That game called the IPLEven if you just thumb through IPL: An Inside Story,it is hard to miss the $ signs that flash before you. But the book,by journalists Alam Srinivas and T.R. Vivek,isnt an effort to overwhelm the reader with the exorbitant figures that the Indian Premier League has thrown up. Anyway,it has been a while since one got inured to the big money talk in cricket circles. The $ sign is a mere honorific to familiar figures,facts in a fascinating story,as 200-odd pages shed light on the intriguing darkness that lies beyond the stadium floodlights. Crickets losing its innocence is a cliché of another century,but with the IPLs launch in 2008,the game changed,with wheels within wheels and deals within deals. Faces that were confined to the VIP galleries of cricket stadiums turned into all-powerful players. The book looks at the phenomenon that saw cricket sneak from the sports pages of newspapers to business,entertainment and political sections and grab front-page space and often these cricket stories did not mention cricketers,runs or wickets. The book opens with Lalit Modi boarding a plane to South Africa in search of a venue for Season Two,leaving behind a volatile pre-election atmosphere at home. The subsequent chapters are a flashback to the origins of the IPL and the thrill-a-minute first season when it was impossible to decide if what was happening on the field or off it was more entertaining. A few myths are also shattered as the writers explore the secret behind Rajasthan Royals success. Did the Royals co-owner Manoj Badale actually plan the Shane Warne coup much before the auction? Was it really a team that bought low-cost players and never quite loosened its purse strings? It doesnt seem so after the chapter Skips,Slips and Sighs. The book also engages in a meticulous postmortem to understand the fall of the most expensive team,Deccan Chargers,and undertakes a whodunit on the palace intrigue that dashed Vijay Mallyas grand dreams. It also digs dirt about Modis pre-BCCI days and paints the profile of a maverick administrator who happens to be workaholic,concentrates on ends and not means and has a short fuse. The book is not only about the rich and the famous but also about obscure players whose life changed after signing an IPL contract. On the whole,it is a brutally honest look at the behind-the-scenes show that most couch potatos miss out on. Although it is a racy read,references to newspaper reports and borrowed quotes give an occasional have-read-it-before feeling. Finally,watching Season Two with the book in hand is advisable. Read it when studio anchors start talking and during the many rain breaks. Rs 195 is a small price to pay to read the mind of the deep-pockets owners,guess what goes on during the strategic timeout and get enough dope to start another fake blog.
