| Indian Provocation League...anyone? The gentleman’s game. Utter the words and then ask them to take a hike. Because gentlemen in white flannels before a sea of equally genteel spectators can stay in British books, thank you. An almost transmogrified version of that languorous game is all around us, and I just felt like writing that sentence as an ode to Shashi Tharoor. If ODIs were to test cricket what the World Series Cricket was to the one-day game, the IPL has revolutionised T20 cricket — the game’s teenaged baby — like nothing ever has. In vicarious delight for the audience, the current IPL season has emerged as a true gladiator’s arena where moments of aggression, heated exchanges and staring contests are adding as much buzz as the last-ball finishes. And so full-fledged is the enjoyment that Lalit Modi's grin at having created a bigger source of entertainment than Bollywood can be visualised sitting over here.  So Naveen Ul Haq, a young fast bowler from the Lucknow Super Giants fought with the G.O.A.T Virat Kohli, and Lucknow's mentor Gautam Gambhir jumped in, to give us all a flashback of his 2013 infamous spat with Kohli. The game was between Lucknow and Bangalore...but the altercation was in full Dilli style, complete with fingers pointed, angry stares and beepable exchanges. What followed was a full-blown war between fan armies on twitter, and the incident accomplished what all the marketing campaigns of IPL could not - bring back a sense of aggressive loyalty towards their home team in the minds of cricket lovers of the two states. This loyalty for your region's team was engrained in the basic concept of a league like IPL, but had slowly evaporated in the annual shuffling of players with every IPL auction. So in effect, it had shifted gears from cheering from your home team to cheering for your favourite player, and that somehow eroded the passion necessary for a tournament like IPL. This one spat ended up correcting the alignment, and we are all back to social media arguments with healthy dose of passion. Bring on the pop corn! Tarot | 
