An EYE-PEE-YELL STORY:2050

As Anath Jayasuria prepared to face another ball, several thoughts raced through his mind. After being bought by the Mumbai Indians for an astronomical $25 million in the 2050 Indian Premier League (IPL) auction, he knew he had a reputation to keep up. Should he try a straight- forward Zandu balm Front Foot Drive this time, or should he aim for a Close-up Cover Drive? Or perhaps an ITC Square Cut would be a better idea? He realized he needed to hit an IBM boundary soon. Ever since IBM had announced they would pay Rs 1 lakh per boundary and Rs 5 lakh for a six, he had been trying to run less and hit more. Unfortunately, he hadn't been doing either in this match, because the Begusarai Bandits had some very good bowlers. The next ball,in midst of calculating the most profitable shot he played a Intel Inside Edge onto his Maggi middle stump and trudged off wearily the field along with his rattle snake bat to the accompaniment of boos from the Vodafone Zoozoo stand at the Kellogg's Special K-Cereal stadium in Udipi which were soon replaced by cheers as the new batsman Arjun Tendulkar came in to bat- the first time a father-son were going to play together in the same team in the history of the sport.
Relaxing in the Parle Glucose commentary box, Saurav Ganguly ruminated on the momentous changes in the game that had occurred since the IPL came into being. In 2010, he remembered, the game started to really grow, with huge sums of money being paid for the Pune and Kochi teams. Teams soon started springing up like frogs in the monsoon. And when the Gorakhpur Gorillas won the IPL in 2021, every district town in the country wanted its own side. Only Sachin Tendulkar was the omnipresent man still playing for the Mumbai Indians who had earned the tag of being unconquerable.

The IPL season was extended to six months in the year, then to 12 months and soon, once the villages started having their own sides, you had matches on all 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. All reality shows were aired in the cricket stadia and even a few movies screened there.
Industrialists sold off their old companies and bought IPL teams. Advertisers fought with each other to sponsor matches, stadiums, sixes, fours, shots, balls, wickets and what not. Every patch of the players' clothing, his arm guard, helmet, and pads was covered in advertisements. Durex started a new trend in merchandising with their radium abdomen guards which were selling like hot cakes.

As the money flowed in, players' salaries zoomed. Everybody wanted to be a cricketer. Engineering and medical colleges were deserted and Indian Institutes of Management converted themselves into institutes of cricketing management. Cheerleading became the most famous dance form across the country. Every college started having cheerleading workshops during their cultural festivals in addition to various famous dancers who had themselves started cheerleading academies.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Lalit Modi mooted a radical proposal in the Lok Sabha for nationalising the Board of Control for Cricket in India, pointing out that its profits would wipe out the government's fiscal deficit. He was also being held responsible for the food crisis in the country, he said, as villagers refused to till their fields and spent their time playing cricket instead.
A law prohibiting the transformation of arable land into cricket pitches was swiftly passed. A resolution to replace Gandhiji's photo on the currency notes with that of Lalit Modi's was also adopted unanimously.

Back in the commentary box, Ganguly did a rapid mental calculation and told his listeners that Ananth was now being paid the equivalent of Rs 10 lakh per run. Twice more than what Manchester United, who owned the Azamgarh Terrorists had offered. A twinge of regret passed through him -- during the IPL season in 2010, he recalled, he had been paid only about Rs 1.8 lakh per run. He needed to make more money, he thought. Maybe he would join Navjot Sidhu in The Great Indian Laughter Challenge and be paid lakhs for laughing. For the rest of the match, he practiced laughing hysterically at each ball.