Page 246 - IPL1

V

isitors to the Gateway of India during the week of the IPL
auction would have noticed an unexpected sight in the Mumbai
harbour. A sleek white yacht, some 95 metres long, loomed over
the scattered silhouettes of dhows and dinghies. Its owner, the
flamboyant billionaire Vijay Mallya, is one of the most powerful
players in the new world of Indian sport.

A well-groomed businessman whose biggest asset is the United
Breweries group, Mallya is almost as recognisable across India
as the Bollywood film stars associated with the Kolkata and
Mohali teams, and his interests are diversifying all the time. In
March, Mallya’s Force India motor-racing team made its Formula
One debut on the grid in Melbourne. And in April, the Bangalore
Royal Challengers were due to begin their campaign to carry off
the DLF Indian Premier League’s US $3million first prize.

Things did not go according to plan, with Bangalore winning
only four of their 14 group games, but the squad selected at the
auction was a reminder that Mallya is not the sort of man to
settle for second best. The Royal Challengers - named after one
of UB’s leading whisky brands - were able to call upon what on
paper looked like a potent line-up, topped off by proven world
beaters in every department. Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble, the
two finest Bangalorean cricketers of the moment and India’s

two most recent Test captains, were both recruited, while the
international contingent included the likes of the South African
all-rounder Jacques Kallis, the hard-hitting New Zealander Ross
Taylor, Australia’s left-arm seamer Nathan Bracken and the West
Indian batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

Also on board were Cameron White, the well-built Victorian
leg-spinning all-rounder who entered the competition in
possession of the highest individual score in Twenty20 cricket,
having struck 141 not out for Somerset against Worcestershire
in 2006, and South Africa’s Dale Steyn, the fastest-rising young
quick in world cricket. With the wily Bracken, a superb purveyor
of slower balls, and Zaheer Khan, so often a match-winner for
India, primed to lend new-ball support, there seemed to be no
reason for Bangalore not to make an impact, especially when
they added the Pakistani batsman Misbah-ul-Haq, the man who
came so close to singlehandedly beating India in the final of the
ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa, during round 2 of auctions.

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