Crystal ball gazing: Strategy Breaks in IPL II

Purists have already booked their preferred burial place but the thing ticking inside Lalit Modi’s skull can't wait to put them to sleep. Cricket luddites can go and fly a kite, Strategy Breaks are here to stay! At least till May 24.

Fuhrer Modi decrees there will be a seven-and-half minute break after every 10 overs so that Virender Sehwag can pop on your screen with a wig, MS Dhoni peddle a pesticide in bottle and Sachin Tendulkar try to convince about a bank that you just can't bank on.

Crystal ball gazing can be as much a puerile pleasure as cricket ball gazing and Doosra predicts how the following seven players would use the Strategy Breaks during IPL II:

1. Rahul Dravid: Having hit a miscued six before the break, he would shrink apologetically in his boots and shudder at the very thought of looking at himself in the mirror after this felony;

2. Harbhajan Singh: Banished to the solitude of deep third man, Bhajji would chase terrified teammates and empty his pocket to convince them that he has no hit-list this year;

3. MS Dhoni: Will rush to the coiffeur waiting just outside the rope for a new haircut resembling his wagon wheel;

4. Andrew Flintoff: Will inform Vijay Mallya about his readiness to join Bangalore Royal Challengers provided he is offered the blind-tasting job at any of his breweries for the rest of the year.

5. Ashok Dinda: Will be frogmarched off the ground for scratching all four of his quibbling Knight Riders captains;

6. Sourav Ganguly: Of them all, only Dada would be strategizing. He will tell L R Shukla, Wriddhiman Saha and Debabrata Das exactly how much they would get for switching off the dressing room light and putting a sack over John Buchanan’s head so that he can bean the Aussie.

7. Shane Warne: Would fish out his cell and frantically type a series of lewd text messages for plump British nurses before pressing the wrong button and sending it instead to his estranged wife Simone.