Buzz in the Camps!

Hello fellas!

A week to go before the ACL begins and this post will help you know get upto speed on what each team has been doing. Also, more has come to light about the ‘transparent’ auction process which has to be shared with this community. Without further ado then:

a.       Psycat’s Supernova: Psycat has officially entered into the Limca Book of Records for being able to make happen one of the most incredible events in the history of mankind - bagging Hey Ram, again, and the ACL supremo, again, for Supernova. Data scientists are busy calculating the chances of that but initial reports suggest that it is at least as impossible as Sreeshant quietly celebrating after taking a wicket. To add to it, if we check the probability of Psycat bagging two key Supernova’s members - Anti Jonty & Unclekar, again in this auction, reports conclude that it is as unlikely as Manmohan Singh smiling. So, congratulations to Psycat. After this exciting event and a few parties thrown by Lalit Modi at the cheapest ‘hotspot’ it seems Supernova has forgotten that they also have to come out and play their matches. Given that their current approach to training is to have no training  at all they might be better off forfeiting their matches. But as is always, with Lalit Modi onboard, any sudden revision of rules to prop up his team is a distinct possibility.

b.      Kalyan’s Intimidators: Easily the most inclusive of all teams. Their strategy was to buy any player who no team was interested in. With 90% of their buys costing 20% of the purse they had half of their auction money left when they were asked to stop bidding after they had got 14 players for themselves. It was a good strategy but they missed the fine print of ACL rules where it says that they can only play 11 players in any match. After coming to know of this – Intimidators have gone into damage control mode and BR Hills is offering weekend conditioning sessions on the basics of cricket like holding a ball, fielding a ball and holding a bat. It is left to be seen how much they learn from it though and how much the Intimidators can intimidate on the field. My favourite team though because of the inclusive culture!! Go Intimidators!!

c.       Vandals: The most settled team. They have a top 3 batting unit and a top 3 bowling unit in the ACL. The inside story that is emerging is that Vindaloo and Nerdy have been devising ways to get the better of others for quite sometime now. Nerdy has been seen making ‘casual’ talk with team owners and icon players before the auction week as an outsider to the ACL. Armed with the choices and bets that other teams had in mind and Vindaloos knowledge of players, little wonder it is that all of Vandals bids came just about correct (although why frustoo madrasi was bought is subject to much speculation). However, the ‘settled team’ thoughts have perhaps gone to their heads. It has been talked about they just need to turn up for a match to win. If they keep this up, surely they will be like rabbits caught in the headlights when the ACL starts.

d.      Raj’s Raptors: This team has got a couple of good players with a couple of absolutely rubbish players. How they are going to perform is anybody’s guess at this moment. Einstein has been busy teaching decision trees and algorithms to its team to be able to distinguish a bad ball from a good ball. It is also rumoured that Basanti has been hired by Einstein as a data researcher to mine insights from opposition players’ social networking sites. Innovation is an admirable trait but as you can tell, it can easily become a nuisance. Players are, it appears, already disillusioned and are thinking about creating self - help conditioning camps for themselves under the guidance of the obscenely enthusiastic and ‘fun loving’ Betaal.

e.      Ravi’s Ravens: This is the team that has good belief in their abilities and are very focused on using it. In the auction, Another Bun was grumpy throughout and with most of their first choices taken by other teams there were valid reasons for it. However, they immediately started team development conditioning and coaching. Kallizaban and Another Bun are having closed doors one on one mentoring statuses with their team on A- being a team player and B- sledging hard. Given the limited cricketing skills in the team this is undoubtedly the best possible approach. This makes sure they sledge throughout the match as a team and even if they lose, who cares – they did their best (sledging is independent of cricketing skill, experience and match conditions, you see). Not every team can come back from a defeat with the same feeling. My second favourite team!

f.        Chirags’ Challengers: Craydit was a happy man throughout the auction. What he was happy about though nobody knew especially with the fantastic buys he got. Recently, from trusted sources, it has come to light that he has been able to bag two big sponsors. GWS Sweet Chariot has agreed to give half a samosa to each player if they reach the semis and one samosa each if they reach finals. The second sponsor is Iodex Pain Relief subject to the condition that they promote this product during the strategic timeouts. Craydit has been heard referring to these as significant stepping stones to the team’s success. The current team building exercise that the team is involved in is preparing the skit/snap dance that they will be presenting to the Iodex Pain Relief in their final round of negotiations. I like this clear sense of purpose – my third favourite team.    

The rumor is that managing communication through streamlined channels has been suddenly added to G&Os of a lot of people. Do prepare yourself to hear lot of ‘official’ statements and press releases. So typical!

Adios

(P.S.: You know where to tune in for the truth behind the statements.)