India, May 31 -- My friends know that I am no great connoisseur of the Indian Premier League, popularly known as the IPL, even though cricket is my elixir. Mark Taylor has gone on record to emphatically state that T20s are not quite cricket, and most old-timers would tend to agree with him. The IPL is a loud, bombastic, overbearing and far too stretched phenomenon. The bowlers are there just to make up the numbers and the batters feel like lords, whereas sundry others actually find tangible employment through the annual extravaganza.

Yet, hate it or love it, the IPL has become an inextricable annual part of our early summer. And there are several life lessons to learn from it.

Never take anything for granted: There's no telling which pl...