pitch at Navi Mumbai demanded a certain amount of digging in, but all the batsmen sooner or later felt compelled to obey the voice in their heads, their inner Sergeant Major, ordering them to charge headlong towards the enemy, no matter how tricky the terrain. Monish Mishra was one of many to do just that and the slow motion replay of his demise was accompanied by an ear-drum popping roar of distorted angst that could be heard in Hyderabad.

And then there were the oldies. No-one can be entirely sure at what point it happens, but somewhere in his mid-thirties, the professional cricketer undergoes a reverse metamorphosis, like a soaring butterfly entering a cocoon to emerge as wrinkly and unspectacular as the rest of us. Matthew Hayden, Herschelle Gibbs and Adam Gilchrist were three of the most thrilling batsmen of their generation. On Thursday they looked like fathers trying to recapture their glory years at a school sports day.

Hayden was all thick edges and mistimed drives. He gave three chances and if Deccan had dropped the third, would no doubt have offered a fourth and a fifth as well. Gibbs meanwhile, wasn’t just batting like a millionaire, but a millionaire intent on squandering his fortune in the shortest possible time. He finally played on to a short wide one that turned out to be not particularly short and not terribly wide. As he left the crease, he shook his head in disbelief, which is a little surprising, given that he’d done something similar on roughly a hundred previous occasions.

And then there was Gilchrist, still at his peak as a keeper, dismissing the bails from the stumps with the alacrity of a glutton slapping away the hand of a fellow diner going for the same éclair. But it is distressing to watch him bat. He lunges and flaps where once he conjured and shocked. As he walked off, he looked disapprovingly at his bat, as though it was a rookie Charger who had let the side down. Twenty20 is the cruellest format and the IPL is no league for old men.

Finally, we all know how exciting the blimp is and that it is imbued with much significance, but is it now alive? With the game swinging Chennai’s way, Ravi Shastri revealed, as the balloon filled our screens for the 94th time, that it might be having a little chuckle, being from Chennai. This got my attention, so I paid closer attention to the bag of hot air (I mean the blimp, don’t be cheeky). I’ve got to be honest, as dirigibles go, it wasn’t particularly chatty. Perhaps it was saving itself for the final. Maybe, if it isn’t too busy, it might like to do a stint in the commentary box?

	The Dalai Lama extracts a promise of non-violence from MS Dhoni, which the Chennai captain soon broke © Indian Premier League

It is election time in the UK, and as you might expect, carbon dioxide emissions are reaching dangerous levels. In an effort to avoid the hot air, I remained indoors on Sunday and sought sanctuary with the IPL. But election madness has even affected the land of Modi, because I learned that polls have just opened in an even more significant vote: the election of the best IPL commentator 2010.

Campaigning has already begun. Ahead of Sunday’s game, several of the candidates headed for the hills for a bit of a walk. Naturally, it wasn’t enough for them to take a stroll; like many tourists, they had to bore us all with it afterwards. It felt like an audio retelling of that 1995 Hugh Grant film, The Men Who Went Up A Mountain And Wouldn’t Stop Going On About It.

By the close of play, we knew the exact composition of the walking party, how steep the mountain was (fairly steep), what effect it had on Michael Kasprowicz’s meniscus cartilage (a slight tear), how near they got to snow (quite near), and so on. Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Harsha Bhogle had opted to stay in their hotel, leaving them bereft of hilly anecdotes but comfortably to the fore in a swiftly conducted opinion poll in the Hughes living room.

But mountains were not the only feature of the action from Dharamsala. A religious leader was in the house. Who was it, Danny? The Dalai. Lama! That’s right. On a day that I’m sure Tibet’s spiritual leader will long remember, he shook hands with Yuvraj Singh, came face to face with the Morrison, and sat in the stands wearing a vaguely amused expression as a certain Bollywood star explained to him the rules of our peculiar game.

This coming together of celebrity and guru has led some to speculate that we could be about to see the first ever IPL-franchised offshoot of a major world religion. Zinta Buddhism has a simple doctrine, based on the four noble truths:

1. Losing in the semi-finals is suffering.
2. This suffering is caused by qualifying for the semi-finals.
3. The way to cessation of this suffering is not qualifying for the semi-finals.
4. Not qualifying for the semi-finals can be achieved by following the Eightfold Path of the Kings XI.

The Eightfold Path is as follows:

1. Employ Sreesanth.
2. Put all your bowling hopes on an ageing Aussie with a dodgy elbow.
3. Don’t pick your talented West Indian opener.
4. Field badly on the ground.
5. Field badly in the air.
6. Make random bowling changes.
7. Pick your team out of a hat.
8. Ensure that your best batsman is feeling particularly peeved.

The Dalai Lama left after just nine overs (no patience, these Buddhists). Or possibly he had one or two other things to deal with. At any rate, he missed a classic of its kind that had just about everything. There was curly, drifty, tantalising spin bowling from Powar and Ashwin, and there was some genuinely nasty fast bowling from Doug the Rug, who smacked Shaun Marsh in the chest, bruised him on the hip and then had him hopping around in the crease with a brute of a yorker. Do they not get on?

There was also some shocking fielding, but it seems churlish to witter on about the occasional outbreak of butterfingers. Instead, I want to mention Tyagi’s memorable catch. Watching him organise his collection of limbs into a spearing upwards effort was fascinating, like witnessing a crane rising slowly upwards from a river bank to catch a dragonfly. If cranes do that sort of thing.

But above all, there was Dhoni. As the tension increased, the music was cranked up louder, Siva gripped his microphone more tightly, and Sangakkara started to take 20 minutes to arrange his field, the Chennai captain discovered his inner Dhoni. For a long time we were watching the 2010 version: patient, calm in a crisis, hustling singles, apparently wearing the burden of captaincy easily.

But in the last two overs, we got a glimpse of Dhoni 2005 as he exhibited a range of astonishing shots that had the crowd twisting their necks to follow the ball into the darkness, threatened to dislodge snow from the mountains, induced a look on the face of Priety Zinta that could curdle milk and launched the Super Kings into the semi-finals. Badhai ho, Chennai.

	'If that doesn't get me a gold star, I don't know what will' © Indian Premier League

On Thursday afternoon, the men from Chennai entertained a visiting party from Delhi in what, I am reliably informed, was a game of no little importance. Both parties were, I understand, anxious to secure an invitation to the end of tournament soiree, and tickets for said event being of a scarcity, the gentlemen concerned set about their work with considerable gusto.

I am pleased to report, however, that any unfortunate unpleasantness was avoided as the hosts were attentive to their duties and did their bit in keeping up acceptable standards of hospitality. To the approval of several onlookers, the Chennai gentlemen were fastidious in their attempts to set their guests at their ease, freely distributing dollies and lollipops to the visitors, as is the local custom.

Particular credit in this regard should go to a Mr Hayden, who though an Australian by birth and inclination, showed himself a fine judge of social niceties, making a generous offering of his wicket to Mr Collingwood. Messrs Raina, Vijay, Hussey and Morkel were similarly hospitable, and the innings was brought to a pleasing conclusion with an impromptu display of timber swinging from a Mr Bollinger.

There were, regrettably, some unseemly moments. Mr Badrinath’s perspiration was the cause of some perturbation, and I understand that several ladies of a refined disposition found the sight of this young man dripping onto the field of play to be most unsettling. It is to be hoped that in future he follows the example of his elders, notably Mr Dhoni, who, recognising that a gentleman does not exert himself unduly in such conditions, modestly departed the crease soon after arriving.

It is also to be hoped that the amply proportioned drum operative who entertained us marvellously all afternoon with his delightful banging will bear in mind GH Hardy’s words. “It is a tiny minority who can do anything really well and the number of men who can do two things well is negligible.” We humbly suggest that he should, in future, restrict himself to the percussive arts and resist the lure of the cheerleader’s podium, where I gather he was to be seen shaking himself about in a most distressing fashion.

These incidents aside, the day passed off smoothly and Mr Gambhir, the leader of the visiting party, declared himself satisfied with the festivities. I understand that the gentlemen of Delhi were all smiles as they boarded their coach, so congratulations to Mr Dhoni and Mr Fleming on being the perfect hosts. And without wishing to breach any confidences, I am reliably informed that their ticket to the semi-finals may well be in the post. Fingers crossed chaps!

	‘You haven’t even learnt how to bring the car up to the door properly, have you? You sicken me’ © AFP

Have you got yours yet?

What do you mean you don’t know what I’m talking about? It’s the new IPL must-have product that is set to become a summer bestseller. Pull Yourself Together. Fast is a motivational course for office and home, from former Indian captain and self-help guru Sourav Ganguly. For a reasonable price, you get a book, a DVD and a signed photo of the author looking disdainfully past you.

Pop the DVD into your player and you will be immediately confronted with a close-up shot of the Kolkata captain’s face as he tells you that you are pathetic, that he can’t do everything for you and that if you carry on like this, God help your career. Apparently ITV are playing it to all their guest panellists, and though it hasn’t yet noticeably upped their game, it has reduced Graeme Hick to tears.

The book, meanwhile, takes the form of a motivational diary. Each of the 365 pages bears a personalised insult from the Maharaj himself. For example, in my copy, the entry for April 14th reads, “You write like an imbecile. Sort yourself out. Do you expect me to write your articles for you? God, do I have to do everything around here? Of all the appalling writers on Cricinfo, you are the most awful. Now get out of my sight.”

Firm but fair, I think you’ll agree.

You see, Sourav may look down on all of us (even you, dear reader), he may regard himself as the only Indian batsman who has ever been any good, he may have his purpley-gold clad troops cowering in their mini Perspex pavilion, and he may in his imagination picture himself ruling Kolkata from the heavens, wearing a gold crown and sitting on a throne of clouds and diamonds, but still we love him. Apart, that is, from those of us who hate him.

Over the weekend these anti-Gangulyites puffed themselves up in mock outrage at Sourav’s little cri de coeur before the Indian press. How dare he criticise his own players? What catastrophic effects might this public castigation have on the poor dears? Please Sourav, keep it in the dressing room! Have mercy! Think of vulnerable little Brendon and delicate Chris! Think of the children! This is no way to run a railroad (and so on and so forth).

Well, Anderson to them. What do you or I care for the morale in the Kolkata dressing room? I’m not on their staff, I’m not their mother, and frankly, I couldn’t give two hoots about whether Sourav is being “professional” or not. Was Kolkata’s performance against Bangalore pathetic? Maybe not. He could just as easily have tried “dreadful”, “feeble” or “inept”. But how joyful to hear an insider breaking ranks, throwing off the omerta of the professional cricketer and admitting his colleagues had acquitted themselves in a manner some distance removed from adequate.

Ganguly is a delightful mix of Little Lord Fauntleroy and Machiavelli. If he was English, he would be a Yorkshireman. From the posh end of Yorkshire, no doubt, but unmistakably a cantankerous inhabitant of the north, prone to high-handed rudeness and plotting in corridors. But just as the Indian selectors kept coming back to him, we can’t be without him either. He is part of the furniture of Indian cricket, an awkwardly constructed and slightly rickety side table with angular edges on which people regularly bruise themselves. The place would feel a little empty without him.

	How would Ravi Shastri describe this move? © Associated Press

Recently, I’ve been looking more closely at cheerleading (no sniggering at the back, please). I don’t know about you, but I find it slightly uncomfortable watching these girls do their stuff. Even when I am alone in the house, I can feel the disproving gaze of generations of elderly aunts. IPL commentators have a similar problem. Given that stating the obvious is pretty much their job description and that they are under continual pressure to say something, anything, the restraint they exercise when their monitors are filled with nothing but gyrating young women in short skirts is noble.

Stop right there, I can hear the weary reader ask. We’ve done cheerleaders already! It’s old news. What possible excuse could you have, two and a half years after the first agitation of a pom pom at a cricket game, to witter on about it again? Well, I’m glad you asked me that. It just so happens that earlier this week, the state government of Rajasthan banned cheerleaders at all Jaipur’s IPL games. Thus cheerleading is topical and I have something to write about. Big thanks to Prabha Rau and friends.

So. Cheerleading. Just like a proper journalist, my first and indeed last stop on the research railway was Wikipedia. Therein, I learned that cheerleading began in America in the 1890s when some jumped-up little herbert decided that it wasn’t enough for a crowd to amuse themselves; they needed organising and their willy-nilly cheering channelling in a constructive fashion. There were lots of other paragraphs after that, though I forget the details. I’m not a proper journalist, after all.

But why has this alien tradition been transplanted to the great game of cricket, leading to the discomfiture of the sofa bound viewer and the discombobulation of the fine politicians of Rajasthan state? There are three possible explanations:

1. Let’s get vulgar for a moment. IPL cheerleaders are (by and large) attractive young women. They are therefore employed for the sole purpose of diverting half of the crowd. But diverting them from what? Presumably from the cricket. But isn’t that the very thing that they have paid good money and queued for three hours to see? That doesn’t make much sense. I mean, when you go to the ballet, do they present you with a selection of cricket magazines to distract you from the dancing?

2. They are necessary to organise the crowd’s jubilation. Hmm. Thing is, from what I have seen, Indian crowds are quite able to put together a cheer (not to mention a roar, a scream and a little dance) at very short notice and entirely without direction. Whose cheers are they leading, these cheerful women from various parts of the United States? The crowd know what is happening and have already been shouting about it long before the leaders of the cheer clamber onto their podium.

3. The most plausible of the three. Some poor chap in a suit found that his mind had gone blank right in the middle of an IPL blue sky thinking session. The room fell silent and the miscreant felt a little bead of perspiration on his forehead as Commissioner Modi prepared to press the ‘minion trapdoor’ button. Then suddenly, he remembered seeing girls in short skirts during the World Twenty20 in South Africa. “Cheerleaders!” he shouted. Modi didn’t immediately send the man plummeting into the tank of sharks below and so the idea slipped quietly into the minutes.

It looks then, as though cheerleaders are here to stay. Apart from in Jaipur, obviously. It is worth noting however, that while the government of Rajasthan have banned female cheerleaders, they have not banned cheerleading. If his Modiness is in a particularly cunning mood (and my bet is that at any given moment, he is feeling more cunning than a fox with a particularly devious chicken apprehending scheme) he could draft in some Rajasthan-friendly replacements.

But which of Modi’s cronies could be relied upon to do the job? You need someone who isn’t embarrassed about making a spectacle of themselves in public, who can dance to any tune and yet isn’t likely to excite the libidos of innocent viewers. I know what you’re thinking. The answer is staring us in the face. Yes, step forward Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar and Daniel Morrison. Give it up for the Mischief Boys! They’re scary, they’re unwary and their legs are rather hairy!

	Billy Bowden: relieving dullness and bringing people out of stupors since 1995 © Indian Premier League

Sunday afternoon’s game was not easy on the eye. Perhaps it had something to do with the venue. The Feroz Shah Kotla may be many things, but aesthetically pleasing it is not. This is mainly due to the looming edifice at the Tata End: a brooding construction that owes much to the Brutalist movement of the 1960s, giving the startling effect of a multi-storey car park where a pavilion should be.

Then again, perhaps it had more to do with the prominent role played by Paul Collingwood, who if he were to be represented in architectural form, would surely be a concrete bunker. And though a concrete bunker is a reassuring thing and of great value in an emergency, it is unlikely that tourists and casual pleasure seekers would queue to be given a guided tour of the Collingwood.

But a Collingwood innings is not without its pleasures, not least the resourcefulness with which he employs his favourite shot, which at first glance appears nothing more than a bottom-handed swish across the line, but on closer inspection turns out to be the Swiss army knife of cricket shots, adaptable to any circumstance. His modus operandi may appear vulgar, but that is our problem, not his. He is a natural cricketer.

As is his similarly understated captain. Gambhir doesn’t flail his arms about like a demented traffic policeman and is unlikely to be heard praising the “Delhi brand”. He is as straightforward as Sehwag, but not so otherwordly; an artisan, not a wandering guru. Interviewed by Ravi Shastri before the match, he looked like a car mechanic: slightly scruffy in his blue overalls, hands on hips, talking about the task that lay ahead as though giving an estimate on a tricky engine overhaul.

Then, on a day for wholehearted yeomen, there was big Jacques, putting in one more solid shift with bat and ball. Jacques the Ball spends much of his time looking ruefully into the middle distance, shaking his head or trudging back to his mark. Yet still he lumbers in and flings the ball hard into the earth as though he were issuing a challenge. When he was bowling to the equally pugnacious Warner, it reminded me of two cavemen settling a dispute over a mammoth carcass with a rock and a lump of wood.

But amidst all this testosterone and gruffness, as Warner, Collingwood and Kallis took care of business, there was a danger of a showbiz deficit. Luckily, Billy Bowden was in the house and the crowd loved him. I’ve been struggling for a way to describe his method of indicating a four. The best I can come up with is that it looks like a man cautiously petting a llama. He gave some other signals that, frankly, defied description. Perhaps Wisden should consider adding a Bowden appendix to their next edition, complete with diagrams, so that we can all appreciate his art.

	This can't be scripted, can it? © Indian Premier League

The Hugheses have long been cursed with sensitive stomachs but until Friday, I had assumed that only horror films or surgical documentaries could cause me to reach for the remote control or shield my eyes with a copy of Lily Livered Pansies Monthly. But I now must add a third genre of broadcasting to the list. Henceforth I shall be avoiding any game of cricket involving the Kings XI Punjab and have emailed His Modiness suggesting that he classify all such fixtures as 18 certificates.

It was all the more disturbing because most of the horror was packed into the last quarter of the game. Up until then, I had thought I was watching an entirely different production; a sentimental straight to DVD American movie about a bunch of misfit but likeable kids on a sports team that has never won a game, who finally discover that if they just believe in themselves, they can do it.

It all seemed to be going so well. The bookish boy who had reluctantly accepted the captaincy was threading elegant boundaries in all directions. There was the streetwise youngster Ravi, fighting back with a gutsy little innings. Later came clean-cut Brett, quirky but loveable Sreesanth and brave little Yuvi facing up to the big South African bully who had called him such horrible pie-related names. It was heart-warming stuff.

Then without warning, not even any sinister background music, the dropped catches began. To be strictly accurate, Sreesanth didn’t really drop his chance, since he didn’t at any point have hold of it. Dominic Cork, a new, strident recruit to the ranks of pontificators with microphones deemed it a schoolboy error. Those of us who can remember standing out in the long grass, experiencing that familiar feeling of rising terror as the ball soared inexorably towards us, felt instant affinity with Sreesanth.

The dropped catches continued to rain to earth. Bopara went down on both knees to spill his. Sangakkara, pursuing a high one clutched desperately at it, once, twice, bounced it off his left thigh, got another finger on it, then watched helpless as gravity dashed it from his reach and his left foot involuntarily booted it for four. Slips, slides, wides and mistimed dives diminished Bangalore’s target as Punjab spent their advantage with the recklessness of a millionaire frittering away his fortune.

And all the time, nasty Kevin Pietersen, he of the sinister stubble and evil grin, remained at large. He was joined, when Punjab finally contrived to take a catch, by Robin Uthappa and his newly inflated muscles. Robin has apparently been hitting the gym of late and this has given him new superhuman power. When he hit poor Lee’s best yorkers into the middle of next week, the game was up and the plot had taken a cruel and frankly unnecessary twist.

Even horror films and surgery shows have reasonably happy conclusions, with monsters slain and gaping wounds sewn up neatly. But there was no uplifting conclusion at the end of Friday’s carnage. Sangakkara did a passable impression in the last four overs of one of those minor characters in a Shakespeare bloodfest, wandering about the stage in bewildered fashion as the bodies pile up all around. Even Alfred Hitchcock might have baulked at inflicting such a level of psychological torment on his audience.

	The moon: thought it could get past the sharp men in the comm box, but failed © Getty Images

Sunday’s game in Navi Mumbai was loud. No, it was more than loud, it was cacophonous. It was noisier than a Boeing 747 full of angry dinosaurs taking off next to a Motorhead concert. Even via an outdated television set across a reasonable sized room four thousand miles away, I felt like I was sheltering in a shaky hut on the seafront whilst a force ten gale raged all around. The incessant roaring made my teeth ache and my head throb. Heaven knows what it did to the players. Adam Gilchrist had to use semaphore to talk to first slip.

Anyway, you get the idea. It was loud. So loud in fact that "Muttering" Mike Haysman was barely audible. For the entirety of his commentary stint, I had absolutely no idea what he was saying. I was dimly aware that he was talking, but the words were snatched up in the maelstrom of sound and whirled away into the ether. Fortunately, it made little difference, since I could already see what was happening via the pictures on my television screen. Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned there.

Mumbai, whose shirts seem to have acquired extra silver stripes that make them look like disco tigers, are a clever team. They are clearly the best in the tournament, but are not provoking the IPL gods by peaking too early. For most of this game, they were losing. Enter Bhajji. His boundary-heavy innings was accrued with a stupefying nonchalance that made no sense at all. In my confusion I looked to the experts in the booth. Was it the bowling? Was it the pitch? Was Harbhajan using an enchanted bat? But as usual, yearning for technical insight from the commentary box is as futile as hoping that your pet hamster might one day sing an aria from Turandot.

The commentators had far more important things to talk about. The moon, for a start. Eagle-eyed professionals that they are, the big white shiny disc in the sky had not escaped their notice. Sunil Gavaskar spotted it first and recited for us Neil Armstrong’s "one small step for man" speech. Fair enough, it was technically moon-related, although to be honest, I had heard it before, from Neil Armstrong for a start. Then Robin Jackman wanted in. “Great knowledge Sunny,” he cooed, admiringly. Good grief, muttered a world-wide audience.

And vying with the moon for attention was the MRF blimp, an ominous beige contraption that looked as though it was the weekend transport of a medium-ranking Bond villain. Presumably there had been a memo passed among the microphone jockeys asking them to reference the bag of hot air in the sky more frequently and so it was MRF-blimp-this and MRF-blimp-that for most of the evening. My favourite blimp-related anecdote came from Gavaskar who informed us that MRF had always been at the forefront of technology and were the first to bring the blimp to India.

What a special day that must have been in the story of the Indian nation. Never mind Independence Day, the first Indian in space or the 1983 World Cup Triumph, I’m sure everyone in India remembers exactly where they were when the first ever blimp droned into view over Mumbai. Perhaps some time in the future, there will be a National Blimp Day when all Indians commemorate the moment when the nation lost its blimp virginity? Ironically, despite all this blimpery, I still haven’t the faintest idea who MRF are or what they have to do with a big balloon. I’m comfortable with that.

	The lottery-winning Samurai warrior with new-found mates © Indian Premier League

Given that the IPL is months in the planning and the franchises have at their disposal enormous piles of cash, it really is surprising that Chennai forgot to buy any bowlers. Perhaps it just got lost amid all the build-up. You know how it is, no matter how many lists you make there’s always something you forget. Gaudy shirts? Check. Cheerleaders? Check. Grinning man with a drum? Check. Batsmen? Got ‘em. Anything else? No, I don’t think so.

I exaggerate (but only slightly). There is Muttiah Muralitharan of course. But IPL Murali isn’t quite as compelling as normal everyday Murali. He whizzes through his overs smartly enough and there is plenty of smiling, but using the greatest offspinner of all time in this fashion is rather like asking Mozart to play an Abba song on a kazoo. Very nice and all that, but you can’t help feeling that you haven’t quite got your money’s worth.

Still they do have lots and lots of batsmen. Some say that Matthew ‘Matty’ Hayden is over the hill. Tell that to the poor little cricket ball he assaulted on Thursday. He remains, along with Yuvraj Singh, the most brutal leather abuser in the world. He hits the ball so hard you wince at the moment of impact. He was in awesome form against Zaheer Khan, chopping four boundaries with the anger of a mad axe man who had not received his invitation to the annual convention of psychotic wood choppers.

But at a crucial juncture, he called for The Mongoose (sadly not in the way that Tarzan used to summon up the beasts of the jungle) and departed soon after. Bhajji was the Hayden-slayer and celebrated in the traditional manner; that is haring off towards third man roaring like a Samurai warrior who’d just discovered he had the winning lottery ticket. The yellow-shirted Hayden meanwhile retired to a white plastic chair on the boundary, where he demurely sipped a cup of tea looking for all the world like a children’s entertainer taking a break at a village fete.

Cue Suresh Raina who started with a nonchalant cuff to score his first maximum (it was sponsored, but I forget the name of the company). But the most significant boundary of his charming innings came when Dwayne Bravo, around the wicket, aimed a stinging bouncer in the general direction of his nose. Raina leant back like a boxer evading a flailing upper cut and without flinching, merely touched the ball, sending it looping to third man. It was a vast improvement on the eyes-closed swishing technique he employed against the short ball last summer.

Not all the Chennai willow-wielders acquitted themselves quite so well. English viewers retain a soft spot for Parthiv Patel who came on the 2002 tour as a plucky teenager. Indian supporters haven’t always held him such high esteem, but he was doing nicely on Thursday, until he tried to emulate his more illustrious team-mates. Hopping outside the leg stump, he was horrified to find the ball following him. Ryan McClaren’s yorker demolished first Parthiv and then the stumps. In ten pin bowling terms, it was an excellent spare.

	Kumar Sangakkara reads emotively from Allen Ginsberg’s Howl © Cricinfo Ltd

The IPL is fun, but like any powerful stimulant, it can have side effects. Disorientation is common. We’re into week two now, and to be honest, I’m no longer sure whether the Kings XI Bangalore have already played their home game against Rajasthan Super Kings or whether that was last year. And that’s not all. Last week I felt a powerful urge to bang my head against the wall during a Morne Morkel over, and I find that the sight of a Chennai Super Kings shirt can induce nausea.

But on Sunday I experienced an entirely new IPL sensation: cold, naked fear.

It came during the 18th over of Chennai’s interminable, comic and ultimately futile run-chase. Piyush Chawla had outfoxed big Manpreet Gony with a sneaky googly. The grubby white ball thwacked into a canary yellow pad. And from his ideal vantage point behind Gony’s bottom, the Punjab keeper-captain produced a bloodcurdling wail. It went something like this:

“Aaaarghaaarghaaarghaaaarghaaargh!” (Pause) “Aaaarrghaaaarghaaaargh!”

I fell off my sofa. From the flat below I heard the tinkle of breaking porcelain as my elderly neighbour lost her first tea cups of IPL 2010. From the conifers outside my window, startled pigeons flew skywards in panic, and all across India wild animals lifted their heads at the strange cry. It wasn’t so much an appeal as an unnerving howl of existential despair. With a bit of jumping up and down thrown in for effect.

I am an Englishman and so naturally my first thought after I had picked myself up off the carpet was to write a stiff letter of complaint to someone. Addressing my missive to “K Sangakkara Esq, Captain, Kings XI Punjab, The IPL,” I pointed out that with his legal training, he should be fully aware of the implications of Law 27.4, which states that an appeal in the form, “How’s that?” shall suffice. Since the mangled collection of sounds he emitted on Sunday afternoon contained only one of the letters from “How’s that,” it did not constitute a legally satisfactory appeal. So the umpire could not have given Gony out, even if he was. Which, admittedly, he might have been.

The only good thing to come out of this moment of heart-stopping terror was that I now have a third IPL ringtone with which to annoy people on the train. At the sound of Sangakkara’s howl on Monday morning, several passengers ducked under their tables, whilst the ticket collector leapt from the carriage and was last seen rolling down a grassy embankment with his hands over his ears. I will alternate this ringtone with Danny Morrison declaring, “The Phone. Is Ringing!” (you need to do the accent) or possibly Ravi Shastri yelling “Can you hear me, Mumbai?”

Actually, Ravi had been in an informative mood on Sunday. He revealed that the Mongoose is called the Mongoose because, like a mongoose, it is small and ferocious. This puzzled me a little. The Mongoose is woody, lumpy, and no doubt it can give you a nasty bruise if you drop it on your foot. But to my knowledge wood lacks the capacity for ferocity, no matter how much you insult it. Even those talking trees in The Lord Of The Rings weren’t particularly ferocious. Disgruntled, certainly, but I’d put it no stronger than that.

Anyway, it would have been more entertaining, and possibly more effective, if the former Aussie biffer had got himself a real live mongoose and led it out to the wicket with him, presumably on a Chennai Super Kings official lead and collar. And it would have fitted with the strangeness of the game. Chennai seemed not to want to win, whilst Punjab once again only started playing when the odds were stacked against them. As a plot for a Bollywood film, it’s solid. As a gameplan, it has flaws.

	The Royal Challengers Bangalore practise their mateyness skills during the time-out © Associated Press

I have a question. What happens during the strategic time-out? I ask, because those of us watching in the UK are apparently not allowed to see. This secrecy is maddening and has led me to invent all kinds of fantasies about what might go down in those magical two minutes. Do the cheerleaders re-enact scenes from the Mahabharata? Do physicists wheel on a portable Hadron Collider and run through a few collisions? Is there dancing? Fireworks? Or is just a bunch of cricketers milling about aimlessly? I’d really like to know.

Sadly, for us Brits, this mystery interval is just another excuse to whisk the viewer away from the stadium where all the exciting things happen and drag them back to the place where conversations go to die. Yes, the ITV studio is the Bermuda Triangle for banter, a black hole for badinage. There they sit, Vikram and Alec and Graeme and the other Graham, like defendants in a courtroom, cagily reading extracts from the Sportman’s Manual of the Bleeding Obvious, whilst their hosts attempt to trick them into saying something, anything that might pass for interesting.

There was a marginal improvement on Thursday, because Mandira Bedi was trusted to run the show on her own and the second when that decision was made can be officially designated a Moment Of Success. Like a flower that has finally struggled into full sunlight, her personality spread out and she was able to do her thing. She takes the radical view that Twenty20 cricket is supposed to be showbiz. So does Danny Morrison, which is presumably why his every utterance is delivered in the style of a 1970s American chat show host going to a commercial break.

And speaking of commercials, I hope, like me, you’ve been playing Advertising Bingo. If you have, then you’ll have been delighted with the efforts of Russel Arnold on Thursday. In the space of a few overs, the eager Sri Lankan announced the IPL’s first Nearly DLF Maximum, when the ball fell just short of the rope; declared that a dropped catch by Dravid would have been a Karbonn Kamal catch; seized upon a Citi Moment of Success when Rajasthan finally managed to hit a six and then suggested that now might be a good moment to take a Max Mobile Time Out. A full set! Nice work, Russel, you’ve certainly stepped up to the corporate plate.

Although the game itself was, to be frank, a little one-sided, I was very impressed with the Bangalore Challengers (Royal). Despite the presence of a number of what are politely called veterans, they flung themselves about in the field like lambs frolicking in spring pastures. Well, not quite, but you get the idea. And Steyn and friends even found time to stage a recreation of cricket’s finest hour, with their tribute to the Bodyline series of 1932-33. It made an English heart glad to once more see the ball whistling around ears, smashing into helmets, bouncing off shoulders and so on.

Rajasthan’s interpretation, on the other hand, was rather less convincing. Indeed had Douglas Jardine had to rely on Munaf and Morkel to implement his plan, I’d suggest that Bradman, McCabe and chums might not have had anything to worry about. If all the fielders were clustered on the leg side, you can be sure that M&M would be offering up full bungers outside off stump. "Rajasthan thali for dinner", read one banner. Quite.

	Rajasthan: croissants that history has passed by © Associated Press

The IPL is like a bakery. How’s that, I hear you ask. How can a multinational cricket tournament be compared to a bread-making facility? Surely that is a simile too far.

Not so. Has reading this column over the last few weeks taught you nothing? No metaphor is too ridiculous, no literary device too outlandish to convey the wonders of the great game. So, here we go. The IPL is like a bakery.

What is the word you associate with bakeries? Apart from flour. And yeast. And eggs. No, I’m not talking about rolling pins, pastry cutters or ovens. I’m thinking of an abstract noun. The word is “fresh”. (Yes, it also works for greengrocers, but I don’t like vegetables, I like cakes, and besides, it’s my simile, not yours.) A bakery thrives on freshness. No one is interested in yesterday’s bread.

So it is with the IPL. The new, the fresh, the “now” is all that matters. Who hit the last six? Who won the last game? Who bowled the last wide? It is a carnival devoted to living in the moment, entirely devoid of context, history or regret. Like an out-of-control sports car driven by clowns, it crashes into your living room, drives round and round honking loudly and then departs whence it came.

And in the IPL bakery, the Rajasthan Royals are the stale bagels left in the back of the cupboard. They are yesterday’s treat. You can tart them up with gold icing all you like, but darling, they are so 2008. Back then, we were young, we were foolish, we thought fondly of Danny Morrison. Warne’s outlaws were quirky, inexpensive and they hopped about incessantly, like gaudy tree frogs on an electrified roof.

But we’ve seen that. We’ve heard enough about their captain’s wonderful powers of motivation, his innovative field settings and those catchy team nicknames (I’d love to know what Graeme Smith’s was: The Disappointer? The Blocker?) It was all charming in its way. But now it’s one big yawn. I knew it was over when I heard Jeremy Snape claiming that young players were part of The Rajasthan Brand.

I think of them as a group of hapless sales executives, forced to spend a seven-week team bonding exercise under the control of an over-eager Australian facilitator who specialises in motivational chats and festoons their meeting rooms with slogans and inspirational pie charts. I don’t know about you, but my experience of such things has been a burning desire to get the hell out of there at the first opportunity.

I suspect that the Rajasthan players feel the same, judging by the way they went about their batting against the Delhi Daredevils (or “The Double D’s” as Danny Morrison has taken to calling them). It was clearly a cry for help. Slog, consolidate, slog, consolidate, go for a crazy single, slog: if the Rajasthan Royals were a car, you’d be taking them to your local garage complaining of a misfire. And then you’d trade them in for something more interesting. With less gold trim.

Monday’s game also featured a new addition to the IPL programme: moths. They had a great time, smacking into the camera lens, flapping about inside Dogra’s helmet, flying into Sehwag’s ear and out of Sehwag’s other ear. They were also the only living creatures in the ground that were actually attracted to the electronic adverts on the sightscreens. Meanwhile Lalit Modi sat impassively in the posh seats. Surely the Commissioner could have sent a text to the Almighty and brought down a shower of moth-sucking toads?

Such extra-curricular developments are, of course, a knee-high full-toss to a top-quality commentator. Cue Harsha Bhogle:

“There are a number of moths around Maharoof. They must think he is covered in honey.”

Now I’m no moth expert, so I’m not sure, entomologically speaking, how accurate that is, but in any case, no viewer should be forced to contemplate a honey-slathered Maharoof whilst eating their tea. Please tone it down, Harsha, and remember there may be children watching.

	The manic version of Owais Shah took over halfway into his innings © Getty Images (file photo)

Wing Commander Strauss is not the only English chap to be AWOL for the Bangladeshi campaign. Some of the SKY stalwarts have stayed at home, recharging their batteries after an arduous tour of South African vineyards. So it is something of a B Team of microphone botherers who have travelled to Chittagong. When I turned on today, Bob Willis was grumbling that England had not selected Tredwell and I’ve no doubt, in a parallel universe, another Bob was grumbling that they had selected Tredwell.

I left him to it, because, much as I love a good old English moan today was not the day for negative vibes of any kind. Our clocks have now been reset to IPL Time and as we all know, Emperor Modi permits no frowns in his kingdom. The IPL hype, emitted by hundreds of media outlets, has been building into a kind of barely suppressed scream of anticipation, only audible to bats and accountants, that today reached a crescendo amid fireworks, sequins and the distant sound of Lionel Ritchie.

Now as you may remember, last time round we Britishers were forced to sit through Mr Modi’s circus in the company of Ronnie Irani. That was bad enough. But for a while this year it looked like we would have to spend seven weeks hunched over our computer screens peering at Youtube. Then at the last minute, ITV4 secured the rights and we all breathed a sigh of relief. At last, a proper television channel who could do justice to the biggest cricket tournament on the planet.

Hmmmm. ITV4’s IPL effort is fronted by one of those multi-purpose presenters who appears to have been parachuted into the studio with a copy of “The Dummies Guide To Cricket”. He has Mandira Bedi to help him but she was trying a little too hard. For instance, at one point, with the Knight Riders in trouble, she suggested that Shah Rukh Khan’s decision to change the team colours to purple and gold wasn’t working. I’ll admit that purple doesn’t really bring out the colour of Ganguly’s eyes, but it’s surely too early to write off the new uniforms just yet.

Meanwhile, out on the pitch, Owais Shah appeared determined to bring a touch of the County Championship to the IPL with a sleepy 17 in 27 balls. But rather like the mighty Shiv, the former Delhi Daredevils bench-warmer has a split personality. After marking time for a while, the mild-mannered Dr Owais transformed into wild Mr Shah and promptly went berserk in an un-Middlesex fashion to smash a match-winning half-century that should secure his place in the team for a few more days.

The game itself was a thoroughly entertaining thrash, complete with regulation tight finish and a number of early entries for “Silliest Shot Of The Tournament” as the Deccan Chargers took it turns to see who could get out in the limpest fashion. Watching VVS Laxman play Twenty20 is like asking a Michelin Star chef to prepare cheeseburger and fries. But at least he had a go. The IPL is like a karaoke night. Yes you can look a bit silly, but you have to get into the spirit of the thing.

Finally, I should mention the sterling work done by horticultural expert Mike Haysman. He was very concerned about the possibility of dew and so spent a great deal of time on his knees fondling the turf. Would there be dew? Would there not be dew? Might it already be dewy but we just don’t know it? The viewer was on tenterhooks. He had, on our behalf, been speaking to Murali Kartik, so was able to tell us what happens to a cricket ball when the dew gets involved. Apparently, it gets wet. You see, the IPL doesn’t only entertain; it informs as well.

	Swann: wot, no pink Ferrari talk this time? © Getty Images

Like many of the ugly sisters at the IPL ball, Graeme Swann failed to catch the eye of a Prince Charming or even a Chief Executive Charming and remained unpurchased. Many of the English debutantes were rendered even less attractive than usual because they will not be around for much of IPL 2010 due to a prior engagement in Bangladesh. This contractual requirement to play Test cricket is frustrating for the poor dears, as Graeme Swann explained this week:

“…I think if we are going to develop, then in an ideal world, we would be made more available for the IPL…”

Indeed, Graeme. I had been hoping that success in last Friday’s Euro Lottery would have enabled me to develop in all manner of directions. I had intended to develop a taste for expensive cigars, powerful cars and fine wines for a start. A holiday mansion in Tuscany, a string of sordid affairs and a swimming pool in the shape of the Ashes urn were amongst other developments I could foresee.

Like Graeme, I was to be disappointed.

But why this coyness from England’s Twitterer-in-chief about the desirability of making large amounts of cash? Is it in order to spare our feelings? Is it out of solidarity for all those cricketers of generations past who didn’t get the chance to cash in? Pre-Packer, national cricket boards paid their stars a pittance and in return expected unquestioning loyalty and silence.

But no one wants those days back (well, apart from the silence) and no fair-minded person should quibble when talented human beings secure their rewards. So, since we’re all grown-ups, can’t we drop this stuff about the IPL being a great opportunity and a chance to develop? We all know that translates as “a great opportunity to develop a large bank balance”. Far from sparing us the pangs of jealousy, it makes young talented men sound like dissembling politicians.

This stuff is particularly disappointing coming from Swann. During the Stanford “tournament”, when his colleagues were muttering sheepishly about “investments” and “school fees”, should they scoop the Stanford cash, Swann stated that he was intending to purchase a pink Ferrari with his share of the loot.

That’s more like it. Modern cricketers should remember that they are entertainers, not accountants clocking on for their nine to five. Extravagance, copious consumption and possibly diamond-studded pyjamas, are all part of the package. If they are going to be paid like superstars, they need to throw off any lingering distaste they feel about the accrual of lots of noughts on their bank balance. And if they are in any doubt about how to handle the money and the fame, they should puff out their chests, take a long hard look at themselves in the dressing room mirror and ask, what would Elton John do?

	The IPL will go where no Twenty20 cricket has gone before: into the British consciousness © AFP

So the IPL will be available to British viewers on YouTube. Like a Sreesanth celebration jig, this is both cheering and yet at the same time a little unsettling. Last year, I watched the IPL on Setanta, that yellow-hued disaster zone masquerading as a sports channel. Sadly, Setanta, with its plastic studio, nervous presenters and no-thrills approach is no longer with us. So that’s a step forward.

But YouTube? YouTube is fine if you want to watch homemade videos on how to eat crisps, trailers for films you aren’t interested in and grainy, wobbly footage of computer games playing on someone else’s television, but is this really the setting for live sport? If several million people access it once, will it cope? Will IPL watchers be forced to put up with five minute buffering pauses between the delivery of Munaf’s slower ball and its arrival?

Still, you can’t fault the logic behind this attempt to ensure that everyone on the planet gets to see a little bit of the IPL. I don’t often quote Lalit Modi and I may never have cause to do it again, but this sentence is worth repeating.

“It is about broadening the fan base, after that, everything follows.”

Now read that again, slowly and let the full wisdom sink in. Pay particularly close attention if you work for the ECB and you spend most of your time trying to persuade people of the absolute necessity of keeping English cricket hidden away where most people can’t see it. Fan base. Broadening. Get it? Perhaps this is why the IPL is a global television event, whereas the Friends Provident T20 (stop chuckling, please, there really is such a thing) isn’t.

Of course, this cutting out of the studio-based middle man will not go down well in some quarters. One of the features of YouTube is the opportunity for free and largely uncensored expression that exists beneath each uploaded video. Perhaps we might start to see unsolicited cyber outbursts from disgruntled SKY microphone jockeys who had hoped to land the IPL presenting gig:

DGowerOBE: LOL, did u see that shot? ROTFL! If that shot was a wine, it‘d B like a really ordinary Chateauneuf de Pap. MayB a 1997 or a 1986!

Athers185notout: No it wouldn’t

DGowerOBE: Ur jus disagreeing 4 the sake of it

Athers185notout: No I’m not

Nass1999: Leave it guys

DGowerOBE: It’s got nuthin to do wit U, big nose

TheBumble: This IPL is Gr8!

Athers185notout: No it’s not

DGowerOBE: It’s pants. Isn’t it, Bob

MrBobWillis: Since all human endeavour is essentially pointless, I would have to say that this entire tournament has been an utter disaster from start to finish and I’ve hated every minute of it, quite frankly.

But whether it is on YouTube, Sky, The Shopping Channel, or even beamed directly through our dental fillings via Lalit Modi’s personal satellite, the IPL has become as essential to the British springtime as the smell of ripe manure, the Cheltenham Festival, scattered snow showers, the optimistic deployment of three-quarter length shorts and coming up with plausible reasons why the lawn cannot be mowed. Roll on March 12th.