This is what wikipedia has to say:

Drug Possession

Lalit Modi was charged and pleaded guilty to drug possession, assault and kidnapping case in 1985 while he was a student in Duke University, USA. He was sentenced to 2 years in prison and came back to India after being released on probation.

In 2007 a PIL was filed in Mumbai High court challenging his position in BCCI on pretext of his criminal history. Though the court refused to unseat Modi, it asked the BCCI “to implement stringent regulatory measures so that those involved in criminal cases, not just illegal drugs but other serious charges have no place in administration”.

But unsurprisingly BCCI paid no heed to the court’s advice

Unsurprisingly is the keyword here, or the tag here as we say. Mr. Modi is the Brain behind the IPL. I was unaware of the drug charges else I would have dealt with him more strictly here.

This was in 1985. He is 42 now, so he would have been 20 then. OMG, my age!!! Well, then maybe its allowed. NOT!

Post from: EveryJoe

Lalit Modi was a Drug User and Seller!

Post from: EveryJoe

IPL Review : Some Interesting Stats – Batting

Chennai batted first and scored a formidable 168. Formidable as this was a high pressure game and MSD had defended 157 too in a final, that too a close match! Almost everyone contributed in bits and pieces to help reach the total. The Rajasthan bowling was accurate without being incisive

Something told me then that this was not enough. I always wanted Chennai to win and by now, Journalistic Neutrality is something I haven’t accepted. Something was not right! The faith was on Dhoni’s leadership and I hoped that he could do an encore.

Mental note: Remind myself “you don’t win a final if you drop three catches”

Chennai did that and lost. There is no such theory as to why they lost.There were other factors too. One thing is for sure. Rajasthan played better cricket, though panic did set in late in the day. With 8 needing of the last over, and Joginder Sharma cooling his heels in the dugout, MSD gave the ball to L Balaji, the most expensive bowler till then. He bowled a wide, Parthiv Patel fumbled and the batsmen (Sohail Tanveer and Warne) ran 1. 2 runs of 0 balls made. 6 off 6 then. Always easy. Hopefully this loss doesn’t hurt Dhoni too much, a lot of international commitments are on the cards. Speaking of cards, Warnie is now off to Las Vegas to play Poker. Cool eh! So thats where the strategy comes from!

Later

Sinkin in feelin : IPL IS OVER!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!

Post from: EveryJoe

IPL Final : Rajasthan Royals win in thriller

The match is being played in the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, certainly not anywhere near home for any of the two North Indian teams. Delhi, having won the toss, put in the Royals in to bat. Glen McGrath was at his worked up best when Swapnil Asanodkar started treating him like he would treat a certain Mr. Ankit Mishra if he thought about hanging up his gloves one fine day and take on fast bowling. Needless to say, the Bowling Machine wasn’t flattered. But that is a story for another post.

Meanwhile, Shane Watson showed why he needs to don the Aussie T20 colours (sleeveless) and Yusuf Pathan kinda justified his selection just today.

Lets see how the Delhi innings goes. Will be back after that…

Post from: EveryJoe

IPL Semis – Rajasthan Royals post 192

First of all, thank you. YES YOU! ALL OF YOU! For the first time since man invented the wheel, six and out has touched 50k page views. There is a party for you too, if you can make it. To know more, ask me.

With the Deccan Chargers losing to Chennai Superkings tonight, all the four semi finalists of the inaugural DLF IPL have been decided. Not that I care as both my teams (Kolkata and Mumbai) are out. Anyway’s, for people too naive to not support Kolkata, they are

1. Rajasthan Royals
2. Kings XI Punjab
3. Chennai Superkings
4. Delhi Daredevils

in that order of course. After watching some pretty insipidly boring test cricket over the past week, yeah yeah, the contest of bat and ball et al, and being reminded of the same by Uncle J Rod, I felt that since the business end of the biggest business in cricket (IPL you oxymoron) is on, lets focus on that and that itself. Lets take a look at the points table now:

Remaining games are Mumbai vs Bangalore and  Rajasthan vs Punjab. As both of your eyes can see, these matches are useless unless you want semi final practice or you really love one of them caps (purple and orange).

SO, in the semis, Rajasthan play Delhi and Punjab play Chennai. Preview posts coming soon, if I am excited enough to write them!

Who do you think will win? Write in….cos I am too influenced by T20 experiences to forecast.

More Later:

Photo: Ankit Mishra

Post from: EveryJoe

IPL Semi-Finalists decided

Everytime I talk about the success of the Rajasthan Royals, people ask me : “Who owns them?” This post is for the most subdued owner in the Indian Premier League.

Emerging Media is the owner of the Rajasthan Royals. Apart from owning the IPL Team, these guys are mainly into media-property development business with a focus on developing programs for the Indian sub-continent.

In India, they are more known (if at all) for their reality cricket show : Cricket Star, whose runner up Dinesh Salunkhe plays for the team.

Some Stats:

Age : N.A.
Team : Rajasthan Royals
Bought Team for : $67 million
Alternate Occupation : Media House
Co-Owners : None

(All figures are in USD)

As you can clearly see, the post is also subdued. The team is doing wonders though!

Other Owners : Shah Rukh Khan

Next Team : Kings XI Punjab (owned by Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia)

Photo : Emerging Media

Post from: EveryJoe

Owners of IPL – Emerging Media

So, considering the teams:

Kings XI Punjab:

They are looking set to qualify as they have matches against Deccan, Kolkata and Rajasthan. Even if they lose all three(interesting), it would benefit just Kolkata and that too not much who are already almost out. So, if this is the case, then the points table would be like:

No change yet.

Chennai Superkings

They are pretty comfortable, though the loss to Bangalore would have hurt. Need new momentum. Got matches against Rajasthan and Deccan. Assuming they beat Deccan and lose to Rajasthan:

Still no change!

Mumbai Indians

The tricky bit begins now! They have matches against Delhi, Rajasthan and Bangalore. Assuming Delhi and Rajasthan Beat them and they beat Bangalore:

Kolkata Knightriders and Delhi Daredevils

Just one match left between then and if Delhi wins it:

Which clearly means that Punjab, Chennai and Delhi qualify.

BUT, if Kolkata Beat Delhi Tonight, it along with Mumbai and Delhi would be at 14 points each….NRR comes in and guess what? Its Sehwag vs Sanath! Who scored faster. Lets see how the IPL pans out.

Photo : Ankit Mishra

Post from: EveryJoe

Current IPL Standings and Interesting What-ifs

Kings XI Punjab vs Mumbai Indians – 21st May 2008
Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

Robin Uthappa used to be one of my favorite cricketers. Used to be, that is! But when you run out Sachin Tendulkar, and that too in a situation when he was single handedly going to win the game for your team, well, the loyalties are bound to wither.

Having committed the most punishable offence in blogging : inactivity, I am feeling a certain amount of guilt but the emphasis is always to bring quality rather than quantity, and so it will be. Apologies, nonetheless.

Coming back to the match, Mumbai Indians, needing 190 to win, were cruising at 159/4 in the 17th over when Mr Robin hoodless Uthappa got the great man run out. Of course it was not his fault. These things happen in cricket. YEAH RIGHT! Sometimes it feels like to hell with journalistic neutrality these days. Here’s how Cricinfo described this wicket.

“Pathan to Uthappa, OUT, Do we have a game here? Uthappa rocks back and softly tucks it towards mid wicket, they set off for the run but Tendulkar is sent back after Pathan runs forward and gathers the ball quickly, he takes aim and strikes the stumps down with Tendulkar yards outside his crease”

What followed was a story of non-application with 4 run outs and two schoolboy shots made Mumbai lose the match by one run. ONE RUN!

Sach Is Life. All hail the great man’s 46 ball 65. So near yet so far. It is getting tougher for Mumbai to qualify now. I would soon be coming up with an analysis of every team’s chances in the IPL now.

Current Certainties:

• Royals Qualified for Semis
• Royal Challengers and Chargers OUT

Later

Photo : Newscom

Post from: EveryJoe

Mumbai Indians – Snatching Defeat from Victory

Considering the amount of money Dr. Vijay Mallaya has, it would not have been impossible for him to buy some better players. What I am trying to say is not that he should have interfered in the selection of the players, but that he had the cash to buy some other players.

“My biggest mistake was to abstain from the selection,” he said. “I had a separate list of players but since Dravid is such an iconic player I trusted his judgment. And Charu Sharma also backed him. I was very tempted to bid for players whom I wanted but they held me back. I backed them thinking they advised me properly. Obviously, things have turned out differently. Unfortunately in cricket, unlike in any other sport, the captain is the boss.”

But, is the team bad? I don’t think so. Consider this list, and don’t think about their IPL Stats:

1. Kallis : Best All Rounder in the world
2. Dale Steyn : Best Bowler in the world
3. Mark Boucher : One of the most successful Wicket Keepers in the world
4. Misbah ul Haq : The best T20 player (or one of the best)
5. Anil Kumble : India’s most successful bowler

And many more distinguished players. Where Rahul Dravid went wrong was in thinking that the IPL is a Test Match tournament.

Let us now talk about the players Mallaya wanted and how Dravid refused them:

Mallaya: MS Dhoni
Dravid : he is too expensive ( I am tempted to laugh at this)

Mallaya : Mc Cullum
Dravid : No, we’ll take Boucher

And the rest, as they say, is history. Kallis though, seemed confident about Bangalore’s chances for next season! He needs to be reminded that he really did not justify his $900,000 paycheck.

Photo: Newscom

Post from: EveryJoe

Rahul Dravid, are you listening?

The business community in Pakistan is pretty keen on this idea. In an interview which the PCB Chief Naseem Ashraf, a controversial personality according to us, gave to the media, he said and I quote:

“We will be waiting for a suitable time to start the tournament as many corporate institutions here have also shown their willingness to sponsor the event”

Though the International calendar is finding difficulties in creating a window for the IPL, he was confident that something could be worked out.

“There is presently no gap available for organizing such an event and the PCB would be working on the details”

Set Up:

13 Teams, each team allowed 2 foreign players, after all:

“But priority would be given to local players”

Our View: When it comes to Pakistan, there are always a lot of issues which precede cricket. Security being one of them. But what I also think is that it might be good. Lets the money come in. Let cricketers from all over the world benefit from the riches. Its entertainment for the rest of us.

Photo: Newscom

Post from: EveryJoe

Pakistan Premier League