I followed the IPL Player auctions first on Set Max, then via Cricinfo and finally resorted to a combination of Cricinfo and CNN-IBN (in fact Gaurav Kalra's comment about Gayatri Reddy being the 'diva' and how he has no qualms admitting that he looks at the screen when she's on was a squirmer !). And, while everyone jaw-dropped and registered some choreographed umbrage at the non-bids ('unsold') of Sourav Ganguly, Gayle, Jayasurya and Lara (especially Ganguly), I think Harsha Bhogle got it summed up best as "everyone has a sell-by date and Sourav probably thought that his wasn't near yet". I suspect that Anil Kumble was sounded out to a similar possibility, not to mention the contradiction in terms about being part of a State Cricket Association among other things while playing at the IPL and hence his "mentor" role at the RCB. Rahul Dravid on the other hand probably ended up getting the venomous end of the dirty stick that the Mallyas wave around and hence this extremely pejorative statement from the owner.

Here's how the teams stack up.

Coming back to the Sourav Ganguly issue. I feel that the effigy burning drama and the sad theatre of hate that is going to unfold at Kolkata doesn't befit him. His fans should realize that not being bid for by any of the 10 franchisees does in no way diminish the stature and greatness of the man. As does the lack of faith exposed by Mallya not demean the fierceness of The Wall. On any given day, you are what you are by your deeds, not by your memories. For a cricketer and probably for every sports personality, that translates into the happy memories they injected into the national psyche. An auction for a private sporting club (pretending to be the national cricket representing body) for an event that is exposing equally odd biases isn't the measure of worth for anyone. I'll admit that I'll be watching the IPL matches (irrespective of the fact that the CNN-IBN panel has now made me suspect Sanjay Manjrekar's cricketing brain) and while I may not be really overjoyed with the team selections, I am not going to drown in misery and curse/cuss at the Kolkata Knight Riders. The greatest joy that I've had with Sourav wasn't that they said about him being second to God on the off-side, or, that he took off his t-shirt at the Lord's, or, that at Taunton, while being miserable about his slow start I was jumping up and down on the sofa with his hammer-n-tongs attack on the bowling. The joy was in realizing that he took his time in building up the character of a team that didn't take things lying down or, didn't decide to throw in the towel. And, that he wasn't the quintessential dandy Bengali who'd be foppish and squeamish when things went tough.

You don't want to measure that kind of a man and, those men with their presence or, absence in IPL auctions. You'd want to wish that the new crop realizes that and brings forth an unbridled aggression that would do the teams a power of good.