E-Paper
Fake IPL Player finally uncovered!
The anonymous blogger Fake IPL Player (FIP), who made life difficult for cricketers and Bollywood stars of the Indian Premier League in 2009, has come out of hiding.
Delhi boy Anupam Mukherjee is behind cricket’s biggest hoax. The best-kept secret in cricketing history is finally out.
The anonymous blogger Fake IPL Player (FIP), who made life difficult for cricketers and Bollywood stars of the Indian Premier League in 2009, has come out of hiding. Contrary to speculation, he is neither a cricketer nor a sports journalist - Delhi boy Anupam Mukherjee is a freelance advertiser based in Bangalore.
In his first interview to a TV channel, Mukherjee said, “I only pulled off the hoax because I played with believable stereotypes.”
“He kept his ears on the ground. He watched all the news, has some journalist friends and a very clever understanding of what was going on,” explains VK Karthika, publisher, HarperCollins India, which published his book, The Gamechangers, earlier this year.
She explains that his decision to reveal his identity is because he was tired of living a double life. FIP wrote about locker-room fights in the Kolkata Knight Riders’ camp, actor Preity Zinta’s break up with co-team owner Ness Wadia and also took pot shots at players. Is he worried about a backlash? “No, everyone who knows takes it with a sense of ‘wow’ that he pulled it off,” says Karthika.
