POST # 10: VIOLENCE AT INDORE AND OTHER STORIES

Go to Calcutta, and say Greg Chappell was a better batsman than Saurav Ganguly and you may get away with it. Similarly go to Shivaji Park Maidan in Mumbai and say Sachin Tendulkar is nothing but hype and the youngsters there may forgive you thinking you are Shoaib Akhtar's distant cousin. Even Sharad Pawar's voters in his  Baramati constituency may  not get provoked when you say Harvinder Singh should get the "Indian of the year" award for 2011. But when you mock at Virender Sehwag after getting him out for a blob on the first ball, be sure that he will not make you forget that in the next match. The next ODI at Indore had more violence than a Ram Gopal Varma movie.  Sehwag's 219 off only 147 balls must have made Darren Sammy sing "Goli maar bheje mein...ke bheja shor karta hai". Finally,for the West Indies,  the Nisha Kothari moment came when Sehwag was caught by Roach off Pollard but not before he surpassed Tendulkar's record for the highest ODI score. It seems Chris Gayle described this knock as "Child abuse". Many a cynic argued that Sehwag's innings came against a depleted bowling attack of West Indies and that Sachin's 200 was against a fearsome South African attack and hence Sachin's innings was superior. If that was the case then Shahid Afridi should have scored 400 not out against Canada in the 2011 World Cup.

Impressed by the violence, Ram Gopal Varma has announced a new film " Outdoors at Indore". The script , cast etc are not finalized but an item song is picturised on Nisha Kothari and will be inserted at the time when agitated Gautam Gambhir walks back to the pavilion after being run out by Sehwag. Gambhir's role is likely to be played by Manoj Bajpai.

Harbhajan Singh's lost bag containing a kilogram of ATM and Debit cards, was found by the Haryana Police. His "doosra", however is still missing. Now only if the Haryana police had found his "doosra" and his form, Bhajji would be in the Boxing Day test match.  Soon after the bag was found, the Haryana Police were engaged by the BCCI to find some good fast bowlers in India who do not get injured  at the slightest drop of an Kamran Akmal catch. With guys like Pravin Kumar, Aaron and Ishant getting injured, the position of the Indian cricket team looks grim. With bowlers like Vinay Kumar replacing the injured, the day will not be far when Kapil Dev will have to be recalled, said a selection committee member, emptying down a glassfull. Our source informs us that the real reason for Ishant Sharma's injury was on account of he lifting two bread slices together with one hand  at the dinner table.

Finally it appears that the the day which we all Indians are waiting for with bated breath is nearing. Sachin Tendulkar getting his 100th international century will be a reality this series against Australia. In fact Sachin may even get his first triple hundred or may eclipse Brian Lara's record of 400 in tests or may even get the first 500 in test matches. And it has nothing to with Sachin striking back with a vengeance at  Sehwag for overtaking his highest ODI score. The real  reason is that Greg Chappell has been engaged by Cricket Australia to "demystify" Tendulkar which means he'll baffle his own team first.  Saurav Ganguly not only calls spade a spade but this time went  a step ahead and  called Chappell, "Mad".   Saurav also said that Rahul Dravid didn't have enough courage to oppose Chappell.

Speaking of Dravid, he delivered this year's Sir Donald Bradman oration at Canberra (perhaps the first non Australian to do so). Of course, the first part of his speech was probably not the finest opening knock -  where he spoke about how Indians and Australians fought wars together on the same side and  how in the  World War II, there were Indian and Australian soldiers in El Alamein, North Africa etc, (how we wished this part of the oration was delivered by Ganguly and Harbhajjan together!). Apart from that Rahul Dravid was simply amazing. Remember Kapil Dev holding aloft the Prudential World cup or  Laxman -Dravid, staring at defeat in Calcutta, without a blink, and won the match for India after following on? Or for that matter "the coming of age moment of Indian Cricket" when Ganguly swung his shirt after the Natwest finals or Kumble in Australia saying that there is only one team that plays cricket in the right spirit or Dhoni smashing the six to lift the 2011 World Cup?  Dravid's oration was right up there among those moments which  really make you proud to be an Indian. Among other things, Dravid  rooted for day and night test matches. There's a lot of excitement for this proposal from Dravid.   All the Insomnia patients have  welcomed this suggestion.   Just have an early dinner, and watch Jonathon Trott bat and by 9 pm,  you'll be sleeping like a baby. If you are a chronic Insomnia case, then 20 minutes of Shivnaraine Chanderpaul's batting should make you sleep like a log.   Rohit Sharma, and Ravinder Jadeja have objected to this as it may eat up into their pub timings and that they may have to rely heavily on "happy hours".

Munaf Patel would be the least affected. Even if he sleepwalks on the field in the night matches, no one would notice it.   He does the same in the day matches too and we have called it his bowling run up.

POST # 9: SLAPGATE -II

                      


Spare a thought  for Vinod Kambli. Everytime he works so hard to rake  up some controversy, someone or other steals the thunder from him. This time the culprit was not  a cricketer. Not even a person associated with cricket but a person called Harvinder Singh, whose free swing of the hand was disturbed by Union minister of Agriculture  Sharad Pawar’s cheek and this has triggered off a major controversy among  the cricket lovers and the supporters of Pawar. Since Sharad Pawar also dons the hat as a chief of ICC (International Cricket Council), the ICC suspected some cricketing "hand" in the incident.  Prime suspects were Vinod Kambli and Harbhajan Singh as Pawar had recently rubbished Kambli’s  allegations of match fixing as "irresponsible" and  Harbhajan Singh as he was the star of Slapgate-I, wherein Sreesanth, like Pawar had the swaying palm of another Singh resting firmly on his cheek.

We were informed that ICC had constituted a high powered committee to investigate into the involvement of some cricketers in the incident. The committee met at an undisclosed location and later concluded  that the cricketers couldn’t be the masterminds of the Slapgate-II and gave them a clean chit. We managed to get a couple of pages of the Report and some of the brilliant findings in the report are leaked exclusively hereinbelow.

Vinod Kambli’s past and the present made a strong case for his innocence. Harvinder was successful in his endeavour, and  anything involving Vinod Kambli was bound to fail.   Secondly, Kambli could not have masterminded it, for the simple reason that it would have taken the focus away from his match fixing allegation which has given him more fame than his jewellery, hairstyles, french beard,  sunscreen and his carribean flair put together have not. Thirdly, if Kambli was involved, then Harwinder would have cried on the television.

Another person who escaped of the net of suspicion of ICC was Harbhajan and that too because of his horrible form with the ball. Has anything thrown or bowled by Bhajji, in the recent past, has ever fallen in the right spot?

If it was the horrible form of Bhajji which did the trick for him, it was Sehwag’s hand eye co-ordination and timing, that made him ‘baaizzat bari’. The clipping in the slow motion clearly disclosed that there was no hand-eye co-ordination and the timing on  part of Harvinder.  If Sehwag was behind this, then Harvinder's slap would come from the middle of the palm just like Sehwag’s shots come from the middle of the bat. The slap  took the outside edge of Harwinder's palm. (this finding was given despite there being no Snickometer in the vicinity).

Rahul Dravid just could not have masterminded   something like this, because if he had done so, then he would have had to coach Harwinder for days together, that too with high degree of concentration and intensity. Even Sreesanth would not have volunteered to offer his cheek  as a target for practice, even if he was offered a permanent place in the test team.

Sachin Tendulkar was not even considered a suspect as the event of such magnitude had no "number 100"  associated with it.

Harvinder Singh’s attempt was crude and his reach was not at all graceful and as such no box could be ticked against Laxman’s name thereby resulting in an exoneration for him.And also because Laxman comes into his own only when the guy oppsite him is an australian.

Yuvraj Singh was zeoed down by the investigation committee, as the action of Harvinder  pointed a strong needle of suspicion towards Yuvraj and why not?.  Harvinder, like Yuvraj  flashed, hard did the job without connecting it well, and had an aggessive body language. What saved  Yuvraj was his shit footwork which he demonstrates so often while at the crease. The investigating team thought that if Yuvraj was the brain behind this, then Harvinder just wouldn’t be able to demonstrate such an excellent footwork.

Munaf Patel walked free because he is Munaf Patel. The only "Pawar" Munaf knew was Ramesh Powar!