Not long ago, Britney Spears had been crowned as the ‘Queen of Pop’. With numerous hit singles, millions of albums sold and hugely successful tours, she was on her way to be enshrined as one of the greatest pop vocalist who ever lived.

But this Cinderella story came to a crashing end during the past few years, when things started to go horribly wrong in her life.

The downfall began, starting with two failed marriages one of which lasted only 18 hours and the other with an unknown backup dancer Kevin Federline with whom she had two children, to temporary moments of insanity like shaving her hair off and breaking the window of a car with an umbrella with the paparazzi around her.

All of her wild ways attracted a lot of legal problems on one hand and on the other she was being forced to make trips to rehab facilities to get rid of her alcohol problems and get a new lease on life.

The legal hassles, bills for psychiatric care, frequent trips to expensive rehab centers and the huge amount of alimony she had to pay in her divorce with Kevin Federline had taken a toll on her bank account. She was wasting millions and in February, 2007 Britney’s father, Jamie Spears estimated that about $61 million had been lost due to his daughter’s negligent ways.

Her various attempts to stage a come back have failed with her new albums failing to make a big impact and her rising cash problems forcing her to cancel tours.

But as of now her situation seems to be improving with Daddy Spears hiring accountants to keep his daughter’s spending in check. All these seem to have helped, as Britney now spends about a fifth of what she used to.

As for her scores of fans, they just keep wishing and hoping that their idol bounces back from her problems and regains her lost glory and fame.

But the main thing here apart from glamour, glitz and Shahrukh Khan, is of course, the cricket. The IPL brings to the front a never before seen side of cricket, with its highly publicised player auctions, the snazzy promotion campaigns of both the teams and the league and the grand opening ceremony at Bangalore, the cost of which ran into a few crores.

Talking about cricket, the teams throw up an interesting mix of both Indian and International players. It has players of great renown to players mired in obscurity and players retired from international cricket to those who are at the peak of their careers.

After the initial few matches, a clear picture had emerged as to who are the contenders for the league cup and who are destined to languish at the bottom of the points table. The Kolkata Knight Riders, the Delhi Daredevils and the Chennai Super Kings were touted to be the main contenders for league cup, while the rest were to compete among themselves to salvage some pride. Even the costliest team in the league the Mumbai Indians(the team cost around 111bn dollars) failed to make any impact..

But cricket is a notoriously unpredictable game. After about 10-12 matches, the so-called ‘Underdogs’ started scoring victories against the stronger teams. The first ‘upset’ was the defeat of the Delhi Daredevils, who until now seemed quite invincible, by Kings XI Punjab by 4 wickets. Next the Kolkata Knight Riders, a much fancied team, suffered a string of losses at the hands of teams from Mumbai, Rajasthan and Punjab. Delhi again suffered at the hands of Mumbai succumbing to them by 29 runs. But the biggest shocker was the defeat of table leaders Chennai to the Deccan Chargers who were languishing at the bottom of the table.

Many claim this is a result of exodus of many players from the stronger teams, going to fulfill their national duties. But at this level of the game, these reasons wouldn’t hold strong. To win this league, teams will have to make best with what they have and coming together as a unit to defeat the opposition. A great example is that of Rajasthan Royals, who after initial defeats pulled up their socks and defeated stronger teams to become the leaders at the points table, without any star players except Shane Warne and Graeme Smith.

After about 25-odd matches it has become clear that having big players does not ensure victories and lesser known players do not mean big losses. As the league draws near to its 5th week, teams won’t be taking the oppositions lightly and the term Underdogs will mean nothing in a game where every single ball and every single shot holds a surprise of its own.