The Beauty of It All

I was supposed to be neutral in this game.

But then there were wild scenes of Lance Klusener and Allan Donald going bonkers.

 And Australia holding the cup in 1999 grinning like green frogs.

And again in 2003.

And again in 2007.

And then there was this disturbing image of Ricky fondling a fifth World Cup and kangaroos with bloodshot eyes jumping around the world, and at this moment my sanity returned.

Australia had to lose.

For the sake of cricket.

For the sake of a new champion.

For the sake of a Pak-India semifinal.

And maybe for the sake of seeing the World Cup being reflected in the swaying Head and Shoulders sponsored hair of Afridi, Kamran Akmal swooning at the beauty of the moment and Shoaib Akhtar chosing not to become a popstar in return.

Lovely.

Ps: Yes, no regular posting these days, I know. Just a little busy and might be away for the next couple of days as well..boohoo.

Winning and Winning

Match One:

Under tense circumstances, (but still being brashly optimistic) the Deshis take the field. The South Africans post a goodish score.

A goodish score is obviously not what the Deshis wanted and so they play the "Heck, we're never going to make it" game and bundle out for 78. Lopsy and Robbie P are so formidable that them living in obscurity some 2-3 years back looks like a miracle.

At the post match presentation, Shakib utters that eternal word of captivating beauty, that word which has dabbled on the lips of countless criminals and rabble-rousers, and in typical movie sense, ultimately led to their their redemption: "Sorry".
He doesn't get any redemption but at least makes it safely to the hotel with his team.
That's better than redemption.

Match Two:

On a naughty wicket in Colombo, the Stanis take on the Aussies. The Aussies think they'll do better than the Deshis and go on to score a hundred more. But, "Sorry", says Umar Akmal. "I've got to be the MoM today and praise me and my bro. Gotta win this game".
The Aussies lose.

Yes they do.

First time since 1999 in a World Cup.

Feels good.

An Ode to Shoaib Akhtar

The earth goes bellowing and screaming
"A stampede of bisons?"
"King Kongs swarming around in tons?"
No twits, it's mad monster Shoaib that runs.
Runs around in skinny pants of cheetah skin,
Throwing up chaos, living his life in sin.

Badass badie the mad monster is,
But better than Godzilla to watch.
So oh, how we will miss him,
Miss him when he's left.
But then he had not much life left with which to brim.
Or more accurately, the limbs weren't a match
For all the toils of a cricket match.

Yet we will remember what batsmen used to remember
"Oh, the screams, the thumping hearts-
That awful time before the mad monster's over starts."




Red Bull gives you wiiings.

Ps- The last two lines of the poem come from Max Fatchen's poem 'Look Out', a poem I'm crazily obsessed with. And no, of course he didn't talk about a mad monster bowling, I changed that part.

Windies, the Heartbreakers

Really, that didn't feel good.

The Windies just drained my anticipation of celebrating an England elimination through the gutter.
Sulieman Benn, you effin giant, why do you run like you're to be dealt with the bat of Vivian Richards? I can't comprehend why. Neither what England are doing in this World Cup.

I've had this feeling about England being the intriguing clowns of this World Cup, but clowns who eventually fail when it's time for their final big act. I so anticipated about being confirmed about this, but now I might have to wait till the quarters for that to happen.

And for all the right reasons, I hope they play a quarter final against the Stanis. Imagine that, cricket's two greatest jesters taking over the field and displaying the most enjoyable kind of insanity and buffoonery. Plus, to finish all this Stani-doppelganger business and see who the real Stanis are.

It's bad, bad for the Windies too. Gutted for them on missing out on a chance of becoming heart throbs. But still, they get the picture of the match.
It's Andre Russell who walks in the air on rocket shoes.

Biff's Hatemail

Sender: Just a Saffa supporter..will make no mention of Minki and your weight.

Hello Boofus Biff,

Did you just notice that nickname? It's alliterative. I love alliterations.

But since you're not a literary person and therefore might get easily bored, I'll quickly jump to the serious business. In addition to that I promised above that I won't mention the fact that you're an absolute walrus who appears to devour watermelons as candies, I will also not try to kill you with online-operated laser technology.

So, it's safe to continue and read. And we can talk serious business.

You've been pretty crap of late, haven't you? I mean, your batting- one hopeless gigantic pile of horrendous crap. I don't know why that might be, cricket experts are telling me it's a temporary mid-career phase and that your average will soon start ballooning again. But...that doesn't solve the problem. Particularly when we are playing a bloody World Cup.

Then there's another problem. We can't drop you because you're the captain. Though I normally support the policy which states that captains are not undomitable creatures who reserve a place in the team for all eternity regardless of how they play, I don't want you to go as yet. You're a bit of a good captain and chucking you out right now would feel like kicking out a senile and rusty emperor in the last year of his rule. That's so very impetuous.

Plus, because of you, Illegal King Hash has to speed his innings and sometimes resort to playing silly shots. The same goes for AB and our 'fantastic four' or top order isn't really a fantastic four when only two dudes are performing, And then our middle order has the capacity of sucking big.

And yes, Jakes is being a fat useless walrus too. But not as useless as you currently.

Cheers,

A serious well-wisher and giver of free advice.

Ps: "Smith is a total chop, if he bates like this in the quarter finals we coming home.Drop the chop now and get someone that can bat.Smith is the ACHILLIS heal of the team"

Pps: I didn't write the above comment. Did you really think my spellings are that bad?

A Case of Errupting One's Brain

I'm high.
I galloped over galaxies in the sky
Where Indians were frying Nehra into a braai.

The stars melted into pots of gold,
Bronze statues of Robbie P stood everywhere,
A couple of Steyn ones were also near.

Rainbows came cascading down,
Illegal King Hash became the sun at dawn,
The world was glorious with a gold-tipped crown.

The load was great, my skull grew fissures.
There was kaboom and my brain spat out,
Tidbits of it on the wall.
But for a joy well fought,
A bit of brain less wasn't the end of it all.

The Poms Are Kind of...

The Poms.

HAHAHA.

They're one bag of riddles and absurdity in this World Cup.
Otherwise they wouldn't have lost to Ireland and the Banglas, but at least Andrew Strauss can go back to being all diplomatic about his campaign to resurrect the weak cricket nations.
Or saying "We still believe we can".

All teams apparently believe they can win this World Cup. It's an essential statement every captain has to make but most of the time translates to 'No, we don't really because we know we're crap and all and we feel queasy when it comes to big games, but we have to say it to look self-confident and optimistic, which is so trendy for every sportsman.'

So the Poms might have to believe they can, or the British press will have the time of their lives (criticising is so much easier than praising unless you're a thoroughly trained sycophant)- therefore, the Windies absolutely need to win against them.
Comparisons to the Stani team are appearing alongwith a victory reminiscent of 1992 so they need to be stopped NOW.

There's only one Stani team and that's it. The Poms need to be proven as a bunch of amateurs in the field of being interesting and insane.
They're slowly becoming even likeable for some.

And this is something I felt like making. Because at least yesterday I could laugh heartily.

The joy of watching Strauss despair.

Ps- Rubbish title, I know. It's the Poms fault though.

On Choking And A Saffer Problem

Time I finally wrote about a few horrors.

The first horror I had *that* day was the obnoxious catapulting of this tennisball of a thought in my head "Now I'm going to have to hear that word again." It sometimes feels even worse than South Africa actually losing.

I've read writers rambling about removing the choker word from cricket's lexicon because it's become cliché, but don't expect journalists to abide by that anytime soon. Oh no, the word choker alone induces a series of uncontrollable laughter and images of slap-stick comedy losses performed by the Saffers over years. Don't let's do away with that.

The thing is, if choking is just a form of losing, and one where a loss occurs for a team that was expected to win and among other things succumbed to anxiety and agitation, then it would be a pleasure if it were used for other teams as well. Because every other team now and then loses this way. So maybe South Africa did choke that day, but so have others. For examples, read the King's post.
For now, I'm stopping about this exhaustive thing.

Coming to serious business, South Africa do have some genuine problems and the biggest one is that their middle/lower order is like pudding for kids. Too wobbly, too unstable.
Interestingly, it's one of the reasons Boucher was left mulling in SA, so we could have a bazooka of a batsman taking over and stabilize this order. Didn't happen then because neither Faf nor Ingram nor Van Wyk are superman batsmen. They're okay, but just not blokes like Razzaq or Mussey. And blokes like them we need.

It's not a question of skill I reckon, but it's like they're too afraid to parade around relentlessly with a bazooka. You need guts for that and currently they're doing a good job of not employing those. Wimpiness is our middle order's greatest weakness now I think, and though it's not impossible to win a World Cup while that factor remains, it can make the task a whole lot difficult. And it's not as if it isn't difficult enough already.

So to our batsmen, go borrow a few matchsticks from Cap'n Shahid and have a few fireworks. Fireworks looks pretty.

Pretty indeed.

This is Eating Me Up

We had South Africa's game yesterday, a lot happened, and I still haven't posted. So I thought I'd let you all know I'm not hiding (come on, why would I?) only have some bloody work to do. No time, no time.
Hopefully serious posting tomorrow because I have to spit out a few things. It's corroding slightly inside.

In the meanwhile I found this interesting picture to ponder over.
Since everyone is so loving it to talk about choking, here's a picture where Faf is caught trying to do it literally. And of all persons, Robbie P.

Why South Africa Should be Supported

If I dictated the rules of cricket fandom, it would of course be obligatory to support South Africa all the time. But for now I'm staying away from pipedreams and just making one request: Support the Saffers Tomorrow.

Why you ask?

I'll tell you why.

Tomorrow we are playing the Poms. As you all know, the Poms must be beaten. If the Poms are beaten, there's a dramatic increase in their chances of early World Cup elimination. Which consequently will result in elimination. Which consequently will result in fewer South Africans, Indians and Stanis wanting to play for the Poms. Which consequently will result in fewer grumpy people. Which consequently will result in a happier world.

You get the idea.

And you will also support them because Illegal King Hash plays for them. Look, he even has a white palace.

Sunil Gavaskar's Masterpiece

I'm guilty of not blogging after the Saffas' game yesterday and it's got slightly to do with the game being in the morning. Morning games often mean I'll miss them and then have to catch up with the arduous task of trying to get some decent highlights somewhere.


Anyhow, I didn't miss much.

The Boofus Biff was scratchy again, Haircules got out quickly again (yes, 'again') and Hash and AB as usual had to do a revival job in their own fashions, one as I read on Cricinfo like a 'sage' and the other like a 'surfer boy'. There's nothing particular about that except for that it invokes a image of King Hash the Illegal meditating in a yoga posture on AB's surfboard, who's gliding over the sharks in yellow-and-red striped swimming trunks. I mean, just like the unbearable colours on his website.

So I'll save your time and just bring to notice the best moment of the match.

It was a piece of Sunil Gavaskar's commentary brought to my notice while reading a forum. It's peerless in being uncomprehending and hilarious, which is actually quite difficult to do nowadays considering Danny Morisson and Co. exist.

It goes like this. AB who is playing the amazing energizer bunny rabbit again, loots Loots (sorry for the pun, I couldn't resist it) for three consecutive sixes.

Memories of Gibbs hitting six sixes are immediately conjured up as AB reaches the possibility of doing it and Robin Jackman quickly says "Now don't let us mention it yet."

Gavaskar then thinks he should say something too. So he takes Jackman's sentence as a cue and starts prattling on about Gibbs' six sixes and the possibility of AB doing it too.

Either he's become deaf by sitting in the commentary box besides Ravi Shastri, or he's a bit slow.

The Poms Had A Cunning Plan

Strauss appears in the doorway of the press room.


"Before we start this, I implore you all to stay absolutely silent while I speak. Kind of like shutting up."

Before a nonplussed audience, he then smugly parades to the table and drops himself in the chair. He smirks.

"I know all of you reporters here think I silenced you for a sincere apology. That is bollocks, total bollocks...STOP IDIOTS. You do not write this. You write what I tell you to write, that's how it works. Just like my team plays how I tell them to play."

The room starts buzzing with murmurs of match-fixing.

Strauss beams now. His cleverness just knows no limits, he's twirled these media fatheads around his finger; he knows it.

"Aha, gents, your socks have jumped off your feet now, haven't they? But that's how it sits. We deliberately lost yesterday so....STOP IDIOTS. In the name of the Queen don't write match-fixing. You'll phrase it as 'The Benevolent Self-Sacrifice of the English to the Irish'. I'll tell you all why."

Strauss takes a pause to allow the anticipation for the grand moment to sink in. He smiles at the thought of how he's kicking ass better than Colin Firth.

"Gents, I ask you these serious questions. How many interesting matches we've had so far this tournament? 3. Did we play all of those three? Yes. How many times were minnows involved? Twice. How many times did we win? Once. If that doesn't ring a bell in your heads, you're all bigger prats than Colly who's the only one who thinks we didn't lose deliberately for the better good of cricket and therefore a MUCH greater cause."

The room starts buzzing again.

"Yes people, pick away a tear at that. I, Andrew Strauss, single-handedly decided to bring back cricket to life. I scored that 158 against India despite losing more calories than Bressy has in his entire body. I dropped O'Brien yesterday. I am the new Gladiator and together with my loyal Poms, we'll revive cricket including Associate Cricket. Colly we will of course banish to Ireland because he's a ginger and probably even a leprechaun and can therefore not be a part of our campaign. That's how it sits, now write your stories and Toodles to y'all."

He dashes to the door where suddenly O'Brien enters, rips of Strauss' head and puts it on a stick.
"I was amazing. I was Genghis Khan with pink hair. I was why Ireland won and the bloody English lost. That's what you write down, nutters."

He marches out and Colly follows out, throwing gold coins to the audience.

"I shall be the saviour of cricket and have a statue of myself made at Madame Tussaud's."