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After witnessing a string of sluggish performances, beleaguered Mumbai Indians supporters have launched a huge online drive to demand net run rate neutrality from their team. With three losses in their first three games of IPL 8, Rohit Sharma's struggling side are currently downloading runs to their scorecard far slower than teams in other parts of India, a situation which has seen them accrue a net run rate that has dipped well into the negatives and threatened to create a "two-tier" system among franchises.

The dire situation has led to a huge social media campaign (hash-tagged #SaveTheIndians) in order to bring parity to millions of disgruntled Mumbaiites as well as prevent their side's sponsors from breaking off commercial partnerships with the Wankhede-based outfit for fear of having their own brands damaged by association.

One distraught fan in a brand new Parthiv Patel shirt explained the problem: "Even though in the dugout we've got Ricky and Sachin, two of the leading run providers in the game's history, our team are at times still freezing whenever we get the chance to increase our rate. We even had to rely on an old operating system - called "Bhajji" and at least five years past its best - to get it up to anything approaching modern-day levels in one match. It's so embarrassing, like your friends seeing you've still got Netscape Navigator installed on your PC. I mean, I guess it's understandable Bangalore with its reputation for hi-tech forward-thinking is ahead of us, but frankly being so far behind everyone else is a bit much to swallow.

Fan reluctantly deletes video of his child to clear data space for IPL cheerleaders
A fan at an IPL match last night found himself confronted with the age-old dilemma of whether or not to delete a video of his child on his phone to free up some space to continue recording the cheerleaders.

The middle-aged man, who, eyewitnesses say, had spent the majority of the match parked inches behind the bars that separated the cheerleaders from the fans with his phone held up in the air, let out an audible groan when he saw a message pop up on the screen informing him that he was running out of data space.

Desperately flipping through his stored videos, he was horror-struck to find that almost all of them were of his child, two-year-old Ganesh, being all cute or something at home, and was aggrieved to realise that he hadn't backed up any of the files.

So what's been happening recently?

Hovering into view like a gigantic mass of cricketing ectoplasm, the IPL is back with us once again to banish the ghosts of reserve, tact and understatement. Though it is the single biggest thing to propel the game into a new era of aggressive intent, and a smorgasbord of entertainment, there are still those who may sneer at its gaudy presence.

If you don't enjoy seeing slightly distressed-looking cheerleaders wielding badly choreographed pom-poms to celebrate Chris Morris taking a streaky single to third man, the IPL is probably not for you. If you've only just recovered from the horror of seeing batsmen repeatedly smash the ball into the Milky Way during the World Cup, the IPL is probably not for you. If you play cricket for England, the IPL is almost certainly not for you.

For everyone else, however, the brainchild of Lalit Modi is a joyous six-week cornucopia of fun and frolic, albeit one where you have to listen to Ramiz Raja talking all the time. Now in its eighth season, the competition has spawned a whole host of records. Here are five that could be broken this time round.

The final of brotherly love
A lot was made in the lead-up to the World Cup final about the brotherly nature of the bond Australians and New Zealanders share with one another, with players and fans from both sides of the Tasman waxing lyrical about their blessedly unique relationship, and of how fitting it was therefore that they should be playing the World Cup final against each other.

Indeed, the final was nothing if not a showcase of fraternal love. First, the teams enacted the equivalent of that old favourite of a rough-housing game among brothers, whereby one of them playfully pins the younger sibling under him until, red-faced, paralysed and on the verge of tears, the younger gives up the fight and submits by screaming "uncle". In fact, so much fun was derived out of this particular activity that the Kiwis were made to say "uncle" many, many times over the course of the match. Good times.

There also appeared to be plenty of invective being hurled at New Zealand during the course of their innings, especially from that lovable old rascal Brad Haddin, but then again, ha ha, it was only of the kind that one brother can feel comfortable enough saying to another, you know? No hard feelings, bro.

Jacques Rudolph was predicting great things ahead of the first semi-final.

Disappointing recent results have convinced key figures in English cricket that their administrators are not matching up to their foreign counterparts.

While the men who run English cricket are solid in the traditional skill areas of waffling, having long lunches, and making money, there is concern that the greater flair for corruption, wild accusations and hunger for bribes shown by some leading suits in other countries are leaving England behind.

The recent remarks of Bangladeshi bigwig Mustafa Kamal, in which he questioned whether an umpiring decision against his side had been "deliberate", have left England wondering if they can match this sort of explosive, exciting bad behaviour.

Australia: Mama, greedy Minnow has taken a boot of mine I threw away ten years ago.

Mr Richardson: Right, gentlemen. Sorry you've all had to come so far, but a lot of people say we're just free-loading canapé-munchers, so we thought holding our annual meeting in Barbados would convey the right sort of impression of altruistic austerity. I like the shirt-and-tie combos you're all sporting, by the way. Very evenly matched. Okay, so let's crack on. As you'll be aware, there's been some sort of suggestion our decision to cut the 2019 World Cup to ten teams might look a little bit insular. So what we need to do today is come up with ways of making us seem outward-facing and inclusive. Any ideas?

Mr Clarke: Yep, sure thing, Dave. We at the ECB decided we might actually be happy to have Associates at future tournaments but on the condition they replace all the sides that made England look a bit silly in the last one.