Turnarounds

I've heard a huge number of people complain about India's loss against SA on Saturday. Whatever may be the reasons, and there were many of them, defeat is one thing that is not so readily accepted from this team.

This wasn't always the case though. Moments of brilliance weren't savoured as much earlier because we knew they were fleeting moments. We would pray for draws and respectable second round exits, we would settle for a loss on the last day or in the death overs, considering them an honourable result.

Why now are we not as patient? If you try tracing it back to see if there was one point where change began, when it turned around, it's this game.
It's not exactly a moment, because moments cannot contain the struggle which tests you. Struggles are beautiful, they empower you.
My memories of the game are a bit hazy. We'd been rolled over in the first test and ecams were approaching so preparations were on in full swing especially at the tuition I would go to after school. A small TV would play on mute (If our tuition master felt like it) and the feed would be blighted by static but it was good enough. It was on the first day's afternoon that we saw Harbhajan put us in a good position for the first time. A lot of unbelievable Australian fightback followed which made use lose hope.
The first innings collapse was a stark reminder of our hopelessness. But what followed was history.
For two days we feverishly followed the score with transistors hidden in schoolbags, through the kids of teachers who had the luxury of going home during lunch break, or we would ourselves go to the school peon's quarters and beg their families to let us watch the cricket for that half an hour, giving up lunch for a seat.

On the final day, at the tuition, everything else stopped. Algebra and trigonometry could take a hike because we were egging the team on with every delivery. When the victory was sealed, our tuition master treated us all to samosas, a rare gesture from a man whose telephone lines we would cut and whom we would lock in his house (getting up at 5 am to do this stealthily - and we were a bunch of 12-13 year olds!) so that he couldn't call our homes or get out of his.

There was more drama within the next week at Chennai and then there were series in West Indies, England, Sri Lanka where we could sense possibilities but none can match up to this game.

Today is the 10th anniversary of this game. Here's a lovely account of the day by Sambit Bal, it's a gem especially with the anecdotes by then India coach John Wright.

So the next time you cry about India being a team that can only snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, remember the time it went the other way around.
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Imitation, flattery and self deprecation

Lasith Malinga got a taste of his own medicine today, or so to speak, when his Mumbai Indians team-mate Harbhajan Singh imitated his action while bowling against him during a dull passage of play on day four of the third test between India and Sri Lanka.

Malinga was batting on 59, having added 144 runs for the eighth wicket with triple centurion Thilana Samaraweera and it did not seem that the Indians would get a breakthrough any soon when Harbhajan Singh decided to bowl in Malinga's unique round arm slinging style. The off spinner who already had two wickets in the innings went past his usual run up spot in the 124 over of Lanka's first innings in the third session of the day.

He began in true Malinga style, first, he kissed the ball, ran in over the wicket with his right hand mimicking the action of a piston elbow downwards, did the small skiddy jump to give him width to accommodate the uncoiling of his right arm and then launched the ball towards the maker of this unique action himself. Malinga, wide eyed and almost in peals of laughter, swung and missed completely, fooled by the lack of pace on the ball, he saw it crash into the base of middle and leg stump.

Not only was it a surprise that Harbhajan managed to send down a legal delivery, he also took a wicket, something he hasn't done much of late with his own flapping arm meets butterfly stroke action.
At the press conference Harbhajan remarked, "I imitated his bowling and got a wicket, he imitated my batting and got out".

Sri Lanka declared immediately with their score reading 730/9 in reply to India's first innings score of 501.
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I paid 700 bucks to watch it rain, so did 50,000 others

I wrote a post on the Bored Cricket Crazy Indians blog a while ago, before the India vs Australia series started. The gist of it was that I was happy that a lot the play in the tests and two of the three ODIs had been scheduled on weekends so an office-goer like me can catch a lot of it. Without being late for work all the time like I was during the India tour of South Africa or the India's tour of Sri Lanka earlier this year.

But that's not what this post is about it.

It's about the first ODI in Kochi, this past Sunday. It was rained out. It rained two days before the match and everyone was skeptical. The day before the match however saw good weather with the sun shining through the day as local boy Achettup of SoaL let us know on twitter. The day of the match came and I got up early in the morning, hoping my trump card of the day David Warner would run Shane Watson out before wasting a lot of balls for a poor score and that Australia would crash to defeat and the new look Indian team would send out a warning before the World Cup.

But it rained.

Shahid Afridi: Slasher

*I once had a nightmare in which Shahid Afridi was a knife-wielding psychotic serial killer with a laugh that could curdle milk still in the udders of a cow. It was a fucking psychotic dream to have, I was recovering from a fever and India had managed to lose some stupid Kitply Cup to a very unorganized Pakistan team just recently. I think it must have had something to do with that. Most probably it had something to do with one of his celebrations upon taking a wicket for the Deccan Chargers in the inaugural IPL where he had that madman smile on display.

"The serene little coastal town where dream me was studying was filled with fear of the devil who had suddenly decided to let loose on their town.

A post from the future - India's T20 WC Journey

14th June 2010
I found this post as a draft from September 19th, 2007 in my dashboard. This was a draft for the Conjunctivitis post that follows this one. I didn't even spell the word right the first time but I make the changes once I find out. 

I was wondering why I abandoned this post that night suddenly. It was about the good fun I had the previous weeks when I wore an eye patch to class, spoke like a pirate to everyone and pretended that I had a parrot on my shoulder while taking swigs out of my water bottle pretending it was rum.


So I found out what held me from writing this post, why I didn't get back on it for the next three years to write the post I should have written then. I thought it would be cool if I wrote it like I saw the future; only I didn't realize that only the draft will be dated September 2007, when I finally published it last week it duly noted June 2010 so that was a facepalm moment. Nevertheless, here it is.


19th September 2007
Tonight, India will revive their T20 World Cup campaign. Spectacularly, Yuvraj Singh will hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over as India post 218. My friend calls me from Lalit's (a bar with cable tv) and tells me I should be there. I follow the match on Cricinfo because of my ongoing prelims. England go on to make some 200 but it's just not enough. Tomorrow we meet South Africa who are unbeaten till now and chased down 200+ in the opening match of the tournament. Anticipating an ass-kicking, I decide not to go watch it.
20th September 2007
But tomorrow I say, "What the heck, it's India playing well in a World Cup!" and go to the bar. En route we meet juniors who tell us that Lalit won't have us because we sit for too long and don't order much. We go across the street to another bar. Free starters with every bottle of beer! That’s a dealmaker if you’re an out of town student. Should've found this place earlier. 

We watch India's batting, it seems to be going nowhere but then Rohit Sharma takes India to safety in his first international innings. We marvel at his batting. Then the first five South African wickets fall in a hurry with too little on the board. Justin Kemp is spectacularly run out, we marvel at Rohit Sharma's fielding. Forget winning this match, South Africa doesn't look like they'll make the minimum runs they need to qualify on the basis of NRR. Poor guys like they're gonna be eliminated after one loss despite having won every other match they played. Then we run back to the hostel to beat the deadline and rejoice our entry into the semi finals.
21st September 2007
The semi final is on the same day as the last prelim paper, a paper all of us from the hostel have decided to skip. Also a friend decides to take us out on a treat, his birthday treat was pending thanks to the aforementioned prelim exams. Plans are made to go get wasted but not totally wasted at a cheaper bar before heading on to the one with the TV.

All of us are excited by the possibilities of our chances in life and of the team's chances in the semis.  Pumped on hope, I decide to write the paper. I skip dinner to study. 
22nd September 2007
I wake up late, mug for 2 hours before going out to write the paper, I am the only one from the hostel and one of the only 10 people from class sitting for the exam. Then I go over to a friends place where we work on proposal for a freelance project we intend to take up during the Diwali break. I have not eaten all day.

I catch up with my friends just as they're about to leave for the cheaper bar (Gokul). One of them borrows the only belt I have. Since we're already on the way I decide against going to the hostel and borrowing one from someone else. Fuck fashion.

 Everyones happy and pumped up, even the waiters. The booze arrives immediately, whiskey for some and beers for the rest. We wait for the starters and the mixes. It was too good to be true. I say fuck it and start doing whiskey shots. Second activity done alone that day. One evil friend cheers me on till I down a half in shots. Then the soda arrives with the chakna and the rest of my friends orders. Birthday boy has extinguished the whiskey budget so now I must settle for beer. The words headrush and brainfreeze cannot touch with a long pole euphemisms for what I felt after mixing those two.

By the time we're on our way to Panchratna of cable tv, free starters with beer & allows young people to sit for long hours without ordering much fame, I'm smashed. So's a friend. We're in different cabs but seek each other out every time we stop at a signal to slap each other. Saved from being ran over by the comparatively sober ones.

70% of the hostel junta is already at Panchratna. High fives all around. Classmates ask me how my paper went. They joke till this day of the hearty, slurred replies I gave then.

Luckily we had a teetotaler from the group go there much in advance to reserve the biggest table he could find which had a good view of the tv. He does what he is told.

The match begins. The hothead of the group who unfortunately also happens to be the beefiest is getting buzzed when he spots a white guy in the bar. The white guy is on the way to the loo when he stops him and asks him if he's Australian. He says fuck the Aussies I'm English. Hothead breaks out into a smile because we've already pummeled the English.

Sehwag goes out pretty early. So does my liver. I very bravely make my way to the loo when my pant falls down. Thankfully most eyes were on the match, I recover quickly and by now am escorted to the loo. Two friends facilitate the retching, then one takes me back to the hostel.

23rd September 2007
I'm up at 5 because I DON'T KNOW THE FUCKING RESULT! I grab my roomie's phone from his hands (he sleeps with it in his hand, in an embryo position, he's 5'5" and a 100kgs, it's fucken weird) and connected it to the laptop and connected to Cricinfo. HALLELUJAH!

God bless you whoever you are Joginder Sharma!

Then I go for that proposal I told you about. It was for the launch of a restaurant so the owner invited us to the tasting. After a fucken awesome multiple course lunch, we make the presentation. He loves it but thinks we're quoting too much. We agree to take some time to decide. He never called after that. That was the last time I tasted Kashmiri cuisine. Not missing it though, what's up with eating lotus stems people?


The finals are on a Monday afternoon. The hostel general secretary and the common room secretary run pillar to post getting quotations, permissions and all that jazz to set up cable for an evening in the common room. We've got DD in the common room and all India ODI matches are to be screened on DD according to a government order. But a T20 match is not the same as a ODI match, DD should have the terminology changed to LOI so that T20s fall under the category. Meanwhile, an emergency meeting is held where all the hostelites unanimously agree to pay a hundred bucks each to set up cable just for a day.
24th September 2007
Everything falls in place half an hour before the match is to start.

Public pooper, a guy from the hostel cheers Pakistan very vocally and draws the wrath a lot of people. We learn that he's their unlucky charm, they fail miserably when he supports them. We back off him and yell at the tv instead. College guys who wouldn't have made it home on time sneak into the hostel. The warden doesn't shoo them away and let's them watch with everyone else.

People try to outdo the witticisms as the match begins. Sehwag is out with an injury. Yusuf Pathan, unknown quantity earns our respect first with the near run out then with the six in the first over. We cheer all the big hitters while Gambhir silently makes runs at the other end. Uthappa goes early, Yuvraj is planned well against, he goes early, so does Dhoni. Rohit Sharma gets a few runs in the end to take us to a respectable score.

What a start RP gives us, but it's only Hafeez not the dangerous Imran Nazir thats gone. Nazir takes apart Sreesanth. Then Pakistan consolidate when suddenly, Uthappa runs out Nazir. But they again consolidate, For a while, Then a wicket falls and soon another as Shahid Afridi walks in. Irfan Pathan, sends him back almost immediately. Uproar. Bedlam.

But this Misbah guy is still there. The equation seems out of reach then. One over later it isn't. Another bad over could totally fucking turn this match. The bad over comes as if on cue, Sreesanth gets hammered by their fucking bowler. But Appam has the last laugh when he gets him out with the last ball of the over.
Wickets have fallen but it's getting too close for comfort.

RP bowls a tight penultimate over and gets a wicket but concedes a four off the last ball. Some 13-14 needed off the last over and it's Joginder fuckin Sharma who comes on.
WC 2003 Final reminders as he sprays it all over the place and gets hit for a six on the second ball. Just some 6 required with 4 balls to go. Then Misbah lifts the mood of the wrong nation. b Joginder c Sreesanth. Champions by 5 runs. Shoaib Malik gets called a lot of shit for apologizing to all the Muslims all over the world. Bharat ki shaan Irfan Pathan is man of the match. Suck on that, Shoaib! There's jumping (I jumped), high fives (I high fived), yelling (truly guttural screams of pleasure) and hugging (I dodged ones which came my way) in the common room. 
It's time to go celebrate! Hit a bar! Drink like mad! 
We tell the bartenders we're related to Rohit Sharma. Doesn't work but who cares, we are the champions. Marine Drive is one big party zone.
25th September 2007
The next day is a dream. I love reading all the newspapers I can get my hands the day after a good win. I spend the whole afternoon after class in the common room going through every article about the win in every English daily. I even try going through the Hindi and Marathi papers but abandoned he idea to play TT.
26th September 2007
It's raining slightly and lectures have been cancelled. My sister calls to ask if I'll be going to see the open top bus parade. So does a professor. Who knows when they will win something again I think and decide to go.

Prelims for the other folks have started so details of where we meet are smsed. We go take up position right on the flyover at Marine Drive, fought off photographers who wanted to set up equipment there. Pros should have come earlier. There’s a slight drizzle and the sea’s choppy but the place fills up. Down below are huge crowds on both sides of the road, the flyover is choc-a-bloc. People who’ve left someone watching over their shops, people on an indefinite break from their offices, people stuck because the traffic wasn’t moving and college kids from everywhere. Young teachers get their nursery school children and ask us if we’d be kind enough to move and not swear in front of the children. We give them two spots, ask em to keep rotating the kids and tell em to cover the fucking ears of the fucking kids of they don’t want them to hear the fucking swearing.

K and the two secretaries join us and they wonder if it would be a better idea to go to the stadium instead. They wonder. K, as always, is hyper. The dude weaves his way to the stadium through the rain, through the thousands of people everywhere, through the stadium security and back in 45 minutes. His inputs are no good, we still can’t decide which place is better to see the team so we decide to stay put.

Photographers have managed to wiggle into good spots. They’re prepared for hurricanes, with their tripods, fastening cables, thick fucken rain protection stuff for the cameras and all. People go past in jeeps, playing loud music and waving flags while the crowds try to see if they’re famous folks. We’ve been on the bridge, in the rain for an hour and a half now. Then we see the colour breakout at Girgaum Chowpatty from our vantage point.

We see it inching forward and suddenly it’s not drizzling anymore. In half an hour the procession is close enough for us to differentiate between the tiny figures partying on it.
First come the two-three layers of security. The irritating song playing stereo system on wheels is next, a motorcade follows that and finally we have the team in the open top bus. Followed by more layers of security courtesy the various organizations which make up our many lines of defence.

Yuvraj was the first person we could recognize, dancing a stupid dance and having fun. Everyone looked fucken tired but Yuvraj, Sreesanth and Uthappa were the only guys dancing. We could make out Dinesh Karthik, the Pathans, Venkatesh Prasad, RP Singh, Sehwag and Dhoni on top and we yelled out to the captain to hold aloft the trophy. We were disappointed that he didn’t bring it out. Probably kept it downstairs to keep it safe from the rain.

One guy had the bright idea of taking up a spot on the other side of the flyover so that he could wave the team goodbye and hopefully see them for just that little bit longer. So we ran over when the bus passed under the bridge.

We yelled at the top of our lungs hoping someone would wave back. Sreesanth looked at us did the fist-on-heart solidarity thing; Irfan Pathan gave us a thumbs up, it made the waiting worth it. The bus moved on, the public continued. 


Would’ve been great to have pictures or videos to show for it but then that's what this post is for.

We are all Bored Cricket Crazy Indians

My post from BCC!. It's just a rant made up of Rage Against The Machine song names. And I named it after a Rage Against The Machine song. Click on the link:


Bored Cricket Crazy Indians (BCC!) - when you have nothing better to do: Bulls on Parade

I was thinking about the circus that accompanies the Indian team's premature exit from a tournament. But then I realized that the mess even applies to the administrative mud slinging matches which happen from time to time. Including the embarrassingly hilarious one playing out right now.

It begins with either of the following: A political rift, a selectorial gaffe or a genuinely shit performance.

Camps form, statements are made and sides are taken. There is attacking and barracking. The F**k You's and the Thank You's. Accusations, lawsuits, and 15000 page replies to them.

Some drop bombs, others rally around the family, with a pocketful of shells.

Meanwhile, the all important, cable subscribing fan is the one left without a face, in the darkness of greed. Victims of an in house drive by, they say jump, we say how high.

The voice of the voiceless, guerrilla radio of blogs crackle on but no one listens.

All that's left for them to do is to continue. To continue to rage against the machine.

Vacancies filled

Despite the fact that I hate them from the bottom of my heart because they beat my team in the finals of the IPL last year, I've gotta admire the Rajasthan Royals for now have not one but two of my most highly rated players
Graeme Smith and Johan Botha
Both are definitely gonna be my henchmen when I become an evil overlord and assemble a crew worthy of a Guy Ritchie movie.
Smith will do the evil beating up and throat choking and lifting by the collars and generally not speak much except with his Uzi. Botha will handle the torture equipments, plant the car bombs, acrobatically steal the jewels and make the ransom calls

Warne will definitely be a associate, with his poker skills, tactical acumen, man management abilities, leg spin ( wrist spin at that!) and for his knack at being a excellent showman. He has however expressed his desire to be my food and drinks tester, you know, to check for poison and laxatives and such stuff.

Trump players = fail

30 points for fielding. Gave away 7 runs with a wide thrown in in the solitary over he bowled. A negative score for getting out on 1 when chasing a measly 119. When you've scored nearly 30,000 runs in top flight international cricket over 20 overs, you're expected to score in a T20 match against overweight Indians and overweight South Africans. NOT EPIC FAIL like you did yesterday!

Sanath Jayasuriya went one better and got out for a duck. My other trump player tries to rein in his natural game against a two bit attack after having slogged faster and better bowlers in earlier matches. And then he takes a dump all over a ball he should have let go. Senile Sri Lankan Sanath.

In the other match, thanks to my frenetic transfers in the earlier stages I was just a spectator. Roelof van der Merwe came in in place of i don't care who. My Trump Player blessings went to Praveen Kumar after a smirk at Kumble. His reverse acronym skipper KP held PK back too long and Roelof in the meantime claimed a wicket that would have been easy pickings for PK. How brilliant of you Roelof, now how about you you Roelof a cliff?

Kumble who I did not make TP picked up 2. At a very economical rate too. Figjam dinosaur. Kolkata continues their trend of under achieving to lose the match. The city of joy should change it's name to Laughing and then their team can be called Laughing Stock Riders.

The online picture editing tool joined the party too. It failed me. You can see the ghost of a fail behind the more massive expressive angry young man fail.

As I posted this today's TP Adam Gilchrist failed. This is not justice.

Brendon turns players against Dada

When Ganguly took his second wicket in three balls to send back Ravi Bopara, Brendon McCullum sensed that the Gang-ster might cunningly be building up the team's opinion against him.
Immediately with the help of co conspirator Brad Hodge and the scheming conniving Aakash Chopra who has a history of bad IPL blood with the ex- skipper, Brendon proceeded to S&M Ganguly to remind him who was captain of the day.

He also spanked greenhorns from South Africa and Punjab for a 16 ball with two sixes and a four in case anyone required any reminding.

The fake IPL player chose to focus on Ganguly's man management skills to the utter disgust of Brendon.

The Match

The match was tied at the last ball. It went into a bowl out and the rest is on the video.

Ind 141/9, Pak too dumb to describe

To my utter horror, I just realized I'd never published this post. It's from 15th September 2007, around the same time stuff I talked about in this post was happening.
Still, I enjoy these drafts that I come across, they're my little time capsules. I have the license to add my two bits of hindsight to my ramblings from years ago and finally finish what I began a long time ago. Enjoy, if you might.
Edit: It's published, dated Sept 15, 2007. Strange. I probably made changes to the draft but didn't publish it after that.
15th September, 2007

At the expense of sounding cliched, I'll tell you that much has happened since I last blogged. I went to Naigaon. I came back. I took part in the Pol Sci dept quiz (Because I think that chick is damn cute and she knows this so she turns on her charm and begs and pleads so that I won't refuse. Of course I'm not gonna write her name, I'm not stupid). I came fourth in the schtupid quiz (A big punt I took backfired, also, the quizmaster randomly shuffled order which meant I didn't get as many passed questions as I would have liked and by jove there were so many!). Then I went to Andheri. Again, I came back from Andheri(or I wouldn't be writing this would I?).I got conjuctivitis. In both of my eyes. And oh yeah, we won the T 20 match against Pakistan. In the T20 world cup. Yeah baby! We Won!

I went to Naigaon, miles off the map of Mumbai, almost untouched by civilization. And its between two densely populated areas. The quiz was fun, it was by fluke that we got through the elims. At the quiz we got what was coming, but we could have fared well. We managed the sports round, everyone got fucked in the religion round, entertainment we led, thanks to mich, but the penultimate and final rounds, we got screwed like a elephant screws a monkey. We were supposed o pick a continent, leading teams starting first. Our position left us a choice between Australia and Africa, Australia it was for us. We were skull fucked in all the questions which covered geography, history and current affairs. The last round, Mumbai friendly and carrying negative marks didn't help. We ended fourth out of five and my name on the certifiacte read Moonish. The silver lining was that our certificate read third place, a position, redemption.


I saw The Wall, by Pink Floyd. Lots of imagery, metaphor and vividness. A confusing movie which talks about alienation and pain and loneliness.

Situated in Andheri wesr, off Linking road is a place called Poush, routinely placed amongst the best restaurants in Mumbai, this place specializes in authentic Kashmiri food, served in an authentic Kashmiri environment. Everything rocks, the food the ambience, the service, everything. Four of us ate food worth two grand and it was worth every paisa. Right from the double apple hookah we began with follwed by the Sheen Kahwa to the Shufta we finished with post the mega dinner main course. It was a pleasure and I strongly recommend it to anyone looking for good Kashmiri food outside of Kashmir. And they've got a hotel in Srinagar too, if you're looking for a good package if you're going to Kashmir.

Maddy was the original plague rat. He got conjunctivitis, also known as Madras Eye first. He gave it to L who gave it to Annoyer who gave it to me and Dethwal's on my hitlist because I can't be the end of this, that'd be very fuckall. Aaron probably has it too, considering the amount of time he spends sleeping on my bed. I wonder how I'd look with a shiner and my conjunctivitis. Not very pretty something tells me. If you've got conjunctivitis, I'd recommend Gate DX or Ciplox (6 times a day)and Add Tears(thrice a day). And an eye patch to look sexay.


The Match!
The BCCI has anounced the IPL to rival the ICL. Dravid resigned as Captain of the Test and ODI team and we couldn't play the first of our T20 match in the world cup as it was rained out. Amidst all this, we're supposed to play Pakistan, blood rivals and arch nemesis.

We veni-d, we vidi-d, we meandered along, stayed afloat, struck viciously, lost our way, came back, threw it away and then finally we vici-d. I would have felt bad for Pakistan if Akmal, Asif and Gul hadn't had that big ugly grin on their face throughout the match, Cheshire cats all of them. It's Pakistans luck that they managed to assemble 16 of perhaps the worlds dumbest dicks into one team. Fools probably haven't figured out what a bowl out is yet. They were all grinning last I saw them on TV. Sportsbar was full by 8:30 itself, so we headed to Lalit's. We saw the match till the last ball when it ended in a draw. Then they shut the bar because we were past the deadline. We saw the bowl out in the gully outside Lalit's at a shop which had kept open with just the TV playing. If anything doubts something as big a country cannot be stupid as a collective, eat this! Videos will be up on Youtube by morning, I cant say anymore on this topic. A match cannot get betteer than this, you had to watch the match to believe it and live it. VFM!