"What's this IPL thing?" I asked a friend on the phone. There was a long silence. "Are you serious?" he said finally. I could have sworn there was a little sob in his voice. "I know it's some cricket thing," I said, guessing wildly, "I'm just not sure what."
His trembling voice might have been on account of disappointment in me, or exhilaration at being presented with a bonus opportunity to talk about it. Either way, he launched into a happy jabbering full of words like "franchise" and "league" and "carnival atmosphere" and "the future of cricket"
