If you find IPL engrossing, we suggest you now switch channels to the other game that’s being played out there. It will make IPL matches look amateurish and anaemic. It’s got more blunders than wonders, more zeroes than heroes, more catastrophes than trophies. It’s the ITL - the International Tariff League. And the best part is that it’s being played by every country you know, and many you don’t. This includes islands populated entirely by penguins (no relatives of a political leader from Maharashtra).
Who invented this wonderful game, you ask? It’s the mastermind, the great rewriter of rules, the one and only (thank God!) Don Trumper.
Earlier in his life, Trumper was not known to be much of a cricket fan. The closest he came to cricket was being featured in glossy magazines alongside Long Legs and Fine Legs. And when he talked to the media, all he would do was make a Silly Point. But life is full of in-swingers and out-swingers, and incredibly, Trumper has climbed up the professional ladder and taken total charge of the great game.
Soon after the ITL began, almost everyone found Trumper unplayable. When he was not dishing out bumpers and bouncers, he would opt for leg-break – the literal kind. His opponents didn’t have a leg to stand on. Panic and despair spread across the teams in the fray – the India Ingratiators, the EU Ex-Colonisers, the Japan Shrunken Samurais…. Then temperatures rose to fever pitch as the ITL geared itself for the fixture everyone was waiting for – the grudge match between Triumphant Trumpers and the Chinese Checkers aka the Xi XI.
The two teams are very different from each other. The Trumpers don’t just reveal their secret strategy, they brag about it. As for the Xi XI, their game plans remain top secret. As they say, the Chinese are inscrutable i.e. you can’t screw them.
Trumpers opened the batting with their customary sequence of big shots landing outside the stadium. But the Chinese Checkers held their nerve. As we said, they are inscrutable – you could not say for sure if they were being roasted or toasted.
Then it was the Trumper’s turn to bowl. He looked menacingly at the batsman confronting him. This was the moment of truth. Charging in with a long runup, he bowled a lethally short delivery but the batsman managed to despatch it over the fence. Angered, Trumper had blood in his nostrils as he took a longer runup and bowled even shorter – so short that the ball bounced back sharply after pitching. Trumper became the first bowler in world cricket history to be struck by his own bumper. Now, a hit on the head can cause serious damage to internal mechanisms. Trumper staggered, his eyes glazed and he began to spew gibberish. Alas, nobody could tell the difference from his normal speech. Phew! There was a call for a Strategic Time Out – time to rethink and re-look at all that was happening.
Let’s hope there are enough sane people around to bid a firm goodbye to the International Tariff League.
(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.)
