The Great Indian Tamasha - snippets

At the Great Indian Tamasha yesterday, the IPL managed to buy all and sundry, except a precious few. Here are some snippets -

Not everyone can be bought

Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson, Michael Clarke opted out. Cynics say they are enhancing their value before piling in. I say the news comes in as a breath of fresh air nevertheless. Its good to find contrarians. Exceptions are needed in all rules.

Sharda Ugra writes on her blog Free Hit in her post Soul under the hammer about how only those who earn a million bucks and more have the option of finding out whether they can be bought or not.

http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Moolah-rage-in-cricket.html&Itemid=&main_category=Free%20Hit&contentid=4785

Family first

Michael Clarke wants to take his old man fishing in his downtime, and thats a better option to playing IPL. Read on at http://www.theage.com.au/news/cricket/clarke-puts-country-and-family-first/2008/02/19/1203190824686.html

Put Cricket First - Parents say

Meanwhile man-of-the-moment Dhoni's parents are worried all the cash should not distract him from his primary calling of playing cricket.

Reuters has the story http://uk.reuters.com/article/cricketNews/idUKSP17559320080221

Stunned

Symonds is stunned that he is so valued in India. Ask Harbhajan who was quoted as saying that it'd be nice to have had Symonds as team mate for Mumbai.

The story on rediff http://inhome.rediff.com/cricket/2008/feb/21symo.htm

Indians over Aussies

One of the surprising things to see in the past 2 weeks has been the way the senior Aussies have been falling over themselves to be a part of the Tamasha after privately and publicly complaining about how the Indian board has all the power and all the cash and how it really pis*** them off. Still the 8 Indian franchisees preferred to pay more for home grown heroes over the world's best.

Read on at http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/FullcoverageStoryPage.aspx?id=668b1b2f-f67b-4909-86a6-7a7ff03d58e1IPL_Special&&IsCricket=true&Headline=Be+Indian%2c+buy+Indian

Feet firmly grounded

Meanwhile, one of India's latest debutants Manoj Tiwary who was bid at $675,000 will make a home for his parents, open a coaching click for the underprivileged and build an orphanage for the street kids. Hope he stays on terra firma.

The full story at http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/FullcoverageStoryPage.aspx?id=10e05421-1861-475b-aeb6-59d8c31617c2IPL_Special&&IsCricket=true&Headline=In+Privileged+League%2c+Tiwary+promises+help

Paradoxes galore

All said and done there have been contradictions, paradoxes and ironies on display in this Tamasha, like how our senior batsment dont fit into our modern one-day team, opt out of the 20-20 team and yet are Icons in the IPL and none more so than despite being advertised as the young man's games, there are oldies galore.

You will have fun here http://www.mid-day.com/web/guest/sports/news/article?_EXT_5_articleId=998740&_EXT_5_groupId=14