Bangalore, April 03: In season one and two (and maybe three) it was the Kolkata Knight Riders, in season two it was Rajasthan Royals and now, it’s undoubtedly the Kings XI Punjab.
The Mohali based side are officially the laughing stock of this edition of the Indian Premier League and the reason, besides being their obvious cricketing failure, seems to be something a little fishier. It appears that Punjab and Preity Zinta have finally succumbed to the Bollywood cricketing curse.
In season one, that hoodoo belonged to Shah Rukh Khan and his merry men – the Kolkata Knight Riders. They were a joke before the first ball was even bowled, in their extravagantly, bling black and gold kit. Their brand value was unquestionable, with the king of Bollywood, the lord of controversy (Shoaib Akhtar) and the prince of Kolkata (Sourav Ganguly) in their ranks.
When the Knight Riders won the tournament’s first ever match, and by 140 runs at that, suddenly they weren’t so funny anymore. Brendon McCullum bled runs, smashing 158 off 73 balls, which confirmed the suspicions of cynics who believed the IPL would be nothing but a bowler’s torture chamber. When KKR, as they became fondly known in a tournament that reduces everything to an abbreviation of some sort, won their next match, the King of Bollywood was believed to have invested wisely.
Four crushing defeats later, KKR were looking as likely to fall over as Khan’s gelled hair in the rain. The rest of their tournament was up and down and they won three, lost three, had a match abandoned and won their final encounter to finish sixth on the log. They weren’t the wooden spooners and they fared better than the Royal Challengers Bangalore but ending third from the bottom was probably not what King Khan anticipated when he invested in his school friend Lalit Modi’s venture.
That was just the beginning, and the next season Khan was doomed to the ignominy of being stone last. He arrived in South Africa ready to woo local fans but found himself being taunted by boos instead. Infighting, a change of captain and the Dada controversy had all haunted KKR but they were nothing compared to the ghosts that would emerge from South Africa. KKR lost three of their opening four matches, before an eight match losing streak that saw them plummet and remain at the bottom of the log. Midway through that embarrassment, Khan returned to India, saying he would only consider going back to South Africa when the team started winning.
This season things have been a little better for KKR. Along with a change in kit colour (they call it purple, but it looks an odd shade of blue), they’ve won half their matches and seem to have settled down. Khan has looked like the Mad Hatter: scolding them publicly on twitter and telling them not make excuses, and then turning around and adoringly saying he never gave up them. He insists that he does not interfere with their game and while many of his players have said he is the kindest and most humble man they know, one can’t help but wonder how far KKR would have got without Khan.
The Rajasthan Royals’ Cinderella story of IPL 1 would not have complete without an actual Cinderella, so in season 2, Shilpa Shetty bought the team. Between posing for the cover of a South African fitness magazine and hanging out with her then, soon-to-be-husband, Shetty suffered the embarrassment of the defending champions finishing where KKR had the season before – sixth.
Rajasthan were not quite as bad as KKR had been, they won six out of their 14 matches, but they were also not the team they had been the season before. Conditions were different in South Africa and lightening was unlikely to strike twice, but the Royals were expected to at least make the final four.
What seemed inherent to their troubles was the battle for the spotlight between Shane Warne, whose leadership and legend and helped them lift the inaugural trophy, and Shetty, whose looks were enough to get her more fans than Warne. While Warne cozyed up to Shilpa’s little sister, the co-owner of the team maintained her perfectly preened look and waited for the fruits of her investment to pay off. They didn’t. Not until their fourth match of this year’s tournament. The Royals lost three matches in a row this year but have since picked themselves up to fourth on the log.
During all this Priety Zinta watched her team qualify for the semi-finals of the tournament’s first edition and finish fifth last year, just missing out on a semi-final spot. She thought this was the year they would go all the way and crown her the ultimate queen of cricket.
It was not to be. An out of form Yuvraj Singh and Brett Lee, coupled with a dysfunctional top order and wayward bowling lineup has left Zinta red-faced as the team have only clocked up one win, and that was in a Super Over.
Zinta seems to understand cricket a lot better than her other two, Bollywood colleagues, and while she too has insisted that she only the selectors have a say in the team, perhaps she should intervene. Her squad has the personnel, with Rusty Theron a prime example of someone who shouldn’t be watching while Brett Lee gave away 25 runs in the 17th over to effectively lose the match for Punjab. Lee has gushed about how Zinta is his favourite actress, but that shouldn’t be enough for him to keep his place.
Zinta has never come across as ditzy, she has written for BBC South Asia and openly spoke out against the Indian mafia, when others chose to remain silent. She has a degree in criminal psychology and recently completed a course at Harvard. All the signs are that she is an intelligent woman. Now if only she could stop believing her own junk that she is the “team’s good luck factor” and start forcing some change, she may not fall victim to the curse of Bollywood in the IPL.
———Agencies