IPL Season 3 Delights; The Game do not sustain the White-livered

'These men are bravehearts, they sort of remind me of the Brazilian football team at their best', said an exuberant Chuck Doherty. Why should not they when they are trained to leap around by one of the bravest cricketers around that has braved 'hostile epileptic seizures' to intimidate the best of the batsmen with that lethal dive at point. Something that also has many a time disrupted the calculations of the batsmen in taking a run. But it was the Mumbai Indians storming into the finals on the wings of that mighty Mumbai West Indian Keiron Pollard, why should Doherty be exuberant, particularly when he was a Royal Challengers supporter?

'This sprightliness of mine owes to the magnificence displayed by my favourite cricketer and countryman Kevin Pietersen.' 'His taking the team through in Jaipur against Rajasthan Royals with that 29 ball 62 was brilliant, but second to a more significant achievement by the cricketer.' 'My heart goes out to him largely for that big gesture by him to play on a ground that witnessed a couple of cracker-blasts, a few hours before the start of the game. 'And I thought that the present generation of Britons was lily-hearted transfixed by even the silliest sound of a tyre going flat, considering the fact that their ancestors had dared typhoons, storms and sinister people to establish those colonies of theirs', said Doherty.

Talking about bravery, someone that has always strived to show a brave face - even though it has occassionally seemed drifting towards nincompoopery for some - is Shanthakumaran Sreesanth. The man whose name, ironically stands for 'peace' is better preferred by any Indian cricket fan of the present, to a legendary Indian skipper-spinner that had blasted out at a West Indian speedster after having bullied by a series of short-pitched thunderbolts, "One day you should be answering to God for this act". Doherty says that he loved to hear someone like Navjyot Singh Sidhu unconventionally and forthrightly commentating the game rather than someone apprehensively looking around, seeking permissions and spitting miserly after receiving the compensation for being a big bore in teh commenators' box, even though he was a great batsman of his times.

The 'Mr Congeniality award' goes to Sanjay Hazare, for being so good a person that is ever so ready to present the appealing side with anything, providing the appeal is vociferous and animated. Could this caricature be deemed as the epitome of the Indian umpiring scenario? Especially since, there has never been one from this part of the world making it into the elite ICC umpires panel since Venkataraghavan in the stone ages. Doherty thinks otherwise, ' Erring with a predisposition to that is always better than erring under a banner of infallibility. This can obviously save some heartaches such as those caused by one of those infallible umpires Daryll Harper. This way Hazare may have been exculpated by Doherty, whatsoever the Hazare acts should never be an inspiration for the judiciary of the country, even at times when it has to give a verdict against a set of clamouring lawyers.