Dead, with no ID cardAuthor:

S R Ramakrishna Date: 03 Mar 2008 In Mid-Day, a News paper In Mumbai

NO TALES: Dead men can’t be asked questions, a fact clerks never understandThe recent Indian Premier League (IPL) auctions have brought home a new truth Indians love Indians। Our sponsors did not give much bhaav to foreign players barring Andrew Symonds and preferred Indian stars, over proven performers from across the seas.It is extremely bizarre to see Bhajji getting a top draw over Shane Warne or Mutthiah Muralitharan. I tried to figure out, if there is any logic and sent out my khabroos to find what was going on at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The information they gave me is truly earth-shattering the whole auction was fixed! Prices for individual players were determined much in advance following threats from Raj Thackeray and his men who have infiltrated IPL.I have been told that Raj held a secret meeting with the BCCI officials and told them that he did not want migrant players to earn more than the sons of the soil. He told them that he had a solid backing from BCCI Chief Sharad Pawar. He threatened to unleash his spokesperson Shishir Shinde if the BCCI did not concede to his demands. He reminded them of Shinde’s antics in the nineties when he had destroyed a Wankhede pitch after the government refused to stall an India-Pakistan match.After the revelations by my jasoos, everything seemed to have fallen in place. Now, I know why Harbhajan Singh gets much more than a Warne or a Muralitharan or how Mohammed Kaif, who can’t find place in Indian Test or One-Day International teams, is getting double than Ricky Ponting, captain of the world’s best cricket team.I wanted to know why Murali got a decent price, after all? “Silly, don’t you know he’s originally a Tamil, who migrated couple of centuries ago to Sri Lanka? He’s our own man, so we had to make concessions” I was being scoffed at and I didn’t like it one bit.And how did Symonds get such an astronomical figure?“We can’t answer that question. We will be tagged as racist. All we can say that he’s been our own person in a sense. We have asked Bhajji to make peace with him,” said an official with a grave face.I had an eerie feeling. Did Mumbai deliberately lose out on Rohit Sharma because he could be a migrant from UP? I am yet to get an answer for this.