Bang? Thud? Whimper!….And they’re gone …

Big Effing Mistake- that matters too little.

I’m talking about the awesome threesome. The mainstay of Indian Batting.  The Wall, 6+4Ulkar, Ganghooligan.  It did not have to end like this. Shit, I didn’t want it to end like this. I wanted a royal friggin farewell. The razmatazz, the lights, the works , the shit.  But this is a friggin whimper!

Was it the T-20? All I can think of is- like it or hate it- you cannot ignore it.  I can think of every single soul hooked on to it like it was the friggin plague, watching a daredevils vs Rajasthan Royals match or something, the viewership only equalling those legendary days of the sunday doordarshan screening of Ramayana or Mahabharatha or something.

Nevermind that the Bangalore RC aka royally challenged – sucked more than a state-of-the-art whirlpool vacuum cleaner. Nevermind that we were subjected to the  overexposed and heavily Wrinkled Shah Rukh Khan and his band of bollywood freaks ( included some hot women and some very distubing close ups of karan johar and Arjun Rampal that made me wanna puke my intestines out) like the footage was our only hope of survival.  The fact remains that the T-20 has probably sealed the nail for 50 overs, and perhaps even viewership in test cricket.

I’m fairly positive that Test cricket and T-20 will be the 2 forms that co-exist (along with any other mutant version that Modi and the likes can molest the game out of ). It was the one day series in pakistan, followed by the current test series in Sri Lanka that really showed the effect that T-20 has had on the game.

Alright, lets lay down the cards now. Let’s come clean. Not too many of us can watch the longer version of the game. To me, its quite obvious. Sure, test cricket is the purest form, and the tactical and strategic implications during a game are enormous. But , its just too effing LONG!!! Come on now!!! 5 days???!?! 5 Friggin days?!?!??!   That’s a real horseload of time we got there don’t we?! Man that’s a long time. Even 50 overs an innings one day game seems like we’re asking a snail to break into a moon-walk you know?

And what’s with this whole coach/Manager BS?  I’m really beginning to second guess the amount of expertise that goes around into planning in this game. We had no coach and we did ok against the kangaroos and the rest. Now, we’ve got one and we suddenly SUCK?!?! What gives?   I mean,  I know Murali is a legend and Mendis is a freak, but come on!!!  An Innings defeat!

Which brings me back to the original topic at hand. I can really see the end for the trip.  3 illustrious careers. Think about it. Wasnt our collective hearts pounding every single time Sachin walked in to bat in the 90s? The world cup in 96 , 2001 in South Africa. Sachin was the friggin MAN. You knew he might fail in the big one, but you won’t stop believing in the little guy.

Think about the Wall. The quintessential gentleman. The only guy in our line up who still maintains a higher average outside India than at home. The only guy who was our hope to standing up to the most testing of bowling conditions. The rest of our batting line-up would crumble , get out like we had the diarohhea, but this dude would stick around till the very end. He’d play the bridesmaid role in every big victory, never getting his due credit. But yet was the hero for the few of us who just loved the underdog.

And of course ganguly. The dude’s a badAss with a CAPITAL A. You couldn’t deny it. After the troublesome episodes of the late 90s (betting and all that BS), he was the one guy who really took indian cricket by the collar and dragged it into the next century.  We might hate him for being a little biased against the older guys (like dravid, tendulkar, kumble), but you can’t deny the fact that he was one stand-up dude. He spoke his heart out, and never gave excuses. I cannot forget some of the innings he played from the front – the century in the 01 aussie tour, the 317 chase against pakistan.  He was an in-your-face mo-fo.

And yet, its going to be a fade away for these guys. This could be the last leg of test matches. Or maybe it isn’t. But not too many are watching. You just hear stories about the guys playing test matches now, but everyone’s only going to watch if it’s a t-20 game. It’s like that now.  The finish line is there, unfortunately- the crowd’s gone home 😦

Advertisement

Aggronomics

Let me go ahead and say it: I’m not a big fan of this “new-look” Desi team that we have here. Harbhajan and Sreesanth chanting war cries , taunting the opposition , and masquerading about in the field as little hulk-o-maniacs is quite laughable right now. Let’s talk about a aggression on the field :

1. Dravid, in a candid interview, spoke about his opinion about emotions and aggression and how he channelizes it. You can read about it here.

2. Ganguly , with his shirt-swirling at lords, his turning up late for the toss, and fearlessness on the field earned him the public tag of being one of the more emotional and aggressive captains on the field for India.

Now that is aggression. Aggression is getting under the skin and affecting the psyche of the opposition in a not-too-direct and demeaning way. 15 year old kids nowadays can churn out the cream of the crop expletives these days, perform a dumb silk smitha -like body and booty shaking dance, engage in a verbal combat, just to end up looking like sissies when given back the same.

That seems to be the case here. The Indian team chose to stink up the joint with their performances and behavior on the field with the Aussies, and you have to taste your own bitter medicine. Whining about it like a school-girl does NOT help – and that’s what clowns like Harbhajan seem to be doing. It pisses me off when you don’t back up your words with some performances. Talk is cheap.

Word to the team: the T-20 is over. Get over it. Nobody gave it a rats ass till you reached the semis and beat pakistan. The performance was commendable , but let’s see it translate to all forms of the game at a consistent level. There are only 9 (NINE) friggin’ teams that play cricket seriously in this world. India’s cricket-playing population ALONE is probably bigger than that of the current world-champs and a few other teams put together.

Word to selectors/administrators: Stop rewarding individuals for heaven’s sake . Don’t turn them into attention whores.

Word to Sreesanth, Bhajji : Shut the fuck up , and start performing on a consistent basis first.

If cricketers were bollywood stars

Who would they be? I thought of some of the more popular ones.

Sachin- Shah rukh
Entered the scene with a bang, always had the talent, promised everything and more , are commercial hits and bring in the masses even now. But both somehow leave the viewers yearning for the glory days gone by, when one could actually score in style and one could act. Both look like alien mutants of their younger selves now, constantly re-inventing themselves but unable to capture the glory of the good ol’ days.

Sehwag – Shahid kapoor
Eerily similar to their Sachin/SRK counterparts in looks and style, but there’s an obvious difference in class. Both seem capable of the long run but agonisingly screw it up so often that you just wish they turn around and go away.

vvs Laxman – Nana Pataker
Middle-aged journeymen who’ve been riding on the wave of a couple of glorious performances eons ago. Seemingly never out of contention, but a performance from either is as rare as a caveman with broadband connection.

Ganguly- Saif ali khan
The indian bad-ass. Both have donned the role of a one-of-a-kind indian captains and villian with elan, attitude and style. After uninspiring debuts (Ganguly in Australia, Saif in gems like tere mere sapne) , they roared back in awesome style.

Yuvraj singh – Sunny Paaji
Fearless friggin’ warriors and sons of the country soil. One can almost imagine them scaring a cow to product 10 gallons of milk for them to gargle with. They expect themselves to go and kick the bad guy’s (and all his cling-ons) collective asses their own place, plant the Indian flag , break into a bhangra and come back. Their hands collectively weigh an incredible 67 kilos, so powerful that they often risk of crushing their balls when they harmlessly scratch it, as all us men do . Both look as if they’ve shit out their most of their brains , and only have their brawns left.

Gavaskar – Amitabh bachhan
Big shots in their own field, prestigious, well-read, and sort-of respected look about them. Still dabbling with their professions instead of spending their retirements taking their families out to Maldives or something. Both have Over-rated kids involved in the same profession, constantly under pressure often threatening to fade into anonymity. Shady politicians at heart.

Shastri – Emran Hashmi

“Shaz” and Kissomaniac for some reason always seem to be eying the women around. And we guys just can’t figure out why they actually drive some women nuts in their heydays. You know exactly what’s coming from their mouths (oft-repeated lines in one case and tongue in the other), just like the sun always rises in the east, just like you know the way to your bathroom, just like cow dung always stinks. O.k you get the picture. Both apparently spend all their mojos on screen and lead a less flamboyant life off it. On a side note, see if you can catch Shastri’s “bodybuilding” tips on ESPN/Star, it’s quite unbelievable that he actually gets paid for that crap.

Dhoni- Akshay Kumar
Playboy image , the ladies around them, and ambassadors of the metrosexual-meets-machismo hybrid. Something seems to be similar about the two- and it’s not just the modest beginnings. Both in recent times have been quite bankable and do a lot of khiladi level ass-kicking.

Dravid and Kumble – Nasserudhin Shah and Om Puri
Flash has never been their thing. It’s always been substance and hard work, and hardcore skills. Consistency more often than not has been their thing. While they will never be sachin/ AB/SRK, they don’t aspire to be either. Have a few stunningly terrible flops and some truly head-scratching decisions along the way in their career.

Vinod kambli – Manisha Koirala
Potential promise at the beginning but sorta kinda screwed up. Fat spoilt kids who don’t fit in anymore in the current trend. Think of it, the chances of kambli diving during fielding are as good as Manisha trying to fit into a thong – which will be like over sized pajamas to the deepika padukones of today.

Bhajji- Suniel Shetty

Overly-emotive and aggro little bullies, giving rise to suspicion that both are definitely OD-ing on testosterone supplements. Started out as Numero Unos but now have to contend with the agony of playing second fiddle to others. They have their moments in the middle of the game – a good crucial over here , a gut-wrenching “I’ll kill you, you baaass-turrrdd” and shoot with a bazooka there. But when it’s crunch time, they crawl into their respective holes and let the big boys take over. Both have a trademark constipated look often.

Agarkar- Nirupa Roy

Like the everlasting itch on the end of the nose, these have been there forever, and just wouldn’t go away. Their job is to simply bring doom and gloom from the moment they appear on screen, and both do it with incredible effect. One is just left to wonder if some things are meant to be. Just like one of them has ALWAYS been amitabh’s on screen mom, the other has ALWAYS been the hole in the teams umm..buttocks.

 

 

 

Sreesanth – Master Bittu

Excrutiatingly annoying- the type where you scratch your long fingernails over the blackboard. For those who don’t know master bittu, he’s an impish little blondish headed desi flower child in the centre of most plots during the 70s and 80s. The one blot in everything cute with kids. He’s the sort of brat who’d always get himself and everyone into trouble. The kid for whom the labourer father works for 27 hours a day in the sun , pulling rickshaws and that sort of ancient thing and buy him a loaf of bread. And he drops the bread on the floor ,claiming he wants peanut butter to go with it. The kind who you wanna bury in sand and kick the head into orbit.Always comes out unscathed in the end .

Srinath – Alok Nath

Both have this pained look about them , as if the whole world has conspired against them. If not , their awesome talent would have led to earth-shattering records and box-office hits. . Both are the epitome of terrible quiz masters, Srinath always asking batsmen questions outside the line of off-stump, and Nath asking his daughters, in-laws, god, and anyone else who could bear listening to him stuff about if he has left any “gaps” (kami) in the arragement of the marriage, if he has raised his daughter well inspite of being a single parent (pitaji and maataji), if the only crime he committed is that he is poor, which is

why his evil in-law counterpart refuses to accept his daughter etc. TORMENTED. Both never got their due answers.

Here are some of them:

Learning the “outswinger” grip from the mother of all moms

Sacrificial lambs – proverbial bakras

“I want my peanut butter!”

ugh…. no words.