The Gamechangers

If you ask me to pick one memorable thing from the last IPL season undoubtedly I would say it was the blog of The Fake IPL Player. I remember how eagerly I used to wait for him to update his blog and I used to chuckle after reading each of his entries. His tongue in cheek humor, the inside stories, his clever names for each players were just simply awesome! No blog had received the kind of fame & readership that it had in the quickest possible time. I am sure even he wouldn’t have dreamt of the kind of fame that he got.

So when Prateek informed me about the release of the long awaited book from the author I grabbed it in no time but before I could even start reading it I came across a not so positive review of it. Thus when I started reading it I was apprehensive.

The book begins with the launch of the IBL (Indian Bollywood League) in Mumbai and eventually moves on to London where that season of IBL was being hosted. It goes on to tell us about the happenings of the season and largely concentrates on

-The happenings in the teams of Calcutta Cavalry, Haryana Hurricanes & Bangalore Bangers.
-Lalu Parekh, the chairman of IBL & his antics. The book outlines the ways & means he goes through to arm twist different cricket boards.
-The book is largely an extension of the blog and in a way gives you an insight of what was going in the mind Of FIP! Each of his post is blended in the book and the story is developed around it. To add few interesting twists a detective is brought in to locate FIP, then there is a drug case, the desire of foreign players to play IBL & not for their respective national teams because of the big money etc.

The captain of Bangalore Bangers Rocky modeled on Dhoni is one character that you will fall in love with as the book ends.

The book comes with the trademark sense of humor that you associate with FIP. The digs at Appam Ch**tiya/ Sigwald Raees Khan (ala SRK) are classic. It also gives you an insider view of IBL that at the end of the day it is business at its purest form, Cricket is just incidental.

Though I have enjoyed reading the book but I would recommend it only to people; who love cricket/ who love this form of cricket/ who hate this form of cricket, yes I said Hate because this book serves you with more fodder to hate it.

Also the people who loved FIP & his sense of humor would like it because as have said it is an extension of the blog and answers many questions which the blog left unanswered.

Others can easily skip it not because the book isn’t good but the cricket talk might bore you! But if you like books with tongue n cheek humor then this one is for you!!!

An excerpt from the book

You might think I am full of shit to call myself a no-hoper when I am playing IBL, the richest cricket tournament ever. All I can say is that despite all the money that’s being thrown around at IBL, not much is being spent shopping for brains. I went to the team trials only to support a friend who was trying his luck. While I was there, I decided to pad up & hit a few. I had the worst hit of my life & sprayed the ball all over. But pretended I was playing them deliberately. And guess what, the Phoren Babas observing me in between swigs of bear offered me a contract. ‘Plays at strange angles, different, refreshing, exciting’ is how they described my game.

My Rating 3 stars!!!

The book makes for an interesting read especially in the wake of current controversies and that reminds me, what do you think about the Shashi Tharoor Vs Lalit Modi spate?

If you ask me all I will say is that of all people I hadn’t expected this from Tharoor. I had better expectations from him and how much he might deny that he had no interest in the team the facts that I see paint a different picture. As far as Modi is concerned all I have to say is that he has a damn good marketing brain but beyond that he is as shady as all the politicians of India and together he & Tharoor are digging their own graves. 😀

My only advice to Tharoor is that to avoid Foot In Twitter disease he should quit Twitter & politics and continue with writing novels because that is one thing which he is very good at 😉

Author: The Fake IPL Player
Price: Rs. 199
Publication: Harper Collins India

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