New zeal(l)and? Are you kidding me?!

This has been a long time in transit. An impromptu piece is something which always escapes my thought factory. Anyways jokes apart, let us swoop in on some serious fun. Isn't that a paradox? How can fun be serious, you might wonder (only if you are reading this blog, that is). But that is precisely what India's most-loved son did and by extension, will do in the near/far future whichever comes first.

He travelled to the land with the zeal that was not quite consistent with its prefix. Having achieved a successful landing (though that was the pilot's show of his skilful manoeuvres), he preferred to bog down the opposition with one last inspired salvo declaring that it would suffice for the rest of their cricketing forays presently. This came late, not a tad or a little but LATE, when they had successfully lost their five-game series with scant respect for themselves. He was rightfully disappointed with the duration of this tour. He could not emulate the exploits of his English counterparts on Australian soil. He being himself, drew close but not achieving parity, not that it was his fault.

This salvo he fired during the first test, having opened eyes to the fact that he had slept through five of the previous tests. Opposition being dented, he sat back and watched everything go astray, yet again. Nothing went 'stray' for him this entire tour. The least he could do was to play 'brutally' honest to the media after failing on-site. This he did with aplomb, stating that you don't need to win always. Why are the one-short-dozen on-site if they were just to participate in the series? It vividly portrayed one principle philosophers advocate- The loss of happy-go-lucky childhood attitude. Our son advocated this philosophy of 'Winning aint everything, participating is' many nautical miles forward, thereby earning himself yet another sobriquet, the philosopher.

He sure does conquers hearts wherever he moves. Now he is in a gut-wrenching dilemma of what his role in the team is- to conquer hearts or to vanquish oppositions or to essay the skipper's knock off-site.
 

Gilli Thank You!

I am back and for good measure, I must say! How can I miss out on the 'India lashing' that seems to be cropping up everywhere our eyes rove? There are some die-hard fans of the Indian national cricket team who do not refuse to 'die', but does refuse to go 'easy' on their death. Well, the players aren't die-hard fans of the team, I guess, for they haven't died hard, because they chose the easy path against the 'fiery' Steyn, the 'steeple-bounce guy' Morkel and the 'accurate' Tsotsobe. Looks like the tamizh tradition of names before names impacted South Africa too. The journos term them as adjectives, but then.

"Rohit hit a double-hundred barely 2 weeks back"- This is not at all a valid argument remotely even. Firstly, the opposition hardly knew cricket. Else, they would have begged Lara or even Viv to retire their 'retirement', not unlike how the Australians did to try and bring back the 'ever-dependable' Hussey and the erstwhile-captain Ponting. Secondly, the pitches were not made to play competitive cricket at all! Indian weather is supposed to be blamed for that I guess! What can curators do for the Indian weather not supporting pitch-making that competition will thrive on? Thirdly, well there is nothing third, Rohit was just abominable!

The entire team played out of its skin in this tour, while they should have been playing inside its skin! Maybe they got carried away by the SA playing out of its skin (in a pink attire)! What happened to "You are unique"?? Indian cricketers really need the only one thing that will make them win at home and even when not at home, and that is hiring the services of a well-known but not-so-famous die-hard psychologist. At least, he will live longer, considering Indian overseas cricket isn't.

Out, Boris!

Wimbledon. Well, never been so manic! Or should I say panic? Nadal hogged the headlines. Damn. Can Federer be left behind? That would be strikingly similar to people who 'forget' their brains whenever they go some-place where the contraption is in dire need of. Was that tough? I agree. More simply, the answer for that earlier query would be a more-than-emphatic no. Yes, Federer could not bring forth himself to get left behind. So he too went behind.

Murray, you ask? With Murray in the fray, nobody would get disappointed.The only person Andy Murray disappoints is Andy Murray. Not a cause for worry, since Novak still is alive. Even if that is not the case, Andy will dig out new opponents to get defeated by. He is next to the two in the first para. How can he be left behind. So, take patience, he will get behind. Soon.

Novak, you ask? He is a Nadal in the making. Nadal is waging a losing war with his knee. Novak will soon be following him, albeit with his hand. And stamina. And knee.

The future for tennis? Prise Boris out of retirement to push baseline slugging into retirement. The same goes for McEnroe. Relieve him of commentary. Chair umpires might hyper-ventilate on that but connoisseurs of the game sure will not. All said and done, he draws in crowds, does not he?


"Firm and irrevocable is my doom".  Tennis', quite obviously.

Non-Indian patriots of India: D and L!

D/L. What does anyone know about it?

You have guessed it right, as always on this topic! Nobody knows nor understands a letter of this method, save for Duckworth and Lewis themselves. Their ingenuity in devising such an equation has helped India gain a significant advantage in almost all the ICC tourneys. This has a lot to do with the fact that ICC conducts tourneys in rain-prone areas and India with their iron-willed belief in the two gentlemen above, willingly lands itself into situations wherein, only the above-stated gentlemens' brilliant equations can save them.

A look at how D/L effects some teams:

South Africa:

Ages ago, South Africa purchased the 'chokers' tag, albeit shelling out nothing which is even remotely referred to as monetary transactions. It simply is a mind-blowing achievement to have maintained the same tag till date. To not violate the legacy, SA players, participating in tourneys apart from ICCs, have vigorously started to try and choke ,even then. By now, you must have already guessed D/L's impact on SA.

D/L gives the batting team a astronomically huge number of runs to score at a meagre quantity of balls, a quantity which even a beggar would feel proud on seeing. As SA have this not-so-rare tendency of scoring meagre runs from a astronomical quantity of balls, Lewis and Duckworth's 'worthy' mathematical equations become worthless.

Pakistan:

Most view Pakistan as a terrorist-laden land capable of inflicting damage of the highest degree on others, any. But the Pakistan national cricket team is exactly anti-Pakistan! They are highly capable of inflicting heart-wrenching damage on selves even when match-situations beg a certain victory for them. The always-uttered statement " Consistency is the key" seems to have epidemicised Pakistan in a wrong way (readers will do well to ignore words which are taking their own time to enter the OED....I am not to be chided for those)

Another facet of D/L is to provide defeat to victors and vice-versa. Considering the receding boundaries and proceeding runs of this era, Pakistan doing what D/L does, without the help of D/L, sure is a contender for the award, that the entire world unites to confer in the far-future.

Australia:

I will consider the previous generation of Australian cricket team  now, for the sole reason that the current generation inherits not even a morsel of them traits.

Duckworth and Lewis might as well be regarded dead on birth. The equations devised, after strenuous and sweaty efforts by D and L, are all rendered vestigial when Australia plays. Given any amount of runs, swatters like Symonds and Hayden show respect, the very same respect that every person on this planet show to their bodies.

West Indies:

I am at a severe loss to comment on them. Ask me not why,please.

Sri Lanka:

They probably are the second team to benefit heavily from D and L's mat(c)hematical knowledge, the first being India.

P.S : If any of you desires addition of further teams, please comment them in. I will make sure that you will       get not disappointed for sure. 

Powerhouses' future.

Pakistan cricketers at the moment are giving an interview on their retirement plans. That should'nt be a big issue considering the inconsiderable fact that they will develop insomnia if there does'nt erupt a controversy on the eve of any match involving the assortment of the letters P, A, K, I, S, T, A, N in any order. The match could be anything from a sport to a life match. Controversies maketh the nation of Pakistan.

In another corner of the world Sachin says he will consider retirement from the international scene only after lifting the 2019 WC by hook or crook, after which he will immerse himself full-time into domestic cricket for Mumbai in which case he wants the openers to be himself and his son Arjun.

And while these two statements were thrown to the media, South Africa has'nt still riddded itself of the Chokers tag because,well, that made them famous and will keep them so for ages to come irrespective of the players or the support staff. If anything they will render their contribution to SA's history-making effort and when that completely turns history, not even God knows.

Dhoni's contribution to England's history.

Finally England wrap up to go ahead and more pertinently, I thought MSD's contribution to their history should 'nt go unnoticed.

1. Dhoni employed excellent fielders in the name of Zaheer and Sehwag in the XI.

2. He included Sachin which till now remains the sole criteria for an opposition win in cricket soil (neither home nor away)

3. He tried to play spin and pace neither of which is ipossible for our leader.

4. Fierce desire to enhance the voices of the oldies cringes' about western influences. This win puts their case beyond doubt.

5.His innovative thinking of pitch-manipulation to bolster Swann's reputation as the greatest offie in the cricketing and non-cricketing world.

Sehwag's contribution to England's history.

Yet again the impeccable Rahul hits the bull's eye. He whipped down hard on India's fielding and the remarkable ability of the Indians to go through the motions whenever and wherever,possible and impossible!

Let us take the most energetic fielder of the side that ended up on the wrong side of the coin but started on the right side, the dashing Virender Sehwag.

Sehwag was refreshingly fresh on all the days of play mainly because of Newton. Newton's law will mean disaster for Sehwag as the ball holding on to the ground will break his back thereby causing his eyesight a great damage. Why so cannot be questioned because the Indian physio has this extraordinary ability to link different parts of a human body to a single injury and crucially whenever the individual concerned is not performing!

And this did not affect his batting either. He came in, pinned his feet to the crease and thumped every ball hoping for that edge but to his disappointment the ball kept hitting the meaty part of the blade(more simply, other than the edges of the bat)

Taking these actions into discussion BCCI issued a stern notice to Sehwag to never ever rectify his style so that India could atleast boast of a player in their ranks who can remain fresh to answer the media's mundane queries at the end of a day's play. For all its worth, they could pen the answers beforehand based on who is speaking and then cross-check with the answers received. And anybody can assure you that their answers will remain intact!