IPL and BOLLYWOOD...

How long will the Marriage last ?...after the fall and fall of the famous and mighty.

With the Indian Premier League-IPL (Cricket’s equivalent to Soccer's English Premier League) Season-Two currently in its final stages in South Africa, for cricket fanatics what mattered most was an exciting game of cricket accompanied with a chilled bottle of suds every evening during the month long duration of the championship and hopefully they got it that way. In my opinion both the fanatics and connoisseurs of cricket alike are nonchalant about the owners (or their antecedents) of the teams participating in the league. I also give a damn…..and rightly so, it should be the least of our concerns. But cricket having been catapulted to a status of religion in India, when some of the team owners represent our top bollywood brigade then an eyebrow or two are bound to be raised alongwith a multitude of media hypes and glares. Two of our very famous bollywood actors, Shahrukh Khan and Preiti Zinta embraced the league as major investors last year in its first season played in India and the third being Shilpa Shetty, a never so popular Bollywood actress unlike the other two (who merely became famous in the last year or so, courtesy a British reality TV programme called ‘Big Brother’) also jumped on the bandwagon this year by investing alongwith his rich UK-based boyfriend in the last year’s tournament winners, the Rajasthan Royals (RR). There are no two questions about the fact that the actors and the firangi (a term used for foreigners) cheerleaders have brought along with them a lot of glamour in the T-20 format of the gentleman’s game, but in my opinion it is only the quality of cricket played on the twenty-two yard strip which emerges the victor in the end. Sorry to say, but their teams, particularly SRK's Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have hardly indulged in that kind of play. It’s been a morbid and sordid tale of horrors for SRK and his men who couldn’t qualify for the last four stage, second time in succession. And Preiti’s and Shilpa’s teams too met with a similar fate in the current season.

I feel empathetic towards King Khan whose team, KKR finished last on the points table with a very disappointing performance to say the least. Even worst than the first season.They only won three out of their fourteen league matches, the worst in the short history of the league and thereby discovered new and bizarre ways of ‘How to lose a match’ or more aptly put, 'How to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory' particularly in the last over. Their last two victories, I guess came a little too late when they had already been bludgeoned out of the tournament like a brutal sixer off Yusuf Pathan's bat. However, they would atleast take pride in the fact that they shattered the dreams of defending champions, Rajasthan Royals (Shilpa’s team) of reaching the semi-finals. Shilpa would definitely brand them as party poopers. For a second, let’s cut from real to reel and I can vividly remember that scene from a hit bollywood movie named ‘Baazigar’ in which SRK pushed Shilpa from the rooftop to her end. Sometimes life and fate can be so cruel that they imitate art. It would be a repeat act for SRK who would be dancing in the aisles crooning, “ Sanam, hum doobenge to tumhe saath lekar doobenge” meaning, “Dear, If I drown, I'll make you drown with me” .

Neither did SRK’s energized (despite the actor’s fashionable sling) and refurbished promotional video nor did his charisma work wonders as it does on the silver screen. Even the young female cheerleaders selected by him through a heavily promoted talent hunt show on TV, were not allowed to perform in South Africa. Such horrendous has been his luck with the IPL venture in both seasons that he would be so dismayed and cursing himself for making such a rash business decision. I am sure he would soon like to forget it as his worst nightmare. Shahrukh maybe the king of the bollywood box-office but ultimately it is not the seventy mm screen on which he has to perform as a superstar but the cricket field on which his pack of eleven players have to mesmerize the fans with their performance. The team’s performance has severely deteriorated as compared to the last season despite a highly publicized change in team policies a’la the controversial multiple captain theory and their subsequent defence by Shahrukh. But no amount of Shahrukh can save a non-performing, under-confident and demotivated bunch of cricketers. Same goes with Preiti Zinta’s team, Kings XI Punjab and Shilpa’s RR, being last year’s loosing semi-finalists and champions respectively. Both have not performed any better and could not even surpass or score past measly totals of hundred odd in their all important last league matches, when it mattered the most to ensure a last four berth. The actors ought to know by now that there are no re-takes in cricket unlike their films.

It’s very difficult to assign any one reason for the unflagging failures of the three teams. Or are the actors just jinxed for their teams ? Particularly in the case of KKR, the sacking of Ganguly (first season’s skipper), the multiple captain theory, the foreign coach’s emphasis on foreign players in the playing eleven put the team on a backfoot even before the start of the championship. Recently, there have also been overtures of racism within the team. And in the case of Kings XI Punjab, has the team been affected by the Preiti-Ness Wadia rumored break-up ? Well this is anybody’s guess. It appears that gossipmongers have been in good business all throughout the IPL. But all this grapevine in the media combined with the immense pressure of belonging to a famous actor’s team could have definitely buried the players under the burden and anxiety of non-performance.

The marriage of IPL and Bollywood and the subsequent honeymoon extended well into the second season but the extended honeymoon period seems to be fizzling out by now. So I won’t be astounded if any or all of them sell their stakes before the third season (the murmurs have already been heard in the media, as Shahrukh after excersing his franchise in India didn’t even return back to South Africa to motivate his devastated team). As per 'The Economic Times' dated 21st May'09, many private equity funds are envincing interest for a stake sale in KKR. The same report also carries a story stating that KKR is the most valued team in the IPL (a UK based valuation company has given it a brand value of 42.1 million dollars) despite all the controversies and lacklustre performance. But I totally fail to comprehend this. If you ask me, the value should be put on team performance and not on the star value of the owners or underperforming star cricketers. Anyway, having burnt their fingers twice over, the actors would have definitely realized that they should now concentrate in the craft which made them famous in the first place rather than making a mockery of themselves on the cricket field which is the least of their forte. So friends, I would suggest that the next time an actor thinks of investing in an IPL team it should be a win-win situation for all of us. The actor ought to think twice about the impending doom but you and me would fortunately know on whom to put our money on :-).