Not only players but franchise owners- some of them business tycoons and celebrities- are deeply passionate about the fate of their teams.

By Ayaz Memon

Mukesh Ambani’s elation when Yuvraj Singh was dismissed in the match against Mumbai the other night came through graphically on television. Business tycoons are usually inscrutable, but here was the senior Ambani breaking into a broad smile first, then letting out a yelp of delight and almost doing a small jig in the Patiala Pavilion which has become the bastion of the Mumbai Indian supporters.

Yuvraj’s was a key wicket in the match which was obviously not lost on Mukesh Ambani. He may be the country’s richest man (and fourth in the world, I learn from the latest edition of a business magazine), but he is also an avid sports follower, and now for good measure, also the owner of a franchise. Wife Neeta, on whom falls the mantle of managing Mumbai Indians, so to speak, was perhaps only a whit behind in expressing her delight.

This was not the only example of smart work done by the TV crew that night. A little later, Preity Zinta was shown jumping up and down in glee when Sachin Tendulkar holed out in Piyush Chawla’s first over. Punjab, at that point in time, would have liked to believe that they had a chance to win the match having got the master batsman. Up in the stands, co-owner Ness Wadia of Britannia, Bombay Dyeing and Go Air, was giving the high-five to his friends. By the end of the match, of course, both looked downcast, but that’s how the cookie crumbles.

Shilpa Shetty, part owner of Rajasthan Royals along with her husband Raj Kundra (and sister Shamita Shetty) has been at all (I think) the matches her team has played, and been no less involved. They have gushed when the team has done well, moaned when Warne and Co have lost, but kept track of the progress ball-by-ball as it were. (As an aside, I learn that Raj is actually a football fanatic, but he obviously is also a smart businessman considering how much his team’s valuation has soared since he made his investment.)

Shah Rukh Khan’s super celebrity status makes him perhaps more watched than his team Kolkata Knight Riders, and it would be fair to say that in the first couple of seasons at least, the TRP ratings went up whenever his team was playing because everybody wanted to see him in the stands with his entourage from the film industry. A heavy work schedule has limited his appearances this season (some speculate that it is superstition since KKR has not been doing very well as yet), but SRK is right behind the eight-ball if you follow his tweets.

From a sheer time-management point of view, Vijay Mallya of Royal Challengers Bangalore remains peerless. Between selling booze, ensuring that Kingfisher Airlines runs on time, hopping across continents to see if Adrian Sutil can make a podium finish in an F1 race for Force India, he is miraculously back to catch the cricket action almost every time. It helps if you are super-rich and have your own jetplane, yachts and speed cars to help cover long distances, but even so…

Lesser in profile in the public domain (in consonance with the conservative culture of South India), but no less ardent when it comes to sticking by their respective teams are the families that own the Deccan Chargers and the Chennai Super Kings. They’ve been here, there everywhere, and if the TV cameras have not focused on them enough, it’s only a matter of time.

What drives such people to spend so much time and effort on cricket has been the subject of much debate and speculation. Business interests, surely, but I would like to believe that unless there is a genuine passion for sports, this will be difficult to sustain and will show through in due course of time.

Sport alone of all passions can make a person become childlike. It helps, of course, if you have the deep pockets to live out such passion. As the old American saying goes, ``The difference between men and the boys is only in the price of the toys.’’

In the context of the IPL, you can throw in a few women too!

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