http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mocking-Bird/

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Anyway, I sense a sinister conspiracy in this grouping. Could some people be trying to keep India in the tournament for as long as possible — for the viewership and ad revenue? Who knows. One can only speculate or spread false rumours and gossip  

As much as I like watching cricket, I don’t want the cricketers slaughtered for the sake of my entertainment. After years has India found a plethora of fast bowlers and BCCI seems intent on injuring all of them at the same time. 

A glance at India’s playing calendar will show you what I mean. First, there was the New Zealand tour in March-April. Then came the grueling IPL in April-May (this was supposed to be played in 44°C in India). June will see the T20 World Cup in England and July is a tour of the West Indies. In September, it’s the ICC Champion’s trophy and in October the Aussies are coming for a 7-match ODI tour. In the same month we also have Modi’s new brainchild – The Champion’s League. And to finish off the year, Sri Lanka tours India for 3 Tests and 5 ODIs. Phew! If got tired just writing this, what about those playing?

By the way, will anyone tell me why we have a ‘mini world cup’ in the first place? Isn’t the World Cup and the T20 World Cup enough? I see but the ICC don’t see. They only see what we don’t see. And that’s a sea of cash. (Sorry, I couldn’t help it, you see).

Group of death: Conspiracy theory

Have you seen what group India is in for the T20 World Cup? We have Bangladesh and Ireland for company. Group of death man! How are we ever going to advance with such a tough group? Then again, wasn’t it Bangladesh that kicked us out of the 2007 World Cup? Sigh, painful memory. That’ll teach me to make fun of the minnows.

Anyway, I sense a sinister conspiracy in this grouping. Could some people be trying to keep India in the tournament for as long as possible — for the viewership and ad revenue? Who knows. One can only speculate or spread false rumours and gossip  

We don’t need Ireland to get us through now, do we? That’s Dhoni’s job.

Li’l Jinx

First it was Sachin, then Kumble and now South African coach Micky Arthur. Everyone is saying India is the hot favourite to lift the T20 Wolrd Cup. I can understand Arthur saying it, but Sachin and Kumble! Come on guys, don’t jinx it. Didn’t your mom ever teach you any superstitions?

Oh man! The cricketers of today! No faith in magic, lucky charms or ghosts and goblins. Tsk, tsk, tsk. India will lose. We’ll come last. Yuvraj will not hit any six. Keep repeating these, three times a day, after every meal.

CHARGED UP CHAMPIONS

Congrats Deccan. As a Delhiite would say: Bai Goad, kamaal kar diya ji. I did want Bangalore to win because of my bias towards Kumble and Dravid, but there’s no shame in coming second, that too for a group branded as a Test team which came second-last in 2008.

The Aussie Way

Now, two years in a row, two Aussie captains have bagged the IPL trophy. It took two tournaments for an Indian (Manish Pandey) to finally score an IPL ton. Looks like it may take three for an Indian captain to win the trophy (I hope). Dhoni, Sehwag, Kumble, I hope you’re listening. As far as centuries are concerned, Suresh Raina will always be the first in my book. That he was robbed by the faulty scoreboard (or stupid scorer) is another matter.
Another thing I noticed this year was the consistency of the purple and orange cap holders. But while RP did have some competition from the likes of Malinga and Nehra, Hayden was way ahead of the others. The burly Aussie bludgeoned his way to over 500 runs. If this is what retirement does to you, I am applying for VRS TOMORROW.

Enough is enough

Now, the final’s over. What next? There’s the T20 World Cup coming up, then there’s the Champion’s League and Mr Greedy Modi actually wants to Modi-fy IPL into a two times a year thing, one of them in the US. Talk about overkill. And while we’ll lap up the three-hour entertainment interspersed with zoo-zoos and cheerleaders, Tests and maybe even ODIs will die a silent death and the Don would turn over in his grave.

Closing ceremony torture

If you watched the IPL final, chances are you waited for the post-match presentation ceremony endlesslessly. What happened to the lifting of the trophy, the man of the match, the most valuable player award, etc. I don’t really know if they eventually took place… my snoring drowned out the TV. Lalit Modi and gang ensured that the final day would be a combination of Chinese tourture and a B-grade Bollywood film for the viewer. Awards, who wants them anyway? We’d rather see some singer going on and on about smacking someone, or President Zuma giving Indian politicians a run for their money with the most sleep-inducing speech of all time.

My daughter won’t need any lullabies anymore. A tape of the Zuma speech will be all, thank you. (I may end up raising a zombie).
And did anyone notice that the drowsy Zuma drone was followed by a short, overexcited, screaming dude who bore a striking resemblance to Lalit Modi. We are not deaf buddy. Crazy, yes, deaf, no.

His screaming, salivating act was followed by more gaana bajaana. Thankfully, Katrina Kaif looks better the Modi.

By the way, if anyone gets to know who was the MoM and MVP, do lemme know.

UPDATE: They did get that trophy, as the photo used here shows, but my info request stands.

DEMOLITION MAN

First Delhi went, and then Chennai. Sigh. I was so sure at least one of these two teams would be part of the semi-final.

Delhi’s couldn’t help itself. It was doing quite OK till Virender Sehwag showed up as captain again. He went on to super-impose his brand of brilliant captaincy by not picking Glenn McGrath. It’s like having a Ferrari Spyder (in Glenn’s case let’s make it a slightly slower, but reliable BMW) in the garage and using a Hyundai Getz on the road (with due respect to Nannes).

It’s true that there was not much Viru could do against a rampaging Gilchrist, but maybe there was something Glenn ‘Pigeon’ McGrath could have done. Now, we’ll never know.

Coming back to Gilly, I don’t know what he’s on these days but the squash ball in his gloves must be on steroids. That innings against Delhi was just breathtaking and inspite of being a Daredevils supporter I enjoyed every explosive shot with which he buried the nail deeper into Delhi’s coffin.

Now, it’s last year’s last two teams in this year’s finals. Delicious irony. Heck, it’s a script for a movie (just don’t get Dev Anand to direct it). Deccan are looking pretty good but I would still back the resurgent Bangalore boozers. Lets see if Anil Kumble and Dravid, two of my favourite players, can deliver the goods. Mallya would be grinning for a few years now. Now call it a Test team.

As for Chennai, what can I say. When you have players like Hayden, Raina and Dhoni, the batting is in safe hands. But what about the bowling? Dhoni aped Viru in one mistake, he also left out a class player like Makhaya Ntini for the entire tournament. What were you thinking MSD? Another feature that disappointed was their fielding. And Dhoni’s been quite vocal about this. When a player like Muralitharan starts dropping catches, you know this team is slipping up.

Billy the kid

Just came across a news item about Billy Bowden. His crooked finger is due to a reason. He contracted viral arthritis when he was 21. Until four years ago, when he became an ambassador for Arthritis New Zealand, he didn’t talk about it publicly.

I’ve always enjoyed watching Bowden on the field. I never thought anyone could make umpiring look even remotely interesting. But he is as colourful as they come. He once, reportedly, danced around an Auckland pub on South African captain Hansie Cronje’s shoulders and gave the craggy Steve Waugh an impromptu hug at the end of his final test (“I think Steve liked it,” he says wryly. “If I saw him now, I’d give him another hug”).

Well Mr Bowden. One thing I’ll promise you, I’ll never again make fun of that crooked finger again.

Man of the Moment

Finally, an Indian has hit a century in IPL. About damn time. And it’s not a Sachin, Sehwag, Gautam or Dhoni who’s done it, it’s Manish Pandey. But who the hell is Manish Pandey?  Cricinfo describes him as a “right-hand middle-order batsman who was part of India’s Under-19 squad that won the World Cup in Malaysia in 2008.” An Army officer’s son, Pandey is all of 19 and wields the bats like an AK-47 assault rifle. That straight six off RP Singh was a beauty. (Maybe he was trying to impress Katrina Kaif in the VIP box.) Well done Pandey Ji. Hope you slaughter many more bowling attacks in the near future.

Delhi delight

The semis are here and Delhi have gone from looking semi-solid to solid. For those who were doubting Delhi, I’ve got three words for you: Viru, Viru, Viru. The Jatman’s poor run was was starting to get on my nerves. If I had more hair, I would have torn it off by now. But he’s come to the party with a bang. I love his Jatman philosophy: See it, hit it, forget it. With Gauti also looking in good touch in the match against Mumbai, Daredevils are looking very good indeed. Don’t forget the in-form group comprising of DeVilliers, Dilshan, Nannes, Mahroof and the surprise package Nehra. And yes, McGrath still hasn’t played.

Down and out

Would you believe it? Kolkata actually won a few games. I must be in a parallel realm. Anyway, the tournament’s over for them and speculation is rife that Ricky Ponting may be asked to take over next year as skipper and Steve Waugh may be roped in as coach.

But what about our Dada? A few matches back I would have rooted for him as KKR’s next captain, but the Prince of Calcutta insists on avoiding a certain criterion for the job—performance. I’ve always admired Sourav for his sheer grit and never-say-die attitude. He’s the man who has always been the target of the media, various Aussie coaches, and in some cases heartbroken fans, but he has always come through.

In this tournament, we kept waiting for those big sixes. After every blog post by FakeIPL player, after every loss, after every low score, most of us die-hard fans secretly hoped that Ganguly would come out all guns blazing and rescue KKR. We thought he would shut up that fake blogger, get Boka kicked out and slap every cricket critic on the face, like he has always done. Sadly, that was not to be. KKR’s fortunes changed, albeit slightly, but Sourav’s didn’t. Now, forget captaincy, even his place in the playing XI is not guranteed.

This is what happened in his international career, but just as everyone wrote him off, he signed off with a bang. This time, will there be an encore?

(Hat)trick of the trade

For all the fast bowlers, spearheads and swing bowlers who haven’t done well in IPL 2, here’s some advice: Forget fast bowling and switch to bowling gentle off-spinners. Just lob them at the batsman at excruciatingly slow speeds and a windfall of wickets is guaranteed. Don’t believe me? Just look at Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma, who share three hat-tricks between them. You’ll agree they’re not really the tearways of their team.

I don’t want to deride their efforts. I mean taking wickets is no joke and hat-tricks come as often as …say a six from Dravid. But three hat-tricks, by slow part-time bowlers, against some of the top players in the world, are just unbelievable.

I have a friend (he’s now a famous columnist) who had the most unique bowling technique ever. Frankly, calling it a technique is stretching it a bit. The man is fiercely passionate about cricket and writes better than most cricket writers in the country. Unfortunately, he doesn’t play as well. This phenomenon of hat-tricks by what Geoffrey Boycott calls “dibbly dobbly” bowlers, made me want to describe my famous friend’s infamous bowling action.

The gentleman used to hold the ball and stretch his arm behind him, take a medium pacer’s run-up and then run in to bowl (the hand still behind). As he reached the crease, he would come to almost a dead stop and dragged the arm from behind in the attempt at a bowling action and released the ball while the hand was still behind the ear. In all fairness, it was a legit action. No bending of the arm at all. Unfortunately, the ball thus released used to go higher than a Brontosaurus standing on a stool and take its own time in reaching the batsman. When it did reach him (sometimes it didn’t), the batsman (who had been licking his lips) would swing the bat wildly in an attempt to hit the lolly to his granny in Timbuktu. But 8 times out 10, he would miss and get bowled…full toss into the stumps. I know, I know…missing a ball like that means he shouldn’t deserve to play cricket (perhaps the batsman became drowsy at the time taken by the ball), but the fact is that the lolly treatment was effective. It got wickets.

So dear fast bowlers, junk those searing yorkers and bouncers. The trick is to bowl slow, high and poor.

P.S: That friend’s batting was almost as bizarre as his bowling, but to avoid risking his wrath and for my personal safety, I am choosing to withhold that description for the time-being.

Healthy rivalry

Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar are good friends but their rivalry is the stuff of legends. Who can forget the ‘desert storm’ match in Sharjah, or the Chennai Test when Sachin demolished Warne. Shane too has often had the last laugh in many an innings, trapping the maestro LBW or inducing a false shot. Indeed, watching the two battle it out leaves one mesmerized.

The blonde bomber, who was injured, played the Raj Royals match against Mumbai with a heavily strapped leg, only because he wanted to play against Sachin. And what a battle it was. Sachin’s quickfire 40 bedazzled everyone and even had Warne worried. Warnie finally struck after an intense battle between bat and ball, just as Sachin was using his magic to gain the upper hand ( without resorting to slogging). Tendlya’s innings was cut short by Captain Hollywood, who trapped him plumb before the wicket. The celebrations showed how much the wicket meant to Warne and his team.

Warne is a self-confessed Sachin fan. Everyone knows the Sachin nightmare story, something that endeared him to millions of Sachin fans. Warne also put Sachin on top of his list of all-time greats. He also went on record to say Sachin “should get a 100 centuries”. What a rival to have.

About Thursday’s match, Rajasthan’s coach Darren Berry said what was on everyone’s mind: “Warne versus Tendulkar — it doesn’t get better than this”.

Look who’s talking

Javed Miandad thinks IPL is a joke. Coming from someone like Javed, that’s rich. I admit he was quite a batsman. But on the personality table, he kinda scored on the negative. He also didn’t earn too many Indian fans by making Dawood Ibrahim a relative.

Now the same man has come out against IPL. I think he shouldn’t mind if we smirk a little. And Dear Javed, if IPL’s a joke, what do you call the kangaroo hops in Australia during the 1992 World Cup (see pic in post Mix and match).

My IPL PJ of the day: Angry captain to fielder: “You dropped a dolly. What do you think we’re catching here? Sheep?”

Taufel told the Lord’s website: “My view was you could probably see it better than a white ball. Now we have to look at the duration of that ball. Will it last the 80, 90, 100 overs?.”

Taufel said he saw after the pink ball became 40 or 50 overs old it did not get discoloured like a white ball that’s used in day-night one-day cricket. Now that makes sense.  Sigh. Okay, we’ll late the pink ball pass. But please, we draw the line at nightgowns.

The Cash Dash

Viru’s back! Good show man. Next step: Make some runs. Anyway, the dude from Najafgarh let out the secret of Delhi’s recent success. Apparently, they pocket a cool $50,000 from the franchise for every match that they win. Whoa! Now, that’s called a performance incentive. Just show them the money.

Strange but true

Rajasthan Royals will take on Middlesex Panthers in a one-off Twenty20 match at Lord’s for the British Asian Cup to be played on July 6. Next year onwards organisers intend to make the contest between winners of the IPL and England’s T20 into a best-of-three affair. Hang on a minute. Winners of IPL? Didn’t Rajasthan win in 2008? And last I checked, this was still 2009. Then why would last year’s winners play this year? Why can’t this year’s winners play? Unless Rajasthan wins again, this match’s timing seems a little strange to me. Having said that, I hope it gets broadcast live.