An anonymous insider provided insights about Kolkata Knight Riders, a team comprising several legends, in 2009
Over the years, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has undoubtedly evolved into one of the most significant domestic sports leagues across all the major sports in the world. Despite not being a majority sport in the world, IPL has found itself on the lips of non-cricket fans.
And while the league kept evolving riding on its success, it has also witnessed several scams. From fixing to bans, IPL has had its share, but there's one scam that has faded over time from the minds of Indian cricket fans. However, it must be noted that this scam in question was the first-ever IPL scam.
It didn't hurt the sport or the league to a great extent but became a headache for one particular franchise – the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
The entire incident started as an anonymous blog named 'Fake IPL Player'. And what about the blog? At first, it was like any other blog, giving insights about the team. From team line-up predictions to analysis and opinion, somebody penned their thoughts about the Riders. Nothing was wrong; no harm was done – just an ordinary blog page.
Before the 2009 season, the then-coach of the Riders, John Buchanan, had openly disclosed that the season would see multiple captains. And with that, a rift started inside the dressing room. Dressing room conversations aren't supposed to come out, but they did find a place on the internet via this blog. 2009 was a year when the internet was in a nascent state in India, but the blog's material was so convincing that media houses started reporting the claims made on the blog.
The blog predicted John Buchanan's departure as coach, a change in the opening order, and so on. The Riders' management felt that somebody inside the camp was leaking the information. In fact, players were not allowed to use laptops inside the camp, and the management even sent Akash Chopra and Sanjay Bangar back to India from South Africa.
The anonymous blogger was a smarty pants and had the brains to avoid legal hassle, and therefore, he did not use the name of the franchise or the name of the players. Instead, he used code names.
For example:
And so on…
As the season proceeded, the blog's posts subdued. And finally, in 2009, the mastermind revealed himself. Anupam Mukherjee – the anonymous writer from Bengaluru who had no connection to the Kolkata Knight Riders whatsoever.
Mukherjee revealed that while cricket experts analysed the game as it went on, he wanted to give the readers something unique. Therefore, he spiced things up, but his work was mostly fiction, even though they had some coincidence with whatever was going on with KKR in 2009.
A state of confusion inside the franchise and among fans, but no harm was done except Akash Chopra and Sanjay Bangar never returned to play the IPL again. As we mentioned earlier, no real harm done!
