The IPL is very much Lalit Modi’s brainchild and like any parent, he is fiercely possessive of it. Still, there are times when one wishes he would go easy on the adjectives. For instance, yesterday while being interviewed by Mandira Bedi, Modi grandly announced that the IPL was not like the EPL (the English Premier League, arguably the world’s most followed football league) in which just a few teams (Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea, according to him) had a chance of winning, but was much more competitive and open. He was referring to the fact that prior to the matches yesterday, most of the teams were camped within one point of each other.  He then ang a paen of praise to the team owners for selecting such wonderfully competitive teams and for the nth time, told us that South Africa was such a lovely place!

Of course, he  did not point out that the EPL has twenty, rather than eight teams, or that after playing half a dozen matches, even  EPL teams are often very close together – the difference emerges only after about a dozen matches.

You might agree with him, but we are laughing our heads off here.