Another Commercial Break.....

1..2..3..4..5..DLF Maximum..7..8..and so on.

If things stay as they are,with the excessive commercialisation of sports(Read IPL),this is going to be the norm when kids start learning how to count.

With so much money involved in this tournament and people earning money for as much as digging earth on the cricket field(Read Neil Mckenzie,Alistair Campbell among others)and even for giggling repeatedly and cracking senseless jokes on air(Not Mandira),I wonder if its a cricket tournament after all.

All said and done,some of the matches have been edge of the seat thrillers spoiled somewhat only by the irate and moronic commentary and the extremely annoying proliferation of advertisements between matches.

Fours,sixes,wickets,dot-balls and all that can happen on a cricket field has found a sponsor.Even the dog that came on the field has rumored to be sponsored by Vodafone.Wherever you go,our network follows.The sponsorship mania has ad-jaculated me too.

As I was Titan watching the DLF IPL, It Ford Pickup struck me as rather unfortunate that Indian cricket commentary had Parryware Kitchen sunk to such appalling depths where commentators have to Anchor plug brand names into every sentence they Pillsbury utter. MDH Masala seasoned campaigners like Arun'Dabur'Lal are now tongue Park Avenue tied as their regular cliches need to be Escorts Hospital surgically inserted with ads.

“We are in for a Parle cracker of a ITC match”, practices Arun. “That Vadilal Ball icecream was four from the Dairy Milk moment it left the BDM bat. It has gone the BSNL long distance.Gilette Razor edged, and taken. This match, one feels, will go down to the Havell’s wire".

What next??Maybe Branded Player Nicknames.Like Rahul"Birla Cement"Dravid-The Wall or Swapnil"Nano"Asnodkar or maybe even a John"DELL"Buchanan given his whims and fancies for laptop-ising the game of cricket.Or maybe during the player interviews,you could have ads flashing in the background when the player utters a particular word.Let say for example,Dhoni while answering Ravi Shastri,speaks about"performance".Whoa,you could have the DUREX logo flashing in the background.Or maybe,with the advent of new technology,in years to come,maybe we will be trained and brought up by these advertisers such that on hearing certain magical words like"Phosphoric acid"during the strategy time-out,an entire stadium full of people gets converted into zombies,walking nonchalantly towards the nearest Pepsi store.

Hey people,Don't mistake me.I'm totally in love with the IPL.This slambang version of cricket is too entertaining to miss out on.The pleasure of listening to legendary ex-cricketer commentators announcing with breathless excitement, the first DLF Maximum in any game with the fervour of a teenager at an Iron Maiden concert screaming at each one of their ridiculously homogenous songs,is too much to resist.

P.S:How about giving ads to the sultry and sexy cheerleaders??We won't complain as long as we get to see more of them.They're SIMPLY SMOKING HOT...