That was the week that was

Alleged corruption
Influence peddling
Tax evasion
Bomb explosions (two of them)
Missing documents
Collusion
Two men fighting over a South African model

It makes the 'Stanford Experiment seem positively idyllic.

As a poster on the Guardian website said -

"All this, and Cameron imploding too. It's been a good week for Schadenfreude fans."

It's a rich man's world.

KP feels that England bowlers should have made more of an effort to get involved in the IPL. (Link)

He has a point, in terms of making yourself into a better player by competing against the best opposition you can find, but his main contention really is symptomatic of where cricket is heading at the moment -

"The difficulty in England when the IPL came about was that it was all a question of money, money, money. But it has become a 'World Cup' tournament."

In my book 'World Cup tournaments' don't take place every year - or at ten month intervals, which is the gap between the T20 World Cup in England last summer and the next one in the West Indies in a few weeks time.

And it's still very much a question of 'money money money'.

Crossing the Indian Ocean with the Adverts

A friend of mine is currently working out in Mumbai. We spoke on the phone a couple of days ago and his default position had moved to permanent incredulity when discussing the IPL.

'Every game is sold in the same way the FA Cup Final is in the UK - massive build up, pre-match analysis, posters and flags all over the place - and that's just for a simple group game. Lord knows what it's like when the final is on - the whole country is likely to explode.'

'The quantity of ads during play is remarkable. It makes Sky look restrained. They even manage to slot ads in between balls!'

The commentators are like that Hollywood director who said 'start with an earthquake and build up from there'