Rubbing egg yolk on your scalp maybe great for the follicles, but if the yellow is on your face, it isn't quite as pleasurable. The act of wiping egg off your face makes you feel low; it stinks and is almost always messy. I know it, as I have had quite a lot of the yolk on my face lately.

I am one of those who had written the epitaph of IPL even before the first white ball was bowled.

We should have known we were in a hopeless minority. Evidently, actually only a few of us had dubbed IPL as the world's most expensive suicide attempt ever. I mean a few armchair critics and journalists, which are occasionally confused as the same thing. But then didn't Richard Dawkins say, though cats cannot be herded, but if present is some numbers, they make a lot of noise.

So we made noise. We wondered with a sage-like foresight how many would turn up to watch Manpreet Gony bowl to Wriddhiman Saha. After all, the Aussies were returning home after a bunch of matches anyways. When we saw upwards of 50,000 swarming the stands the first few days, we virtually concluded they were there to ogle at the bulging bosoms and skimpy skirts of the Washington Redskins.

A few noble politicians ensured, we sitting snugly on our armchairs, were proved incorrect yet again. The women either got banned or their bras and skirts got replaced by a modern day leotard like hijab. But the crowds still came.

Yet, critics and journalists are incorrigible. We are now insisting the crowds aren't turning up and sitting glued to TV sets for the cricket. Because IPL isn't cricket at all! Its some sort of a tamasha; the world's first televised rape of a pure, demure, angelical game. And one Lalit Modi is being named as the prime suspect, with unnamed members of a gang called BCCI the co-conspirators responsible for this beastly crime.

Sorry, but we journalists like our breads buttered on both sides. So while we are happily running columns of historians and cricket aficionados, denouncing this crime in the strongest possible words, we are also devoting three full pages everyday, outlining every step of this daily grisly act and mounting special programmes on television, detailing every bit of the voyeurism being perpetrated in the name of cricket.

But I guess I am being a bit too harsh on armchair criticism. It's a tough job really. Try theorizing and then concluding for the whole world this being the real fact - all by yourselves - and you'll know what I mean.

It's quite another matter that we swear by change. We want economies opened up, we scream liberalization and slam our economist Prime Minister for saying CEOs make too much money and splurge it even more. We welcome malls as the ultimate harbinger of our growth story and fete multiple zeros being added each year to IIM pass-outs' salaries. We want our cars to be snazzier and crib our internet band-with is so damn slow, as compared to the ones accessed by the reviled girls of Washington Redskins back home.

Hell, even newspaper editors swear by snappier stories cut down to max 300 words, have banned page turns (continued on page.....) and insist TV news audiences do not have more than 90 seconds of attention span. We even launch channels catering exclusively to the 90 second audience.

But we insist a shorter, snappier version of cricket has robbed the virginity of our most beloved and sacred sport. We are adamant, that just like good foreplay, building an innings (and two) over five days is the real thing. We assume the swathes turning up to watch the IPL in the grounds and on their bean-bags are boorish brutes who understand nothing of the excitement and purity of a batsman blocking away for a five hour 47 minutes innings. For an absorbing innings of 81 not out.

We refuse to realise Hum Log and Buniyaad have given way to Indian Idol and Nach Baliye.

We accuse Mayawati of divisive class politics, but don't accept we are creating a few class divides of our own by insisting the bow-tie adorned, crisply starched jacketed gentlemen who clap at the rate of five times an hour are the true connoisseurs of the game, as opposed to the jumping jacks who whistle at every six (and there have been 108 in IPL till the last count).

We frown when we hear of cricketers being paid million dollar salaries, and conclude their bulging bank balance is leading to the death of real cricket. But we rarely question if the billions earned by the Ambanis or the Mallyas (and who bought the teams) did the same to business enterprise. We swear by free enterprise but want it to stop at the doorsteps of BCCI.

Shouldn't we now ask ourselves that if we strongly suspect our nation is on the move and consequently has lesser time for anything but a desire to woo Mammon, it makes sense to have another shorter, snazzier and more exhilarating version of the game? Even if it means more money for those adorning the war-paint and wearing the coloured flannels.

Can't we also ask ourselves why the skill required for blocking deliveries for five hours and 47 minutes for an absorbing 81 not out, is being considered any superior to the skill needed to tonk the bowlers to score 79 of just 27 deliveries? Aren't we being divisive, class conscious individuals by proclaiming as one skill to be more superior to the other? Aren't we guilty of reverting to the days of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra? Aren't we treating T20 cricket like porn - we publicly maintain we abhor it but in private give it a peek or two?

It may be time for us to stop being shy about enjoying a quickie. It may be time to recognise a McGrath and a Warne foxing the rampaging batsmen in four overs is as much skill as a Monty Panesar bowling 32 crisp overs in a day, sixteen of them being maidens. And that a Gautam Gambhir hitting out half centuries with strike rate of 200, match after match, is as much of an achievement as a Dravid hitting a 100 in five sessions. Maybe its time to remember Lillee hitting Miandad with his bat did as much damage to the image of Test cricket as Harbhajan slapping Sreesanth will do to IPL.

I recognize maybe all of you think I am getting a bit carried away. That I am being a wee bit more melodramatic than what the occasions demands. I only submit to all - please understand I am in a hurry to wipe the egg off my face. I am hoping I can do it, before Manpreet Gony bowls to Wriddhiman Saha again.