I don’t think I am in a position to diss brand integration, but you gotta draw the line somewhere. The Indian Premier League awards seem like someone put the brand name on their phone and kept pushing autocomplete until it became a vague sentence.

This is no offense to the person who came up with these names, in all likelihood they were under a lot of pressure. I know how this thing works.

Brands, though, need to introspect and decide if they want to be THIS in your face. Like, come one, what is ‘Swiggy Instamart Fastest Delivery of the Match’?

The first time I read it I thought it is a joke, but it is not. Umran Malik won it last night. 

To be fair, if you gave me ₹1 lakh with the award, there are very few things I would raise an objection to, and the name of the prize may not even feature on the list. So that’s that. What a hypocrite, right? Anyway, there is more.

There is also the ‘Star Plus Nayi Soch Award’ for out-of-the-box thinking. It is Star Plus’ campaign of sorts and has been running for a long time. Ironic that when it came to the award name, they didn’t apply nayi soch. 

Along similar lines, there is ‘Unacademy Let’s Crack It Sixes Award’. I like the ring of it. Let’s crack it! Seems like something my stoner friend would say before opening a pack of Lay’s.

Kidding, I don’t have stoner friends, obviously. No one in India does any stoner activity.

Also, Lay’s, now that I have given you people a shoutout, do you want to fund my salary? We can call it the ‘Lay’s Super Saver Annual Package’. Think about it.

Lastly, there’s ‘RuPay On-The-Go 4s’ of the Match. All fours are on-the-go in some ways and in other ways, none of them are. So what’s happening here?

Apart from these, there is something else that’s being discussed on Twitter. How most of the awards given at the IPL are for the same thing – good performance.

For the most part and in most matches, ‘game changer’ and ‘most valuable asset’ are the same person. No? And then you have the Man of the Match award too.

So, you’re telling me there is a Man of the Match who wasn’t actually a game-changer nor the most valuable asset? How does that work?

Anyhow, overall there is tough competition for Filmfare here. Love it.