Cricket or how it learnt to stop worrying and shamelessly sold itself

The 12th season of IPL kicks off next week. The teams opening the game will be Rajasthan 'Eveready' Royals versus Chennai Super 'Ambuja Cement' Kings. We are two hours from the Pepsi 'My can opening ceremony. This opening ceremony will go on for 7 days with 6 and a half days dedicated to our sponsors and half a day for the actual event. With 2 hours to go we have a set of revised rules for our 'John Players' and commentators.

1) While appealing for a leg before wicket instead of a howzaaaat, the players must say Gatoraaaaaaade!

2) Every batsman's bat must have more sponsors than an average F1 car or he can be banned for up to 2 matches. (One more mind numbing job for the third umpire: zooming in on the face of the bat and zooming out in a continuous loop. Zooming in and zooming out will continue for the next 10 minutes, so the big screen can finish showing all its sponsors).

3 Some of the cricketers have been bought over by corporates and have officially changed their name;

1) Sachin "Amaron Batteries" Tendulkar, lasts long... really long

2) Rahul "J K Cement wall" Dravid

3) Air India presents, Maharaj Singh, formerly known as Yuvraj Singh. Yuvraj Singh will now grow a moustache and wear a turban

(MSPaint has its limitations)

4) Mahendra 'cello pens' Dhoni; sorry, he is now Mahendra 'Pepsi' Dhoni; this just in he is Mahendra 'Candyman' Dhoni. The cricketers are selling themselves so fast, it is really hard to keep up.

7 DAYS LATER

Live from the chinaswamy stadium

Rajasthan Eveready Royals have won the Coca Cola bottle cap toss and elected to bat. The team will be given some time to plan thier strategy

5 Strategic time outs later

The bowler delivers the first ball, he starts off with a bouncer, and the batsman has suffered a nasty injury there. He seems to be bleeding; this injury is brought to you by Heinz tomato ketchup "If it is red and thick and not blood, its Heinz tomato ketchup."

While the batsman is treated, the teams will take some more strategic timeouts

More timeouts later

Because of lack of time for strategic time outs our key sponsors will decide the winner.

Day 2

A new day and 2 fresh teams will face each other in the Cuttack stadium. The bottle cap toss is won by Sanath “Aviva retirement plans” Jayasurya, and has elected to bat.

The teams shall be given some strategic timeouts for them to plan their strategy for today’s game

We advice all our viewers to buy a minimal TV size of 70”, so they can allot at least 20” to watching the actual match.
Here is a preview of what a cricket match will look like



If you can closely observe on the top right corner of the screen, you can observe a green spot. That was a still image after the bowler bowled a dot ball, the most uneventful ball in the game. The number of advertisments increase as the excitement increases

FEW HOURS LATER

The bowler delivers; it’s a no ball, the batsman gets a free hit, this time the regular cork ball will be replaced by a cosco ball because “no ball is better than a cosco ball”

IT STARTS RAINING

While the pitch is being covered, we would like to thank lord BALAJI for his blessings. You can also get your fair share of blessing if you donate money to the following address. Yes, Tirupathi is also a major sponsor in this event

#20, ...
....
Tirupathi

Such shameless advertisements go on for 30 days, finally the day the fans, I’m sorry the Crompton Greaves fans have been waiting for: the grand finale.

Since we do not have time for the actual game the match will be decided by the coca cola bottle cap toss

Thus ends another glorious season of IPL , we cannot thank our sponsors enough for making this event such a big success.