Costliest slap in cricket’s history

The slap must be reverberating in Harbhajan Singh’s ears. When he hit Sreesanth beneath his eyes, Harbhajan could hardly imagine that it would go down to history as the costliest slap ever in the history of Indian cricket.

IPL Mint in Suit Lalit Modi spelled out the arithmetic in yesterday’s Press Conference.

He said a player's fee is divided over 14 matches and Harbhajan will be paid for only the first two matches. The volatile offie forfeits his fees from third match onwards, besides the ban for the rest of the IPL.

Bhajji was bought by Mukesh Ambani's Mumbai Indians for a cool Rs 3.4 crore but the Jalandhar spinner would get only Rs 48 lakh.

So that slap that earned him a ban as well, cost Bhajji neat Rs three crore.

Meanwhile, having been to umpteen BCCI Press Conferences, I did not expect it to be a tidy affair yesterday but what I witnessed was mind-boggling.

PR guys said press conference would take place at the 17^th floor of the Maurya Sheraton and that triggered mayhem. Imagine 200-strong crowd, armed with tripods, mikes and paraphernalia, trying to squeeze themselves into two elevators. By the time half of them managed to reach the place, fresh announcement said they don’t have enough space there, so it would take place at porch. That ensued second round of pandemonium. Well, then we were told they have made the arrangements and it would indeed take place at 17^th floor. That triggered a mini-stampede, and TV guys mouthed the most exotic choicest of abuses you can hope to come across before making it to the place just before Modi and Farokh Engineer started the press conference.

Next round of drama took place there that included angry shouts at Modi as well. And all along, Engineer screamed “Please be quiet, show some respect for Mr Modi.”

Well, that was really asking for too much.

Anyway, all this while Modi could have simply booked a hall beforehand and told that the Press Conference would start at so-and-so hour.