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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

	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.

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.

	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.

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.

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.

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.

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.