The Indian Cricket Team

What has happened to the Indian Cricket Team? After being the top team in Tests and ODIs, it is taking lessons in base jumping and trying to reach the bottom of the heap.

After the World Cup win (how sweet was that??!!) I wanted to write something about it, maybe after enjoying the sweet taste of victory, but the immediate onset of IPL turned me off.

But the 4-0 drubbing that we received against England, really turned the screws for me. So here is my take at what went wrong with the Indian cricket team.

In one sentence, “The Indian Cricket team is a victim of black magic”

Have you noticed how all the players were getting injured? I can clearly envision small little GI Joe style action figures of the Indian Cricket team on a wooden table in a darkly lit room with layers of dense smoke.

A scrawny hand picking up Zaheer Khan’s figure first on the first day of the first test match and piercing his leg near wherever the hamstring is.

Off goes Zaheer Khan

Snapping Gambhir’s hand which made the ball hit him on the elbow in the silly mid-wicket position.

That did put him down for one test, but he came back. So he got more, this time on his head to put him out of contention for the entire series including the T20 and the ODIs.

Yuvraj and Harbhajan also got some sting from the man cloaked in the black.

Sachin fell sick at Lord’s. Couldn’t have been any other reason apart from the magician poking his stomach.

They also had some black magic on the Captain MS Dhoni, did you notice how he was dropping all those balls behind the stumps. The most obvious indication of the Black Magic on Dhoni was his insistence to get in R P Singh (Fatso) for the last test. Geoff Boycott’s mum could have picked a better team than that!!!

There were also some other action figures on that table, those were that of the Indian Cricket team management. They let Sehwag play with a partially healed shoulder and off goes Sehwag.

This has become a serious problem for the Indian team. The only person not affected by the black magic was Rahul Dravid. Can you take a guess why he was not affected?? Obviously, because he is THE WALL!!! And inanimate objects seldom fall for black magic… at least from what I know.

Please do lookout for these signs of black magic in the ODI series. I do not know who is responsible for the black magic but I will conduct my investigations during the ODI series and come back to report on it.

I might have missed a few more players here, do point out who all were affected by the magic.

Disclaimer: This article is of course part of the non-sense motto of my blog. England was the better team and Indians were stuck in practice mode in all the four matches.

Cricket Bats (Bites)

Historical Fact:

Abhi (name changed to prevent embarrassment) was a 10 year old with keen interest in cricket. Come summer, he would get together with his friends from the colony and play cricket in the local ground. He owned a bat and he was a superstar. He loved his bat. He took good care of it and tweaked it from time to time.

Sporting Myth:

Oiling a cricket bat brings good stroke. After hearing this, Abhi broke out the oil bottle, put some pin holes on the bat (to soak the oil), and applied it on the bat. He put the bat away for the night to let the bat become a ‘super’ bat.

Biological Fact:

Ants, in the month of summer, collect lots of food for the coming seasons. They try to grab anything and everything and store it away for the coming months that might bring hardship in collecting food.

Fictional Trivia:

Prince Adam would draw his sword from his sheath on his back and become He-Man. He-Man was Abhi’s favorite comic character and he liked imitating him from time to time.

Opportunity of the day:

One day, Abhi started for his daily cricket game after a cup of tea and some biscuits. He was eager to show off his new well-oiled bat and ready to go. His friends would look up on him with a lot a admiration and he would bask in the glory. Against the run of play, Abhi did not reach the play ground that day.

What really happened:

The bat was dripping oil. A wonderful opportunity for the ants. Abhi stick his bat in his t-shirt, just like He-Man would. Halfway to the playground, the ants went into action. Abhi felt his back burning. He rushed back home, removed his t-shirt and made a hullabaloo in his house. The t-shirt flew off; his mom went to work at dusting off the remaining ants. Abhi started crying. His mom started cursing. His sisters started laughing.

THE Long Weekend

Long weekends are the most fun-filled for the earnest. This long weekend began with 17th March, Saturday and spanned upto 19th march, Monday - being the Telugu New Year Ugadi. Wish you all a happy Ugadi. I was earnest in trying to squeeze out as much fun from this weekend as I could and I started planning very early. Booked tickets for a movie on Saturday. Took quite some communication with friends, to gather 9 souls for the movie. 24 emails, a dozen phone calls and a few smses.

I slept late on Friday late around 4:00 a.m. Woke up early at on Saturday 8:30 a.m. to watch the qualifying of the Formula 1 in Australia. Had a wonderful time watching the start of a new season of racing, considering I did not watch even a single race last year. After I finished, I went voting for the MLC Graduate Constituency. That was a cool thing to do, exercising the Franchise.

After I came back got online and talked to some friends. During the day, my parents realized something and decided that Biryani was in order. My mom rolled out a smashing tasty Biryani in a short time!! It was a tasty treat. With my stomach full; I went shopping for a pair of trousers (long overdue). Already had in mind what I wanted to buy and got it quickly and got going for the movie.

BOY!! What a movie!!!

I shall not delve into the story much. I'd like to describe it in some words.

Simply Stupendous, Bulging Biceps, Clean Cuts, Courageous Comrades, Vicious Wives, Sparkling Blood, Twisting Oracles, Ugly Hunchbacks, Swinging Swords, Smashing Shields and many other things to watch out for.

Things I have never seen in any other movie:

• So many fit and good looking human bodies
• Such stylish spilling of blood
• Such a tall villain yet so less clothed :P
• An old movie look throughout (tint or sepia)
• A totally modern soundtrack
• Wonderfully and imaginatively mutated humans
• And a lot other things that need to be seen

Short Summary of movie: An intense small scale struggle by 300 men out to die for a cause greater than their own lives that provided the impetus to a Larger War to confront a King who thinks he is God.

Once we were done with the movie we went to Anu's place to watch the first cricket match for India in this edition of the World Cup. We were totally charged up!! By the time we reached the house, India were already 2 wickets down and in the dumps. Nothing much went well after that. We were egging on India to score over 200 but sadly without much support it wasn't possible.

Hunger called and we ordered food from the restaurant and had stomach fills of Biryani and Cool drinks. After that the people present surprised me with this..

click the image for Larger version

Then we had nothing better to do, cricket was boring, so we got down to playing a few games. Amazing fun ensued with known and unknown games.

The following being some of them:

• Pictionary
• Red Hands
• Taboo
• Thumsup
• Puzzles
• Stories
• Magic tricks
• and many other fun games

Amazingly funny and full time pass. We carried on till the time the game was coming to a close, then after India lost, we started cursing every other cricketer in Indian team, like a good fan of course, and then switched off the TV. And what ensued later was a mix of gibberish between people low on sleep. We discussed various topics. Major among them being this.

click the image for Larger version

HAHA... Genetics and all apart we had great fun. Some more than others - Deep and Adi having to answer the doorbell early in the morning, and Deep switching off alarms. I got only three hours of sleep. Woke up to the news that even Pakistan had lost its match to Ireland, BIG surprise that!!!

First thing we did after waking up in the morning was to watch the Formula 1 Race. Formula 1 Races are most exciting at the start but we woke late so caught up with 43 laps of pure brilliance of Kimi Raikonnen and others. Some exhilarating accidents over the course of the race and a few Dosas (thin pan cakes) by Anu's mom did great to us.

With stomachs full, we went to check out the previous night’s pictures and videos. While we were at the computer, we even popped in a movie. One which we already had watched so skipped through to the most interesting parts and enjoyed full time. Well, all were sleepy but had long distances to get back home and in a Very HOT Sun too. Before leaving Anu’s Place I took some pics. They came out great. Visit my Flickr Page to take a look.

Deep tagged along with me and we reached my place and saw some serials and had a tasty lunch. We also had ice-cream and Deep took a small nap. I had a nice shower later and my tiredness was gone. Sleep was long overdue and I crashed into bed at midnight.

Was woken up by my dad momentarily who announced that BOB WOOLMER PASSED AWAY. Pakistani coach, found dead in his hotel. I went back to sleep building a conspiracy theory of a Fan killing BOB for Pakistan's defeat and the World Cup being suspended entirely. But when I woke up I realized it was a medical death.

Now, I lazed around a bit and spent some time before I could sit down again to watch India's second match, which I am doing currently - watching the Bermudans miss n no. of deliveries without knicking them. And the Match started, and so did this blog. I got pissed off when India lost an early wicket, but then watching the Indians bat and post their first ever 400+ total and set a world record got me to finish this blog.

It has been a great long weekend, with a Solar Eclipse which I slept through. Such moments make me think how important friends are, how important spending time with them is. And I am grateful to Allah for having blessed me with this time among such fun and great guys and gals.

I'd like to thank Adi, Aks, Anu, CD, Prassi, Simi and others for these lovely things. Have fun youuuuu.