The fire hasn’t dimmed for Dennis Brutus © Cricinfo Ltd

I meet him in the middle of the road in Durban city centre. You first notice the grizzly flowing white beard, the long hair blowing in the wind, the sharp eyes and a lovely smile that light up his 85-year old face. Dennis Brutus is protesting. It’s the story of his life. An activist against the apartheid regime in the 1960s, he played a key role in getting South Africa suspended from Olympics. For his efforts he was arrested, shot in the back while trying to jump bail, arrested again and jailed in Robben Island. Along with a certain Nelson Mandela. He was also banned from teaching, writing and publishing in South Africa and, on his release, settled in the US as a political refugee. He was finally “officially unbanned” in 1990 and currently lives in Durban.

It’s safe to say the fire hasn’t dimmed. In 2007, Brutus was nominated for induction in the South African Sports Hall of Fame. The other recipient was Ali Bacher; Brutus says he was ambivalent about accepting the award but Bacher’s presence nailed it. After Bacher’s acceptance speech was Brutus’ turn. He walked to the stage and said: “It is incompatible to have those who championed racist sport alongside its genuine victims. It’s time - indeed long past time - for sports truth, apologies and reconciliation.” And then turned down the award. That’s the part, he says, the broadcasters didn’t show. “And I believe Bacher walked out in protest,” he says with a chuckle, a throaty infectious laugh.

We are in middle of a protest walkabout towards the almost century-old early morning market on Warwick Avenue, which is about to be shut down for a shopping mall in the beautification process before the 2010 World Cup. The protestors are a motley crowd of black and Indian street traders, fishermen, market representatives, street barbers, singing their way down the road in their yellow T-shirts bearing the message “World-class cities for all”.

The 2010 football World Cup, the cause of all this activity, is seen as the dark side of a big flashy World event every country desires on its CV. The chant is unambiguous: “Stop the traditional elitist approach to building cities in preparation of the World Cup. Include us”. The protestors, under the umbrella of streetnet.org.za, walk through the city (myself included), past the speeding cars, past the curious onlookers, past the hawkers who sing out their voice of support, past the homeless man who squints at us before breaking into a smile before the police stop us at the entrance to the market.

While representatives engage the police, Brutus’s friend Patrick Bond, director of UKZN Civil Society, offers a wry joke: “I don’t think they will teargas us here in the middle of this busy place.” Brutus laughs again as he shakes his head. Perhaps he’s recalling one of his own lines: “As usual the ministers will wine and dine, and protesters will suck teargas.”

The sky is slowly turning grey. The breeze had turned chilly and strong. There is rain in the air. Talks with the police are still on. Brutus continues telling me the story of his fight for racial equality on the sports field. “The first successful anti-apartheid movement in sport was in table-tennis. Our first victory was in 1956. When I came along in 1958 to SANROC (South Africa Non-racial Olympic Committee) I was working on what had been built by George Singh. Then, very significantly, Brazil were scheduled to play in a football event in Durban. They were told that the black players had to stay on the ship while the whites could come on shore. I sent a cable to Brazil’s president, Kubitschek [Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira]. ‘You cannot tolerate this racism against the black players.’ And he immediately responded by cancelling the match. That was exactly 50 years ago: March 1959.” Then Basil D’Oliviera happened. “In table-tennis, in football, and in cricket, the process gradually quickened.”

Meanwhile, in the here and now, the police relent and we turn into the bustling Morning Market, with hundreds of shops lined up next to each other. The shopkeepers join in with the protestors and the decibel level rises. Leaders of the different groups voice their concern. Henry Ramlal, the chairman of the market committee and a short fierce man, expresses his amazement in strong language. “This is ridiculous. You can beautify the entrance of the city; knock us out, take us down, but what you going to do with the heart of the city? The crime rate is already high and what will you achieve by demolishing our market. What will all these families do? Won’t crime go up?” He says the municipality has offered them a different location for four months. “What after that? What sort of plan is this? Isn’t our site a heritage site? Won’t the tourists come to this spot as a tourist attraction? More importantly, where are the poor people going to buy their stuff? You can’t clean the city of its people”

The other groups like formal black traders and the informal traders put forth their own concerns about disruption to their livelihood. The South African elections are on Wednesday. Much as in India, the chief concern here is the gap between rich and poor. The country, says Dennis, is at a crucial tremendous crossroads. “You’ve got to keep fighting. Keep fighting.”

Unsafe? “I was shot at in Ghana and guys with Kalashinikovs jumped out of a bush in Nigeria. Now, that’s unsafe.” Flashes of Keith Miller and his famous quote on pressure come to mind. It’s a hefty German, Gerald, who dismisses my question. We are sitting in a lovely open-air pub, with a dance floor in the centre, overlooking the lovely north beach. It’s late in the evening - party time in Durban.

You ask how I got there in spite of my safety worries? Blame it on the four-channel television in my apartment. The first thing any traveller does on checking in is checking out the toilet and switching on the TV. Mine was all ghostly image and spluttering audio. Through it all I could make out a movie was being shown – Blade: Trinity, replete with screams, vampires and more gore. Stuff the safety advice that I got from my landlady, I was out of there.

So to the pub, which is slowly filling up with beautiful women and gelled metrosexual men. Then there are the dishevelled tourists like Gerald, who is here working in the port, and myself. He’s been around for a few weeks so I thought fit to ask him about the mugging stories that every new arrival is fed. That’s when I got slam-dunked.

Another thing you notice here, as you would in any big city, is how the nightlife is a celebration of er… night life. Gerald entertains me with stories of his conquests, occasionally converting Rand into Euro to emphasise the difference and the economic benefits. In response, I offer my typically Indian middle-class inhibitions.

All this happens within five minutes of our conversation. Sadly, this is what most men do when they travel. This is the way of saying hello to a stranger, how’re you doing, what’s up with life. Gerald is a 40-year-old divorcee, I have less than a decade to reach his age, if not his marital status, and mid-life crisis looms large. Gerald breaks the spell. . “Two more beers, please,” he orders. He taunts me for slowing down, I challenge him to a contest in good old Indian rum. Laughter.

Booze. The beach. Attractive people. A loud, friendly German for company. Slash horror on the telly. What do you do? Order another beer, of course.

With my dogged persistence, and his generosity – not to mention the miracle of hands-free mobiles – I interviewed Francois Pienaar a few days ago (here, at our sister site, Scrum.com). I couldn’t ignore the opportunity to talk about the IPL. Our chat was brief, but his passion for South Africa and all it stands for remains undiminished, 14 years after he stood on the podium to receive the rugby World Cup from Nelson Mandela. It’s one of those sporting images tattooed on your skull and difficult to forget. Tyson and Bruno is another of mine. Gascoigne in tears. Flintoff and Lee. Tyson eating ears…

But anyway. IPL. I wanted to find out from Pienaar his thoughts on South Africa’s infrastructure, given that all of a sudden it is the go-to country to host world-class sporting events. “The IPL has been a journey and a half,” he said. “To put this tournament in place in 20 days flat has been inspirational, to be honest.”

Colleagues and residents of Johannesburg have shown a little less enthusiasm, in particular at the road networks. Yes, they’re being modernised, widened, and coating a layer of western tarmac over the top of the concrete (which doesn’t split as easily in the heat, I’m told), but there is so much to be done. Recently, the Australia (cricket) team were politely mobbed (oxymoron spotters, pat yourselves on the back) at an airport, so lax was the security. I naively enquired about the train infrastructure to a taxi driver when I first arrived. “You’d be dead man, dead,” was the chilling response. There is a train for tourists with tourist-like prices, but suffice to say that it’ll be cars and planes which transport people over the next few weeks.

What will it be like in 2010 for the (football) World Cup, though?

Well, judging by the successful events they have hosted in the past – 1995 rugby World Cup, 2003 cricket World Cup and the inaugural World Twenty20 in 2007 – the answer is: it’ll be fine. It’ll probably be better than fine, to witness the steady progress of all the new stadia being built. As Telford Vice wrote a few days ago for Cricinfo, “neither airlines, hotels nor the cricket industry seemed flustered by the prospect of the gathering storm of glitz, glamour and glorious cricket.”

Pienaar, too, acknowledged the country’s sticky issues and congested roads but, like Telford, he just expects it to happen. And after three weeks here, I do too. “The country has a can-do mentality. We are a nation who holds up its hands and gets things done.”

	IPL fever was on from start to finish © Times of India

I was probably flying somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean when Sohail Tanvir singled in the winning run thus missing a sublime conclusion to the wonderment that was the Rajasthan Royals IPL domination. Now, I sit on a couch in Los Angeles a few hours after returning from Mumbai watching a match from that other bat and ball affair. Sure, it’s nice to be back in the States after a whirlwind, two-week Indian voyage where I lost five pounds and spent countless hours inhaling vaporous fumes of Vicks. But the scent of the IPL continues to linger.

During the two weeks I was in India, from Mumbai to Calcutta to Gandhinagar, it was the Superbowl every night, even when the Deccan Chargers played. At my grandmother’s bungalow in Gujarat, my in-law’s flat in Borivli, to my hotel room in Kolkata, the television blared Sony Max telecasts every evening. Even when other obligations prevented me from watching first hand there was always a mobile phone update or a FM transistor radio to keep me up to fresh about every score and wicket taken. Never had I seen a sporting sensation pervade the social fabric of a society the way the IPL has spread its tentacles around the Indian household. Of course, I’m no sociologist, but it’s utterly obvious that when your wife’s nearly deaf grandmother asks for Mumbai’s run-rate then something surreal this way comes. I finally had to throw up my hands up and use that perennial Mumbai phrase, Aila!

After the duties of a family wedding finished I was inevitably hit by the mysterious virus that strikes all visitors to India, you know that hazing period where everything you eat and drinks spins like a Murali doosra in your stomach. So, bed-ridden, I spent a few days trying to regain the remnants of my stomach and watching even more cricket. Analysis from former players, music videos, highlights and even standup comics in cheerleader outfits cracking jokes in Hindi, which was quite scary even without knowing the language.

Thinking I’d be alright to handle the topsy-turvy thrills of another IPL match I convinced my wife and her brother to go with me to the first semi-final in Mumbai between the Delhi Daredevlis and Rajasthan Royals. The newspapers reported the day before the match that tickets had increased, some seats nearly quadrupling in price. I had to get my tickets fast. We went to my brother-in-law’s accounting office and tried to book tickets from there, only to find out the website wouldn’t process my credit card. We had another source. Apparently, tickets were being sold at some gas stations. So, we drove to another section of the Mumbai suburbs and bought our tickets. But it turned out that my earlier apprehension was totally misguided. The next morning ticket prices were slashed. I had paid 2000 rupees each for my tickets. Now, I could grab them for just 500 rupees. I made sure to hide the paper from my wife that morning.
The cashier at the gas station told us to be at the ticket window by four p.m. so we decided to rent a car and drive the one and a half hour drive to proper Mumbai. My brother-in-law was the first to spot Wankhede Stadium as we drove along Nariman Point. Even at the early hour hoards of police and scalpers were scattered about. We dropped my brother-in-law off to pick up the tickets. He came back to the car a little while later with a huge grin on his face. I asked him what he was smiling about. In his hand he held a wad of cash. Apparently, we were refunded for the tickets.

We took our places and waited in the queue. Lines seem to work backward in Mumbai because we continued to get pushed back instead of going forward. Of course, the source of this problem was a small gap that was open just enough so any streetwalker could easily sneak in. The police didn’t seem to mind. But soon we were through and into the stadium. We found a section that gave us a decent place to observe, but it still made us see through the prism of a barbed chained linked fence. My brother-in-law enjoyed the experience and it was amazing to find out this was his first time to a professional cricket match though he lived the sport his entire life. When the match began we stood up and joined in the ruckus. Rajasthan had quite a solid fan base I thought, but under careful inspection it was obvious that the rowdy applause was for the cheerleaders. Men would quickly whisk out there mobile phone cameras and film the girls every time a sixer or boundary occurred. Even as I began to see families sprinkle throughout the audience I couldn’t help but feel like those poor cheerleaders were like those dancing bears that perform on the side of roads.

The crowd increased to the point where we couldn’t move. I reached the threshold of my tolerance when a guy out of nowhere nearly pushed me from behind. This time I shoved back and told him to move. He tried to stare me down. And that belligerent American side in me looked back at him furiously. My brother-in-law calmed me down and the man went about his way. Then that dreaded Delhi belly I tried to wash away with mass medical prescriptions returned. My brother-in-law told me to just wait till the top of the hour to leave. I couldn’t. Go to the bathroom in the stadium? I wouldn’t even go at work. We left early once again. When we got home Delhi was performing miserably at bat. I was feeling bad physically, but even worse mentally. Though my brother-in-law said watching cricket was better on television I couldn’t help but feel he wanted to stay for the duration of the match. And I, the spoilt, sick American brat had prevented him from doing so.

We watched the second semi-final at my in-laws flat and when Shaun Marsh unexpectedly exited after having played fantastically so far, we all cried in disappointment. My brother-in-law didn’t hold a grudge against me. We shall repeat this again he said. It will be even more fun. I agreed whole heartedly as I sprinted to the bathroom. Aila!

	Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's presence at the stadium added to the frenzy © AFP

An hour before the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Rajasthan Royals were to face off, I found myself in a wedding hall in southern Calcutta discussing floral arrangements. As my sister-in-law, her future husband, and his father discussed the merits of marigold over roses, I continued to nudge my wife about the time. Here I was, the American firangi (foreigner) in the land of Rabindranath Tagore and Rani Mukherjee performing the part of proper jamaya (son-in-law), a role I was about to play brilliantly to hide my more devious intention of attending an Indian Premier League match. Now, my entire façade was melting as I got trapped with the familial responsibility of matrimonial minutiae. Choosing the right bouquet for a Bengali-Gujarati wedding confused me more than explaining the nuances of cricket to a baseball fan. Wait, maybe, it’s the other way around.

As the debate raged on my compulsive desire to get to Eden Gardens was taking over. I had never been to a real cricket match before, so I naively thought getting there early would be like going to a baseball game during batting practice. I mean how cool would it be to catch a sixer hit by the likes of Sourav Ganguly or David Hussey? Alas, that childish fantasy would change along with a number of others. But, presently, my wife was doing her best job of ignoring me. Her little sister’s wedding festivities took precedence over the task of going to a match.

My sister-in-law, sensing my growing impatience, took mercy on my circumstance and made her choice. On the way out the door, my wife slapped me in the back of the head. “It’s my sister’s wedding,” she said. “And you’re ruining it with your stupid matches.”

I wondered if she would still accompany me to Eden Gardens or whether I would have to make the pilgrimage myself as the lonely English speaking, Bengali-bereft tourist lost in the City of Joy. I’m sure the price of the taxi ride would be tripled as soon as they heard my northeastern American accent. But she acquiesced and soon we were in an Ambassador heading up Chandra Bose Road in a caravan of clanging horns. Along the way we passed billboard after billboard of Shah Rukh Khan and his beloved Knight Riders. I desperately wanted a jersey from the Reebok store we passed by, but I’d have to wait. My obsession with collecting jerseys began in childhood when I, along with an entire generation of school kids, donned our NBA garb. I had graduated from the American sporting scene and started religiously wearing my sky blue Sahara India jersey when I fell in love with cricket 20 years later. My wife, of course, dismissed my fandom on account of mental derangement. “Only an idiot would wear a jersey with his last name on it,” she said. “Are you so dumb you forgot your surname?” The King Khan #12 jersey would be mine soon enough.

The evening was surprisingly cool, but the Calcutta humidity still left rivulets of perspiration falling onto my brow. The noise and hubbub of a city drifted by us. Finally, on the other side of the horizon I saw bright flood lights shining from a gigantic pole. I stared agog through the window. I hadn’t felt like this since I was seven and saw the Shea Stadium (the home ground of the New York Mets baseball team) for the first time. My wife shook me from my enchantment. I thought we were stuck in traffic, but I realized the cab had stopped. Time to get out and walk. I paid the driver. As my wife and I joined a cavalcade of Knight Rider fans on a trek to the stadium we could hear the loud echoes of “Om Shanti Om” (a popular Bollywood song). People were now sprinting. The match was about to start.

	"When Sourav Ganguly came to bat I don’t think I’ve ever heard such adulation from a crowd for a performer since Hanna Montana" © AFP

Police were everywhere - on horseback, in giant SUVs. I thought I was at an Obama rally. I stared at my tickets. My future brother-in-law had procured them for us the day before, but when I asked him to come with us he declined due to family obligations. You know that wedding thing. His loss. My gain. In line, men, children, and a surprising number of women tried to rush through the gates only to be stopped for security checks and frisking. I had brought a camcorder with me to record our experience failing to realize the strict edict the IPL had in place. When my wife opened up her purse, they saw the device. We had to convince eight security personnel to give us our tape back resorting to pleading that our honeymoon footage was on there. We lucked out.

I had been told by a number of people that Eden Gardens wasn’t the most fan friendly of stadiums especially after reading Soumya Bhattacharya’s cricket memoir “You Must Like Cricket”. When my wife and I finally located our seats we saw that the entire row was full. We would have to split two feet for sitting space between each other. The row above us was empty and we joined the ‘sit anywhere you want’ phenomenon and took a seat on a dirty stone slab bench. Eden Gardens was feeling as old as the Roman Colosseum. Our vantage point was along the long-off boundary hardly the ideal place to get any true appreciation of the game. That was one thing that I noticed right away was that I couldn’t get a sense of the game, the sounds of a bat smashing a ball, nor the body language of a fielder. Seemed much easier just to stare at the jumbotron and watch the action there. The stadium was far from full, but the fervour of the fans undulated. I couldn’t help but be swept up in all the hysteria.

Near us through the barbed fence were the infamous cheerleaders that I heard so much about prior to coming from India. I couldn’t understand the fuss. The Rajasthan cheerleaders so eerily resembled the cheerleaders from my high school in Orlando, Florida that I was having a sentimental remembrance of an old crush. When the teams were introduced the crowd went berserk like at a WWE match. And when those around me were dancing I couldn’t help but join in. My wife was already clapping and roaring. When Ganguly came to bat I don’t think I’ve ever heard such adulation from a crowd for a performer since Hanna Montana.

With the match underway, I noticed a bevy of police officers everywhere. I asked my wife why that was the case. Before she could answer I heard a voice from behind me. It was for Shah Rukh. Decked out in his Knight Rider jersey was 12-year-old Vihaan Hada, obsessed cricket nut and international political expert. Through the remainder of the match, Vihaan would school my wife and me about the IPL fever in the country. The first thing he did was offer me this observation about our botched seats. “Indians have no civic sense.” He’d been to a number of IPL matches and sat near Shah Rukh Khan in his previous visit. He was as curious about American sports as I was about cricket. As I tried to explain the dimensions of a baseball diamond, someone knocked a sixer and Vihaan and his friend Siddharth both stood up in their seats and waved their ‘sizzling six’ signs. Another Shah Rukh tune burst through the speakers and everybody was dancing again. Later in the match, Vihaan would ask me who I preferred, Hillary or Obama.

My first IPL encounter resembled a strange, surreal amalgam of various American sporting experiences. At first, I felt the familiarity of attending a college football game with all the Kolkata Knight Rider jerseys around me and the collective feeling of a unified city. Then something happens - a fight breaks out in the crowd and the police rush in and I’m at a baseball game at Yankee stadium. When a boundary is made and a ‘fundo four’ sign is thrown up I find myself at an NBA Slam Dunk contest.

The IPL has often been compared with the English Premier League in its structure and formation. Sure it’s commercialized, filmi, splash, glitz, glamour, and that ever hilarious word I’ve been reading all over, razzmatazz, but by god, the tone and ambience is quintessentially American. Is that why I’ve been enjoying all the tamasha so far? I can’t say for sure. Though I kept trying to find an American counterpart to offer me a comparable subtext, I simply couldn’t locate one. The IPL was another experience all together.

My wife and I didn’t stay for the entire match. We left early not from boredom or the disappearance of Shah Rukh, but jetlag. Before we departed though, I heard further up the stands a familiar twang I’d become so familiar with, the confused American. I walked up and met a group of newly-arrived Americans working at a local NGO. I asked them about their experience with cricket. This was there first cricket match so far. Did they understand the game? Nope. They didn’t need to.

	Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne: set to meet in the IPL final? © Getty Images

This diary entry feels slightly fraudulent. I leave India in the small hours of tomorrow morning and feel like my job here is barely a third done. Some Indian journalists have expressed envy that I am ditching a six-week tournament after a little more than a fortnight, and I’ve almost felt like apologising for doing what basically amounts to a runner.

“Nice of you to pop in” is the kind of ironic comment you can expect from English colleagues if you join a tour a week late (having given the all-important 14-a-side fiasco against the President’s XI a tactical miss) or depart, ooh, several weeks early. And I am prepared to take any comments on the chin. But the truth is I wouldn’t have missed this experience for the world.

I’ve covered cricket tours before, but nothing as hectic and, frankly, surreal as this. Yesterday, for example, reminded me that for all the luxury hotels the players get to stay in, for all the adulation from the Indian public, and – yes – for all the money they are stashing away for fast cars and maybe old age, it can be a strange existence.

I started my day in Jaipur, where the Shane Warne roadshow goes from strength to strength, and where I spoke to a couple of the Rajasthan Royals team about the experience of playing under one of cricket’s great motivators. I then caught a flight to Mumbai, where I waited for a couple of hours before boarding a plane to Bangalore, which is where I am now.

I left for Jaipur airport in the north of India at 12.30pm and sat down to work in Bangalore in the south at 9pm. A piece I wrote en route for an English paper might have had three different datelines. Jaipur? Mumbai? Or Bangalore? It was a toss-up. In the end, I went for Jaipur, which is where the interviews took place and the first words were written. Hell, the piece was about the Rajasthan team anyway…

But this is the kind of itinerary the players are used to. And the ones who qualify for the final on June 1 have got almost another month of it to go: it’s almost enough to demand our sympathy. But not quite.

Reading that last paragraph, I can feel prediction time coming along. Yes, I know it’s a mug’s game, especially in the changeable world of Twenty20. But sport’s supposed to be fun, so what the heck. Each side has now played five games out of 14 in the round-robin league table, and we’re starting to get a sense of who means business, even if things have been slightly skewed this week by the departure of the top Australian and New Zealand players.

Even so, if a gun were held to my head, I’d plump nervously for Delhi Daredevils to take on Rajasthan Royals in the final: the competition’s best seam-bowling attack against its most inspirationally led underdogs. The Royals have been the story of the tournament, and I’m just sorry I won’t be here to follow their progress. Rest assured: the first thing I’ll do when I get back to the UK is subscribe to Setanta. Enjoy!

	Dimitri Mascarenhas could be the first Englishman to play in the IPL, if Warne picks him in the XI © Getty Images

For Englishmen everywhere – or maybe just those of us in India – it promises to be a momentous afternoon in the IPL. Our presence until now has been limited to a hardy handful: Jeremy Snape (performance coach with the Rajasthan Royals), Mark Benson (umpire), Robin Jackman (commentator), several TV crew members, a smattering of tourists, and your correspondent (although not for much longer). If I’ve missed anyone, I apologise.

But today, if Shane Warne is good enough to pick him for the Royals against Kolkata Knight Riders in sweltering Jaipur, our numbers will balloon by one: step forward Dimitri Mascarenhas. He might have Sri Lankan parents; he might have been brought up in Perth; hell, he might speak like an Aussie. But he was born in Chiswick, west London, and he has hit several sixes for England. That’ll do for me.

There is a hope among the one-man party of travelling British journalists that Mascarenhas’s presence will spark a rush of interest back home. Several of the UK papers sent out journalists to cover the fireworks provided by the Chinnaswamy Stadium and Brendon McCullum before and during the IPL’s memorable curtain-raiser 13 days ago; a few flew north the next morning to catch the game in Delhi; Simon Hughes of the Daily Telegraph was even spotted at the Wankhede on the Sunday evening. And then there was one. You’ll understand if the arrival of Mascarenhas elicits more excitement than it really should.

It says a lot for the current preoccupations in England (Manchester United and Chelsea, basically) that it required Harbhajan Singh to whack Sreesanth for the daily papers to remember that there is a pretty significant sports event going on in India at the moment. Yes, it might be too long. Yes, it’s full of hot air and hype that diminishes rather than enhances. But this, if you’ll recall, is the start of the revolution.

Or is it? Because as far as the English are concerned, the story has moved on. Having apparently swallowed any pride they might have felt at the prospect of being bankrolled by an American, the England and Wales Cricket Board might just have come up with a formula to silence the dressing-room moans about missing out on the IPL’s dollars. If the five matches against Sir Allen Stanford’s West Indians really do take place, the need to play in India might be removed.

As much as Man U v Chelsea, the start of the English cricket season (such as it is), the collective intake of breath over the state of Freddie’s ankle, the perception that this is no more than a glorified Indian domestic league, and the fact that not many have access to Setanta, who are broadcasting the matches in the UK – as much as all that, Stanford may explain why interest has been muted. Now, where’s Warne? I need to talk to him about team selection…

	Dwayne Bravo's unbeaten 64 took the Mumbai Indians to a seven-wicket win over the Mumbai Indians, their first in five attempts © DigitalCricket.com (file photo)

I’ve always suspected the concept of momentum, one of the staples of press-conference speak, was over-rated. “We’ve got the momentum,” says a captain, moments before losing the toss on a flat one and conceding 350 on the first day. Wrong: you had the momentum, but now the momentum belongs to the other team, who will probably hand it back to you on a silver platter before the series is over.

The IPL has done little to suggest that momentum is anything more than just another of those ideas which dressing rooms use to feel good about themselves. Take last night’s win for Mumbai Indians in Kolkata. The momentum argument dictated they didn’t have a prayer: four defeats in a row; still no Sachin; Harbhajan banned. But they bowled beautifully on a sluggish pitch and, after losing three cheap wickets, were inspired by the bat of Dwayne Bravo. No doubt they’re talking about the semi-finals already.

It’s been the same elsewhere. Kolkata Knight Riders apparently had the momentum after winning their first two games, but have now lost two in a row. Deccan Chargers were being written off as a bunch of costly failures before Adam Gilchrist turned a three-game losing streak into a glorious win against Mumbai on Sunday. And Kings XI Punjab looked down and out after losing their first two matches, since when they have beaten Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai.

Only Chennai Super Kings (four wins out of four) have bucked the trend, although Rajasthan Royals have won three in a row since being thrashed by Delhi on the day two. Which probably means they will lose to Kolkata tomorrow night. So, the momentum belongs to Chennai, does it? Well, yes, except they must play their next match, on Friday, without Matthew Hayden, Mike Hussey and Jacob Oram. The momentum, if it exists at all, has to start almost from scratch.

What of Royal Challengers Bangalore ? In this morning’s Times of India, their wicketkeeper Mark Boucher writes: “The way we see it, there are 14 games to play, and if we win 11 out of 14, we have a great chance of making the semi-finals. Agreed, it sounds like a tall order, but Chennai have won four in a row, so a winnings streak is not impossible to establish.”

Well, maybe. But Boucher of all people should know not to get excited about dear old momentum. Back in 2003, he was part of the South African team that drew a five-Test series 2-2 in England in one of the least momentum-ridden encounters ever. After the drawn first Test , South Africa took the lead at Lord’s, surrendered it at Trent Bridge , reclaimed it at Headingley before finally settling for parity at The Oval.

That was Test cricket, where gentle ebb and flow comes naturally. This is Twenty20, where matches can change course in a couple of overs. If momentum struggles to stand up to scrutiny in a series lasting 25 days, what price does it have in three-hour cricket? And if Bangalore beat Delhi tonight before winning their next nine games as well, I can only apologise.

	Sreesanth has received a warning from Farokh Engineer and will be aware that not all his Indian team-mates regard what happened to him as a crying shame © Getty Images

Since everyone has been up in arms about The Slap (and it’s only a matter of time before the words are followed by a little ™ and we can all buy the DVD), it’s tempting to wonder exactly whether many losers have actually emerged from yesterday’s hearing in Delhi. Harbhajan, sure, but let’s look, with tongue placed only partially in cheek, at some of the other interested parties…

Lalit Modi: Once he had gained control of the press conference, Modi came across very well: decisive, firm and with a good grasp of the facts. He has been insistent all along that the IPL should pay more than lip service to the fabled spirit of cricket, and now he has been true to his word. The happy-family poses for the cameras with Harbhajan, Sreesanth and Farokh Engineer felt a bit forced, but he has handled his first major crisis with aplomb.

The IPL: Only two letters separate it from the ICC, but the handling of Bhajjigate (I’m bored with The Slap already) was done in a language the game’s governing body will not recognise. While the ICC keeps having to answer questions about Zimbabwe and Peter Chingoka’s visa, the IPL has avoided accusations of a fudge by suspending one of its most high-profile players. And guaranteeing more front-page coverage in the process.

Sreesanth: Bear with me on this one. Most blokes who get hit in the face get sympathy. Sreesanth has received a warning from Farokh Engineer and will be aware that not all his Indian team-mates regard what happened to him as a crying shame, if you’ll forgive the pun. On top of that, the BCCI might yet rule that his behaviour during Friday’s game in Mohali was less than angelic. If so, this is his big chance to change his petulant ways. Harbhajan has yet to manage it. Here’s hoping Sreesanth is watching carefully.

The papers: Writing as a freelance journalist who has more luck in the past two days selling pieces to English newspapers than at any time since the opening weekend, I can confirm that feisty tête-à-têtes go down well with papers. The columnists get a chance to mount their high horses, the picture editors clear space on the front page and the subs rub their hands with glee about the fact that Harbhajan has been “slapped” with a fine (geddit?). And if readership doesn’t increase for a day or two, then call me a cynical, two-bit hack.

Australia: Not only has their public enemy No1 lost several hundreds of thousands of dollars, but their public enemy No2 has copped one in the chops. The Aussies now get to say “we told you so” following events over the winter and the papers get to use gleeful headlines such as the Herald Sun’s “Singh slap shocker”, and the Courier Mail’s “What a slapper!” As yet there are no reports of dancing in the streets of Sydney.

Wisden: Scyld Berry recently warned in the new edition of the Wisden Almanack that he feared “the day is approaching when a high-profile, televised cricket match will see an outbreak of physical violence on the field”. Well, this did take place on the field, even if the game was over, and Wisden will presumably be relieved that the public is yet to witness the offending gesture itself. Still, 10 out of 10 for prescience, no?

And one loser: Lalchand Rajput, the Mumbai Indians manager, might have thought he was minding his own business when he failed to “restrain” Harbhajan, as Modi put it. Instead, he’s lost half his match fee. I suspect Bhajji owes him a beer.

	Shane Warne has easily been the pick of the IPL captains ©

One of the many familiar grouses about the county game is the way in which English players can generally rely on an overseas team-mate to dig them out of yet another hole. The phenomenon is exaggerated, as most grouses about the county game are, but a glance at the daily scorecards in the English broadsheets will tell you that it isn’t exaggerated by much. After 14 matches of the IPL, I wonder if the malaise is spreading.

A few basic facts for you. There have been four centuries so far, of which three have been made by Australians and one by a New Zealander. Of the 16 fifties, only seven have been scored by Indians, and just one – step forward Delhi’s Shikar Dhawan – by a batsman who has never played in one form or another for his country.

At first sight the bowling figures appear a little more favourable to the locals. Four of the six players to have claimed five or more wickets are Indian (Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Harbhajan Singh and RP Singh), but three of them have played four matches – half the franchises have still only played three – and one may not play again, depending on the outcome of today’s hearing in Delhi.

More relevant, perhaps, is the fact that of the 10 most economical bowlers (and I’m imposing a minimum requirement of 10 overs here), only three are Indian: Zaheer Khan (6.58 runs per over), Irfan Pathan (7.06), and RP Singh (7.21). The rest are either Australian or Sri Lankan: Glenn McGrath (6.00), Brett Lee (7.00), Muttiah Muralitharan (7.08), Farveez Maharoof (7.09), Chaminda Vaas (7.30), Shane Warne (7.50) and Shane Watson (7.62). Claims from afar that the IPL is simply a domestic Indian league do not hold water.

Should Indians be concerned? After all, the whole point of insisting on the inclusion in each franchise squad of four local Under-23 players was surely to pre-empt criticism that the IPL existed only for the benefit of the businessmen. But young men have time to learn, and Shane Warne’s impact at the Rajasthan Royals (a revolution within a revolution) is one of the most heartening aspects of the competition so far.

What must be more worrying for Indians is the relative failure of their established stars to make an impact. That list of 16 half-centurions includes only two franchise captains (Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh). Rahul Dravid was out first ball on Saturday and generally looks ill at ease with the demands placed on his batting by Twenty20, and VVS Laxman has done little so far except cling on to Adam Gilchrist’s coat-tails in Mumbai last night. Sourav Ganguly is yet to pass 14 and poor old Sachin hasn’t even made it onto the field. Warne, the only non-Indian captain before Shaun Pollock became Mumbai’s third-choice leader, has been comfortably the pick of the bunch.

If I can speak as another non-Indian for a moment, I don’t actually think this foreign legion is a bad thing. Because of the lack of interest here in domestic cricket, Indian fans have spent years shouting for no one else but their national side, which is fair enough. Now they are not only having to readjust to the franchises, but to the overseas contingent within them. The IPL might not merely be forcing the players to change their perspective.

	Slapgate's stars: Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth (File photo) © AFP

It’s the kind of moment sports writers like to refer to as ironic, when of course it is nothing of the sort. Harbhajan Singh’s alleged slapping of Sreesanth – or push, or comment, or tickle, or whatever it was that reduced Sreesanth to tears in Mohali last night – is all the more bizarre for occurring between players who, despite recent on-field tensions, would usually egg each other on while playing together for India. That’s the so-called irony part, even if irony in its simplest form is saying the opposite of what you really mean.

Ironically perhaps (just checking you’re still paying attention), Harbhajan detected genuine irony in Sreesanth’s supposed comment after the end of a match which extended Mumbai Indians’ losing streak to three. The details of Slapgate, as it will probably be dubbed, remain sketchy, but Sreesanth is reported to have approached Harbhajan with a smile and a “hard luck” – hardly grounds for a flailing hand, you might think, even if Bhajji sensed something other than sincerity in the remark.

Still, there is something of a delicious irony – you see, we just can’t help ourselves – in the fact that the Indian Premier League has been held up as a bastion of cross-cultural bridge-building (read: better relations between India and Australia), but has now sparked an incident between two players of the same nationality.

What must the Australians think of it all? They were fuming earlier in the year when Harbhajan’s three-match ban for allegedly calling Andrew Symonds a monkey was overturned, and were not exactly on Christmas-card-exchanging terms with Sreesanth either. I wonder if a small, unworthy, part of them actually chuckled at last night's farce.

But, really, could you have selected two players more likely to have engaged in handbags at the end of a must-win match for both sides? I remember a one-day county game when Mark Ilott of Essex and Robert Croft of Glamorgan – two of the circuit’s more talkative members, but hardly angry young men by nature – squared up as the game grew tense. There was a lot of talk back then about the sullying of cricket’s fabled spirit, but this time the IPL will probably take the extra attention it receives and move on.

Heck, at least Sreesanth and Harbhajan both play for India. Now, if it had been Symonds doing the slapping/pushing/swearing/tickling, we really would have a full-scale emergency on our hands. And how, er, ironic would that have been after what happened over the winter?

	Don't write us off: Warne has been cooking up some solid team spirit © Getty Images

I don’t know about you but I’m starting to get into this tournament. If you’re reading this in England, the chances are you probably couldn’t care less. The English season is under way, the New Zealanders – minus their Indian contingent – have arrived, and everyone is crossing their fingers and toes for Freddie’s ankle. Setanta, not Sky, have the TV rights for the IPL, which means you have even less chance of tuning in, and the only Englishmen involved so far have been Jeremy Snape and Mark Benson. Your indifference is understandable. But out here it’s different.

Last night’s game in Hyderabad was a big one for the tournament. It signalled the start of the third round of matches, which means we can begin discerning trends and inferring sub-plots (context matters, even in Twenty20). It provided a rousing finish, thanks to the old ringmaster Shane Warne. And it contained that most beguiling ingredient of any sporting contest: the upset. To see the way the Rajasthan Royals players swamped Warne after he had carted Symonds for 14 in three balls, and to listen to VVS Laxman defending his tactics and his batting was to feel right in the midst of a proper competition. Who needs cheerleaders?

The performance of Rajasthan since they were embarrassed by Delhi six days ago has been one of the tales of the tournament. While the other seven franchises all spent more than the $5m they were supposedly allowed at the Mumbai auction, Rajasthan forked out a relatively modest $3.6m. The franchise itself cost $67m, a good $40m less than Deccan Chargers, who have now lost three out of three. Rajasthan are punching above their weight, and a lot of the credit must go to Warne.

To see the man in action, both on and off the pitch, is to marvel at a passion that still burns incandescent. He is the Royals’ pied piper. The youngsters in his side unquestioningly play follow my leader, and even the team’s media manager, Anant Vyas, has taken to introducing press conferences by waxing lyrical about Warne’s latest deeds. He is taking wickets, scoring crucial runs and captaining with all his usual intuitiveness. Apparently, that quality can be difficult for the more analytical members of his teams, but there is only one thing that matters, and VVS’s leadership looked one-dimensional by comparison.

Whether the Royals continue to be one of the stories of the IPL is another matter. But right now, it is possible to apply a positive slant to Graeme Smith’s old taunt that Warne was a “frustrated captain” when he played under Ricky Ponting. Smith, Warne’s newest team-mate, was almost certainly right. What he might not have imagined was that one day he would be enjoying the fruits of Warne’s old-time frustrations at first hand.

	The cheerleaders have been facing some flak in the media © Aneesh Bhatnagar

You can’t accuse the Indian media of not taking the IPL seriously. Today, CNN IBN has posed the million-dollar teaser: “Do cheerleaders degrade the game of cricket?” So outraged is the channel on behalf of its viewers that the question was illustrated by a close-up of a cheerleader’s cleavage. Clearly, a lot of people are working themselves into a lather.

CNN IBN was persuaded to ask its viewers to vote on the issue by the indignation of the Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party, a right wing party who are arguing that cheerleaders are no better than “bar dancers”. To the best of my knowledge, bar dancers are paid by the boogy. Whatever you make of the cheerleaders who have become one of the more incongruous features of this competition, I have yet to see them venture into the crowd touting for 100-rupee notes to be shoved into their bosom.

For the players, these wholesome apple-pie Americans are not a problem (and, hey, does that surprise you?). The day before the tournament started in Bangalore, Rahul Dravid could not stop smiling as he gave us his considered view of the ladies of the Washington Redskins, who had been hired by the Royal Challengers to lend something or other to the opening ceremony. “I’ve heard a lot about them as well,” he grinned. “I’m looking forward to seeing them. Someone earlier was saying it will be a veteran team with young cheerleaders. You’ve got to keep your eye on the ball. I’m going to tell the boys to stay focussed on the cricket ball.” Chuckles all round.

By yesterday, the chuckles had been replaced by scowls. One journalist asked Shane Warne whether the cheerleaders were a distraction. “I don’t think the cheerleaders distract us,” he said with an admirably straight face. “We’re out here to play cricket. It’s part of the entertainment and that’s good. Young Jadeja [Ravindra Jadeja, sitting to Warne’s right] has been fielding in front of the cheerleaders on the fence and he enjoys it.” More chuckles.

Frankly, if the journalists are looking for condemnation, they are asking the wrong people. It might also be that the media are simply trying to create outrage where none exists. My experience so far has been that some sections of the crowd, mainly families and older generations, appear completely indifferent to the dancers (although this could be interpreted as quiet condemnation) while others, mainly young men, love them. It is a split that might just say something more profound about India’s own development.

In the States, cheerleaders are venerated as part of the sporting experience. In the UK, they are tolerated with faint embarrassment. When they’re performing in the north of England on a chilly night before a rugby league game, they even deserve our sympathy. But in India, they are unknown quantities and the unknown is always a threat. It will be instructive to see which way television viewers vote tonight.

This is my ninth day in India, so I thought it was time to take stock and pass on a few things I’ve learned …

	Glenn McGrath: two maidens, two wins © Getty Images

1) Cricketers don’t look good dressed as gladiators (or is it Roman soldiers?). An illustrated advert in today’s Hindu depicts Muttiah Muralitharan, Matthew Hayden, a moody-looking Stephen Fleming (well, he was left out of Chennai’s match against Kings XI Punjab) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni wearing leather tunics and brandishing swords. Hmm.

2) Cheerleaders remain an elusive concept. They have either attracted angry letters to newspapers or been out-cheer-led by young men in the crowd. “We want cheerleaders” was one of the more coherent efforts at the Wankhede on Sunday. Last night at steamy Hyderabad, they even seemed to be wearing brown tights. A concession to local sensibilities, perhaps?

3) Sony Max, the Indian broadcasters of the IPL, will continue to insist that the spectators are “going wild”, even as the camera pans over a quiet-looking crowd in the break between innings. “Oh, they’re having a whale of a time,” enthuses the presenter.

4) Never accept a lift from someone who approaches you in an airport.

5) Bowlers are better investments than batsmen. Everyone in this competition, it seems, can clear the small boundaries. But not everyone can put the ball where they want to, time after dot-ball-inducing time. The Daredevils’ Glenn McGrath has bowled two of the competition’s three maidens and ended up on the winning side in both games.

6) The players do care. We wondered how much they would, but their professionalism, competitive spirit, desire to prove themselves to foreign team-mates, and fear of warming the bench for the next seven weeks has brought out the best in them.

7) The paddle over short fine leg is here to stay. People say it isn’t proper cricket, but what’s proper cricket if it isn’t using all 360 degrees?

8) The stars have no shame, and I’m not talking about the cricketers. Asked what her level of involvement with her Kings XI Punjab side was ahead of their game with Chennai Super Kings on Saturday, Preity Zinta thought for a moment before saying: “My level of involvement is that I’m here.” She might want to buck her ideas up: the Kings XI have lost two out of two.

9) Ed Smith’s new book, What Sports Tells Us About Life, is really very good. Here’s one of the most perceptive and – for the IPL – relevant sentences: “If we like a game how it is, or how it has become, we must make sure we preserve what is good even as we accept the inevitability of change.”

10) Sachin Tendulkar’s son is called Arjun. The wife of Mukesh Ambani, owner of the Mumbai Indians, is called Nita. Mohammad Azharuddin’s wife is called Sangeeta. I know this thanks to the in-depth newspaper coverage of the people watching the games, but I’m less sure about the identity of some of the cricketers.

	When will one of India's young stars step up? ©

First, an apology to Shah Rukh Khan: you will not be mentioned in today’s diary entry. And nor will you, Preity Zinta. Sorry.

So, the cricket. I keep forgetting I’m here for the cricket. Before the IPL started, I asked any player I spoke to who they thought was going to win. To a man, they replied that anything could happen in Twenty20, that everyone had a strong squad, and that they were going to give 110%. At the time, these sounded like the kind of answers you get out of sportsmen every day, all round the world: non-committal, anodyne, knuckle-gnawingly tedious. But after six matches, and with a slap in the face for my cynicism, these purveyors of fence-sitting are yet to be proved wrong.

Only Kolkata Knight Riders have won two out of two; only Kings XI Punjab, surprisingly, have lost two out of two. Already, five teams have a win under their belt. Already, expectations are being dashed.

Take Bangalore Royal Challengers, who were widely written off after they were McCullumed on the opening evening (there were even some absurd accusations that the team, which had barely been together for three days, was not gelling). Well, on Sunday, they overcame a hostile atmosphere and a tense run-chase at the Wankhede to beat Mumbai Indians. And Rajasthan Royals, apparently shoo-ins for last place after they were brushed aside by Delhi Daredevils on Saturday, yesterday walloped the highly fancied Kings XI.

This is good news for the organisers. Since each franchise’s programme involves 14 group games at least, the IPL can ill-afford one of them to be exposed as completely useless after just three or four: sceptics will seize upon unimpressed fans and empty stadiums with relish.

But it also tells you something about the way Twenty20 works. An apparently average team can be rescued by one good innings or spell of bowling: cracks that would become chasms over five days of Test cricket can be papered over with a couple of sliders here and five meaty sixes there. Last night, Shane Warne (three for 19) and Shane Watson (76 not out off 49 balls) broke the back of the Punjabis almost by themselves, although Ravindra Jadeja deserves an honourable mention for helping Watson over the line. Bangalore, meanwhile, were rescued by the grit and experience of Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis.

Which raises another issue, one that will ring bells with followers of county cricket. Because however exciting it must be to watch your team being dug out of a hole by world-class cricketers, wouldn’t it be nicer if the glory went to an Indian, and preferably a young one? When a player I’ve never heard of manages to hit the headlines, I’ll be in touch.

By Malini Bose

	Like on most big nights the Eden Gardens saw a massive turn-out (file photo) © Getty Images

A crumbling pitch, a packed house, a power cut, sapping heat, too few sixes – and, eventually, a five-wicket win for the home side. The IPL’s first match at Eden Gardens had its share of drama, but eventually the spectators – 87,000, by most accounts – went home happy. The men behind the Knight Riders – led by the omnipresent Shah Rukh Khan - have some glitches to sort out for the remaining games, but the overall reaction and overwhelming support would have heartened them.

This match was different to anything I have seen at Eden Gardens – and perhaps different to anything this grand old stadium has seen. It was, typically, a feast of sound and colour, but something seemed different in the mix of the spectators: enthusiastic teenage girls, children not more than three feet tall, strapping men and countless women. I was part of a group of 15 friends. This was more of a family occasion than usual, and partisan down to every man, woman and child.

If there’s one word to sum up the atmosphere, it was electrifying (though that seems like a bad pun given what was to come): the singing, the chanting, the Mexican Waves, the typical Eden humour. The Bollywood music didn't stop, particularly songs that feature King Khan; though for some bizarre reason they threw in Rang De Basanti as well. And every so often, Korbo Lorbo Jitbo Re, the Knight Riders’s theme song, came on with the crowd chanting “All the King’s Men, we rule!”

The added twist was the presence of the cheerleaders, the IPL’s gift to Indian cricket spectators. They were enough to make even staid Bengali bhadralok (gentlemen) shed inhibitions. One of the many men who fell over each other to take pictures of the cheerleaders exclaimed, “Dada, ekta chhobi tule din na, bou-ke dekhabo!” (Please take a photograph of me with the girls, I will show my wife.”) One wonders what his wife would make of it.

Above all this, though, the major attraction was Shah Rukh, the team owner, mascot and guardian angel. He was there in his box with his retinue - Arjun Rampal and Karan Johar, who were in Bangalore as well for the first game, and Kolkata’s very own Usha Uthup, the singer, and actor Rituparna Sengupta. And a couple of very special guests – Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka and her husband Robert. Shah Rukh’s box provided the hottest competition for the action on the field, and was the focus of most attention. After every ball, those in the nearby blocks would stand on the edge of their seats to watch him clap, dance, cheer; I heard, not surprisingly, one man was injured trying to get a better view.

And then there was the cricket. Enough has been said and written, I guess, about the pitch and though the low scores were a disappointment, it wasn’t really reflected in the crowd’s reaction. The Knight Riders’ fours and sixes – there were fewer sixes in the whole match than had been scored by Brendon McCullum alone on Friday - were greeted with a huge roar, the fall of every Kolkata wicket with a stunned silence (and vice versa for the Chargers).

The biggest cheers were reserved for Sourav Ganguly, whose gritty 14 helped put the team’s chase back on track. But he had tough competition, especially among the young girls in the stands, from the lanky and streaked-haired Ishant Sharma. Andrew Symonds was greeted with some jeers, but perhaps not as rough a time as might have been expected in the aftermath of the showdown Down Under earlier this year.

It wasn’t a perfect day out, though: food items such as chips, sandwiches, and soft drinks were priced at exorbitant rates; water, sold in packets, soon ran out. There were reports of the toilets running out of water: not much different, then, from the typical Eden Gardens experience. There were some tussles between spectators over seats. Sadly, the police and security were not very vigilant - instead of focusing on crowd control they were busy taking videos of the gyrating cheerleaders.

The biggest glitch, of course, was the sudden power-cut, one of the floodlights going off with the match poised at knife's edge, the home team needing 22 runs off 20 balls. The crowd was initially calm when play was halted, but as it continued people began to panic and there was a mini-stampede in the aisle next to where we were sitting (and at several other places in the stadium). People stumbled and fell over, and many simply left. But it was never really scary, and soon enough the crowd began chanting the theme song – led, apparently, by Shah Rukh – and a calm descended. After half an hour the lights came back, as did the Knights; David Hussey won the match with a big six and Kolkata went berserk.

That, ultimately, is what the IPL is all about, I guess. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Would I return for more? Yes, I plan to watch a couple more matches. If only they can do something about the pitch and the power.

Malini Bose is a student of Loreto House, Kolkata

	Shah Rukh Khan’s connections with the Knight Riders makes them a drawcard wherever they travel © Getty Images

Yesterday, before the games at Eden Gardens and the Wankhede demonstrated that Indian fans really are capable of going mad for a team other than the national one, I was surprised to see a huge billboard just off the main road that links Andheri to Juhu in north Mumbai. It was not so much the slogan which caught my eye (“Be scared. Be s**t-scared”), nor the joints-of-ham that passed for Andrew Symonds’s biceps, but the fact that Mumbai was giving space to the Kolkata Knight Riders, a team not merely from out of town but from the other side of the country. So much for generating support for the local side.

My friend, a Mumbai resident, gently suggested that not only was the city more cosmopolitan than other places in India, but that – sorry, Simmo – Shah Rukh Khan’s connections with the Knight Riders makes them a drawcard wherever they travel. (When I return to England, that man will haunt my dreams: he is absolutely everywhere) In the event, there was never any question of Mumbaikars not getting behind the Mumbai Indians during their five-wicket defeat to Bangalore Royal Challengers last night, but the cult of celebrity looms alarmingly large in the Indian Premier League.

Most of the papers I looked at this morning led their front pages with pictures of the various stars and dignitaries who attended the Wankhede. Yes, there was a mention of the farcical floodlight failure in Kolkata and even a comment or two about the cricket. But what the readers wanted, the editors duly provided. The caption under the main snap on the front page of the Mumbai Mirror started with “Film producer Yash Chopra with Nita Ambani; actors Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor; Sachin Tendulkar’s son Arjun; Mumbai Indians owner Mukesh Ambani with wife Nita,” and continued in a similar vein.

This, then, is the inevitable by-product of the hype. The great, the good and the frankly rather tedious all know that a slice of the IPL action can add a few lakhs on their brand value. The cricket uses the celebs to feel good about itself; the celebs use the cricket to stay in the headlines. It is a symbiosis of a particularly cynical kind.

It can be dangerous too. At Eden Gardens a 38-year-old fan called Mohammed Selim fell from one tier of the stands to another as he leant too far in search of a glimpse of – who else? – Shah Rukh Khan. He was hurt rather than badly injured, but it was tempting to consider what the equivalent injury in county cricket would be. Eighty-year-old slips disc lifting pint of real ale? Pensioner cricks neck sleeping through entire day’s play? Teenager shellshocked by absence of anyone under 50?

OK, I’m being cruel. But the more you immerse yourself in the IPL, the wider your eyes become. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just heard that Shah Rukh Khan is about to appear on five different TV channels at the same time and I have an important decision to make …

And there I was thinking India’s initial reluctance to embrace Twenty20 was because the format offered fewer ad breaks than the 50-over game. Well, folks, they seem to have found a way round it. I spent yesterday afternoon and evening tuned into Sony Max’s coverage of what – in unwitting homage to Sky Sports’ portrayal of the English Premier League – was unblushingly referred to as “Super Saturday”. All this meant in practice was that the IPL was staging two games in a day instead of one and never mind the quality (you fear already for Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals). But I digress.

Regular watchers of cricket on commercial TV will be used to ad breaks at the end of each over, preferably with a respectful pause to ensure the ball really is dead before we find out about the latest brand of anti-dandruff shampoo. But Sony Max has allowed several adverts to appear in a single over by shrinking the picture. Apparently this cunning tactic has been used on Indian TV for a few years now, but what seems to be new is its frequency.

What happens is that the picture shrinks to allow space underneath it and to the left, allowing the name of a well-known mobile-phone company to step seamlessly into the breach. If the commentators are busy talking at the time, so much the worse: their musings are simply drowned out by the advert’s verbals. The effect can be tantalising. Yesterday, in one of the rare moments when a commentator seemed to be on the verge of using an adjective other than “fantastic”, “incredible”, or “amazing”, he was cut off in his prime.

And there’s more. If a boundary is struck (and with the organisers needing no encouragement to position the boundary 65 yards from the wicket, the minimum distance allowed by the ICC, this happens quite often) up pops a banner ad to point out the joys of a renowned brand of camera.

The commentators are equally assiduous in their duties. There was an intriguing amount of references to a popular brown soft drink, but even this fell short of Pommie Mbangwa’s dedicated allusions to the “DFL IPL” (sorry, there was no way of avoiding that plug), a formulation which conjured up nightmarish visions of a world of abbreviations. “The DFL IPL’s USP is its OTT LBW appeals.” He didn’t really say that, but it can only be a matter of time. Then again, maybe abbreviation is the very essence of Twenty20.

	Indian fans associate with their national side but what of the IPL franchises? © Getty Images

Partisanship is not the most attractive word, but it may yet turn into the abstract noun most craved by the organisers of the IPL. They’ve got the money, they’ve got the glamour, they’ve got the players, and last night they were handed a gift-wrapped start by the bat of Brendon McCullum. But have they got the crowds? I’m not talking about numbers: the Chinnaswamy was packed. The question is whether the fans will come to cherish their local team like, say, followers of European football. Because without some degree of partisanship, sport is just another form of entertainment.

There was no doubting the passion of those who turned up. In descending order of ear-splitting decibels, the most emotional responses were reserved for: Sachin Tendulkar’s entry onto the stage in his role as captain of Mumbai Indians (surely it was no coincidence that his stroll, the longest of the eight captains, was left until last); the jeers for Sharad Pawar, proving once more that sport and politics do mix, just not always very comfortably; the brief booing of Ricky Ponting, captain – as if you need to be reminded – of those dastardly Australians; and the cheers for Brendon McCullum, who was batting for the away team.

What of the Bangalore Royal Challengers? They were well-received at the start, but that seemed to have more to do with the crowd’s impatience than a visceral attachment to the local side. The wicket of Sourav Ganguly, the first of the Kolkata Knight Riders to depart, was celebrated genuinely enough. And there was a murmur of disappointment as Rahul Dravid fell in the second over of the Challengers’ reply, followed in quick succession by most of his team-mates. But the scimitar of McCullum diluted the tribalism.

This should not necessarily be sniffed at. Cricket has always been big on applauding the opposition, and much has been made of the IPL’s tie-in with the MCC and its Spirit of Cricket. Equally, these are embryonic days for the eight franchises, who only recently made the transition from a twinkle in rich men’s eyes to actual cricketers you can see and, occasionally, touch. Other sports suggest you need decades to establish meaningful loyalty.

But it will be fascinating to see how the fans react as the tournament develops. It could be that some cities latch on to their side quicker than others. Kolkata, based in Bengal – the home of Indian football – could lead the way (the Knight Riders host the Deccan Chargers on April 20).

You just hope cities don’t take against a failing side too quickly. The pundits here in Bangalore are already suggesting that the Royal Challengers failed to gel, as if being whacked around by McCullum reflected on the leadership qualities of Dravid. But there might lie an awkward truth for the IPL. It can take years to build an identity, and one bad evening to destroy it.

	IPL - A way to popularise Test cricket? © AFP

It’s easy to get swept along by the razzmatazz of the IPL, and I apologise if I’ve already mentioned that cricket will never be the same again, or some variation on the cliché of the moment. But journalists are supposed to challenge assumptions, so – deep breath – here goes: is cricket really as popular with India’s youth as the English like to imagine?

Now before you start shaking your heads at the appalling naivety of the question, consider this quote in today’s Times of India from a Mr Sandeep Kumar Bajpai, described as an engineering student: “The IPL has the potential to become as popular as the English Premier League.” As popular? What about the IPL becoming as popular as, ooh, the Indian Test team, or the Indian 50-overs team? No, Sandeep chose a sport which anecdotal evidence suggests is in danger of diluting the average Indian youngster’s apparently innate love of cricket.

Last year, in the course of researching an article on the phenomenon of the long-distance sports fan for a British magazine, I spoke to N Manoj, an 18-year-old economics student from Bangalore and a mad-keen Chelsea supporter. He assured me that he and his friends made a habit of gathering around the TV a few times a week to watch live coverage of the English Premier League on ESPN and Star-Sports. His nickname, naturally, was Frank, after the Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard.

I asked him whether football could ever replace cricket in the affections of the Indian people. He replied: “I think and hope so. If the Indian team does well, there is nothing to stop football equalling and possibly overthrowing cricket as the most popular game.” OK, so that’s a big if – India are currently 154th in the FIFA world rankings – but the point is a more general one: are young Indians, exposed to western influences in a way their parents never were, getting their kicks elsewhere? Whisper it, but do they find Test cricket boring?

When Twenty20 was introduced in England in 2003, the aim was to bring a new type of fan – younger and preferably female – through the gate. The IPL, goes the argument, is all about the cash. To a large extent this is true, but listen to Rahul Dravid, captain of the Bangalore Royal Challengers, replying last night to a journalist who asked him whether Twenty20 could damage Test cricket: “I don’t think so. I think it’s going to raise the profile of the game like nothing else. It’s going to bring new people to the venues and hopefully if we bring them to the ground, they will support the other forms of the game as well.”

It’s the kind of talk followers of the English game will be familiar with. The IPL has been called many things, but a chance to reconnect India’s youth with a game that most of us believe runs through their blood has not been one of them.

	"Players, Kolkatans, Mr Buchanan ... korbo lorbo jitbo!" © AFP

One of the many delights of being in India is the understanding that cricket is not so much a sport as a lingua franca. I promise not to fill this blog with too many facile comparisons, but it’s safe to say that if you get into a taxi in England and ask to be taken to the local county ground, it is not usually the cue for a riotous debate with the driver about the prospects for Derbyshire’s new overseas paceman. Today I flagged down one of the thousands of auto rickshaws that make India’s streets feel like a giant beehive, and, sure enough, the driver and I were talking IPL almost before I had sat down.

Actually, “talking” is stretching a point. We roared a few words at each other over the steady drone of the traffic and managed to construct a fairly meaningful conversation about tomorrow night’s IPL opener here in Bangalore between the Royal Challengers and the Kolkata Knight Riders (whose name I will at some point be able to write without thinking of David Hasselhoff and a mysterious talking black Pontiac).

Manfully ignoring the cacophony of horns – is there really any point putting up signs telling drivers not to honk? – we established that my driver reckoned the Knight Riders were going to win. Why? “Because they have more experience and Shah Rukh Khan.” The earnest reference to India’s King of Bollywood and owner of the Kolkata franchise was a reminder that cricketing punditry over here transcends the “he’ll be disappointed with that” school of obviousness.

“But he won’t be playing,” I said.

“No, but he can maybe motivate the players to do great things,” he replied.

I could see from the look in his eye that he was deadly serious. Sadly, even cricket’s lingua franca lacks the nuances I needed to formulate my reply, but my mind’s eye developed visions of a nervous Sussex side on the eve of the county season being roused to great deeds by the stirring words of Helen Mirren.

And then, as I paid my rupees, it struck me. Bollywood and cricket are powerful enough entities in themselves in India. Throw them together in the shape of one man, and they approach divinity. Who am I to say the great man can’t deliver a more stirring pep-talk than the Knights coach John Buchanan? We should find out more tomorrow.

	Leaving county cricket... © Siddhartha Vaidyanathan

Usually at this time of year I would be going through my first-game-of-the-county-season ritual: wrap up warm, pack the binoculars and the latest edition of Wisden, think of a quick summary of my winter with which to regale press-box colleagues, and – important, this – glance nervously at the April skies. My options today would have included the Rose Bowl, Canterbury, The Oval, Chelmsford, Bristol, Grace Road and Edgbaston, names that evoke a certain nostalgia even as I write them. Instead, I am in Bangalore, where – in case you have just arrived from Mars – the revolution begins on Friday. It is the kind of decision freelance journalists think of as a calculated risk.

The players I’ve chatted to so far here have done their best to deny that their sole motivation is money. Now it’s my turn. The mood in England towards the Indian Premier League is mixed. The comments under the blog I write every week for guardian.co.uk reflect a bit of enthusiasm, some curiosity, plenty of indifference and a lot of hostility. I was undecided myself, which is why I’m here now. And until my departure on May 5, I will be logging my impressions of a competition that might – just might – end up doing what everyone keeps saying it will do and change cricket forever.

	... for the IPL © AFP

These are strange times to be an anglocentric cricket person. When I spoke to Rahul Dravid yesterday, he was surprised I was out here when virtually none of my compatriots is. The chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, Giles Clarke, has repeatedly outlined his opposition to centrally contracted players participating in the IPL, while the players themselves express their irritation as tactfully as they can without being hauled up in front of the board. Now Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire, is offering a money-spinning alternative of his own. The IPL might yet look like small fry.

Predictions seem futile, but underlying it all is the thought that a successful tournament here could change the structure of the English game for good. This, I think, is what scares a large chunk of English cricket followers, who are as used to following the fortunes of Surrey or Lancashire (if not at the ground, then through the papers or on the web) as they are to the changing of the seasons. The IPL offers no such familiar comfort. It is a distant threat in a nation whose clout round the high-table of cricket politics has outweighed England’s for years.

But this is a fact of life, and not one that troubles me. Personally, the IPL excites and intrigues more than it disturbs. How seriously will the players take it? Will the fans identify with their local franchise? Will the cricket itself become the story? And what on earth is going to happen to Test matches? Perhaps I’ll know a bit more by the time I leave.