Category: Cricket

  • Some updates

    I have been terribly busy over the past few weeks and the next couple are not going to be any different. Meanwhile, here are some tidbits from the recent past.

    • Came across an interesting mail from Anu Vaidyanathan, the interesting bit being her mail signature. Her designation at PatNMarks is “CEO and Chief Herder of Cats“. Very nice.
    • India has kicked some serious British ass in the Trent Bridge test. I now hope that India go on to win the series and Zaheer Khan sends the English team some jelly beans.
    • The reaction of Ganguly at being give out, caught behind, was priceless. Also, judging by his looks in dressing room, I am guessing that Simon Taufel and he are not going out for dinner sometime soon.
  • The Last of Them West Indians

    Brian Charles Lara, played his last international yesterday. A sad day for all cricket lovers, and one hoped for a better departure than a run out despite his flawed leagcy.

    Rahul Bhattacharya says:

    This comes from Adam Gilchrist in The Australian a couple of seasons ago. “Mistake,” hissed Lara. Next ball Lara lofted to midwicket for six. Gilchrist taunted Lara to take on the two men behind point instead. Lara strung it between them for four. Next ball was straighter, Lara backed away and strung it through again. Best remain silent now, Gilchrist then decided. This was to demonstrate precision of his skill. But I particularly liked “mistake”. ‘You don’t know what I can do?’ was the strut. That is the Lara motif.

    His lazy elegance and his ability to dominate anyone on any surface is stuff legends is made of. You just had to see him batting while the rest of the team was demolished by the brilliant Muralitharan in Sri Lanka in 2001. He made it seem so ridiculously easy that it seemed he was batting against a different bowling attack in a different place. Damn, he even cracked a century and a double in the same Test and still lost!!

    Fare ye well mate – you will be missed..

  • Tehelka goes bonkers!!

    The newspaper has finally lost it, going wayyyyy overboard in its criticism of the Indian cricket team. As everybody else, I too am deeply aggrieved over the early exit of India from the WC2007. However, sad as it is, it does not call for total beration of the stars we all worshipped at some point of time. From their website:

    Reputations aflame: Fans burn a poster of the self-styled (emphasis added) god of Indian cricket, Sachin Tendulakr (sic!), following India’s loss to Bangladesh in the World Cup.

    Does the reporter realise that more people in India love and till a certain extent even still worship this person, than those who know about Tehelka? And “self-styled”!! Please give him a break. He may not be the best in the world any more, but he is still good enough to be in the team. And for God’s sake, he never called himself the “god of Indian cricket”. It was us who gave him this status.

  • Heart broken!

    I had promised myself that I was not gonna be sad over India’s exit from the WC. But I don’t think it is working. I know the money crazed cricketers are not be blamed, they are in the game for it. The irony of the situation was the Pepsi WC Cola ad, and the (I think) Reebok ad, with cricket is all that matters crap, just when India was staring at defeat against Bangladesh.

    I wish I wasn’t disappointed. I wish I could say it is just a game. But I still do feel cheated. Dil hai ki maanta nahi!!

  • RIP Bob – You rocked!

    Bob Woolmer – the coach par excellence – passed away yesterday night. The man who converted the South Africans to a world beating side in a very short space of time is no more, apparently unable to handle the pressure of Pakistan making a very early exit from the tournament.

    I think it is about time we rethink the game.

    sp2.jpg

    Robert “Bob” Andrew Woolmer

    May 14, 1948 – March 18, 2007.