Six times, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have won the Fair Play Award. On a completely unrelated note, in 2016, the franchise was banned from the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the involvement of their team principal in the spot-fixing scandal. 

Not only did CSK get just a two-year ban, they returned in 2018 and immediately were crowned the Champions. Would be naive to think that it is all co-incidence. That too with Shane Watson winning the match after looking like a walking duck for the first ten balls of the innings. 

It is a script that made an intern into a full-time professional.

Mumbai Indians have won five titles, and the franchise is owned by one of the biggest conglomerates in the country. 

They are rich. Very rich. 

Rich enough to buy five titles. 

They can own anyone and anything found in this country, including the umpires and the IPL. 

IPL might be owned by the BCCI but only on paper. When people here are fighting in millions for the television rights, guess who gives it away for free? They probably own you even. 

Forget that, why do you think last year, the matches were mostly in Mumbai? That’s the power of em' dollars, That’s the power of a league that has been fixed, left right and centre. 

You could have had it anywhere else but nope, Mumbai is the place. 

The quality of IPL is very important, that’s why this biggest conglomerate always hire the best. Look at how the games have gone down the wire? You think that’s without money on  under the table. That’s cute of you. 

When we are on that topic of matches being fixed, how many can you name? Let’s start with the recent one. At least the most recent, and not the 2020 IPL final. That was fairly won by Mumbai, and if anything the entire tournament was scripted, not the final because some legitimacy is required. 

Where do we start, the 2019 IPL final. One ball, two runs required, and Shardul Thakur, a Mumbaikar misses a full-toss? The same Thakur who scored a 31-ball 50 in England. He missed a full-toss to give another IPL title to Mumbai. Remember what I said? Mumbaikar. 

If you think that was the only fixed game? 2017 IPL final. Mumbai scored 129. Even if it is 2017, how can a team not chase 130? 13 runs off the last over, with an in-form Steve Smith and Manoj Tiwary, and they bottled that? By one run! You could say that one of the two IPL finals was a thriller but two? Nope, it is the art of a good script. 

This is as real as the world Truman is living in. We all know how that ended. The script is what really makes it different from the other leagues. Look at PSL this season, they tried to hire the former interns of the IPL, and suddenly, every Tom, Drunk and Harry are talking up the tournament like it is Qudrat ka Nizam. Let’s go further down. 

Mumbai lost five matches in a row. Five straight matches. And then they qualified, like how on earth is that possible, you may wonder. 

See, IPL writers are very consistent. They don’t leave it to once in a blue moon, they do that every year because consistency matters. 

You think you have seen it all, right? Then there came this contest between Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai, in 2014. You can replay the match 10,000 times but the result will be the same. You thought I was going to say the result would have been different, right? 

May 25, 2014, Wankhede. Any other result than Mumbai winning in 15 overs would have resulted in them being out of the tournament. But at home in front of at least 30,000 people, Ambani wouldn’t have let that happen.

At the end of Rajasthan’s innings, they got to 189, which ideally shouldn’t have been chased down in 15 overs. But when you throw money, loads of it, it is an easy proposition. Remember Rahul Dravid dropping his cap, it wasn’t because he was angry, it was at that point when someone in the dugout told him how they fixed it. 

Rajasthan were paid fair and handsome-ly, enough for Raj Kundra to open his own production house. The match was fixed. Except they weren’t caught. You know why. 

The naivety of the fans is what makes IPL so special. The Paltans believed that they have the best team in the world, the Royals felt that their team was the worst, and in between was BCCI making brick loads of money, selling their script soul to the conglomerate.

Hopefully, that should be enough to make you understand that all of this wasn’t just a mere coincidence. During the 2022 IPL Auction, there was a certain Jofra Archer up for grabs. And, mysteriously at that point, no other franchise had a purse to compete with Mumbai. In between all the chaos, they walked away with Bumrah and Archer in the same team… 

It was the work of Illuminati, or as they say “Higher powers taking a hold on me”. 

Let’s make a swift transition. 

The year is 2016, the then Kings XI Punjab were nearly through with a win with MS Dhoni’s Rising Pune Supergiants needing 23 runs off the last over. It was Axar Patel with the ball. 

The same Axar who now has a Test bowling average of 17, and a T20I average of 25.10. Dhoni’s team were struggling massively to keep feet with the other franchises. Six, dot, four, six and six? Seriously? And the crowd goes up on their feet? That’s the theatrics of it all. The power of script, I tell you. Some even believed that it is the ultimate truth, like religion. 

Dhoni has since then done that against Corey Anderson, Jaydev Unadkat and even almost threatened to do that to Abdul Samad and Umesh Yadav. The underlying lesson: Don’t doubt Dhoni because the Script > Dhoni

Or for that matter of fact, don’t even doubt Dwayne Bravo. CSK’s return game, against arch-rivals MI in 2018 will go down as possibly a classic but seldom do people know the art of a good script. At least now make a note. Somewhere, quickly!

Kedar Jadhav, on one knee really won CSK a game and screwed his career? If that’s not a writer working overtime staring at trippy wall-art and have consumed some MSD… 

Let me take you down a road that RCB fans would be wishful not to be taken, the no-ball route. During lockdown, you must have watched it over and again, especially when the world had flipped upside down. 

Two was needed off one ball, and then he bowls a no-ball, that too at the home of opposition. That too against a rival. Let me put it again. You are a veteran, you have a T20 World Cup against your name and then you make the rookie mistake of bowling a no-ball off the last ball in front of a vociferous away fan. That would never happen in any other sport or even cricket. 

But IPL, oh man. They have the finest Cross, MontBlanc, Sheaffer and Lamy out there. If people from the other side of the world are reading this, please buy those brand pens and give it to your writers. 

Clearly, I haven’t received one. 

Royal Challengers Bangalore, Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals  don’t have a title yet. Simple explanation for RCB, their owner has run more borders than the team to the final. And for the others, stealing players from other franchises only gets you to one point. That point isn’t a title. 

IPL is fixed. Now you know the power of a good (not this) script. 

What if I told you that the IPL is well scripted by a bunch of unpaid interns?