Doubles & Triples

Doubles and triples - Terms unique to India alone. Right from a child's tricycle to a fully grown adult's common mode of transportation, this has been the most fuel efficient and economic way to move in Indian roads.

But someone, for god' s sake, please stop giving bikes to Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Aaah oon a bike la 2 or 3 players a tag pannindu stadium a suththi kaatta poidraan. Tholla thaangala!

I don't know if it is cute to watch it live or on TV, but it is defintely not for us poor souls who have cricinfo.com galleries as bread and butter. And why the same colored bike?

Look for yourself:





* All pics from cricinfo.com

Gentleman's game

Wonderful!

First of all, as I feared, Australia won the cup, complete with the team posing with the trophy giving their grinning/winning smiles. Ricky Ponting must be one cricketer everyone loves to hate now. Of course, he has been successful - which was duly acknowledged by the ICC awards. But the smugness, oh the smugness! And his incessant backing of his team-mates even though they talk trash. As RK says, as far as Australia is concerned, humility is NOT a virtue. Seri, ozhinji pogattum! They are winners. That cannot be taken away.

But there were other things which made the past week interesting:

1. Ponting's whine stating West Indies did not come to the awards;

2. Ponting pointing Pawar to step away from the dias;

3. Martyn "ushering" Pawar away!

4. The media's collective gasps of aghast and shock;

5. Tendulkar's statement of Pawar being a dear - what the hell is that? Was that a typo? Maybe it was fear.

6. Pawar attending an un-related and otherwise useless event and cleverly shielding questions on cricket saying, "This is not a cricket meeting";

7. Cricket Australia trying to probe into the incident;

8. Martyn apologizing half-heartedly;

9. Pawar saying that he brushed off the matter, but still goes on to say that Australians were uncivilized;

10. The great man also continues by saying, "Yea, I will take an apology and move on, but no offence meant or taken"!

11. Finally, Ponting's confused apology given with his trademark confused expression not very dissimilar to one Mr. George Duyba Bush's;

I am trying to find out which one of these makes me cry or laugh harder.

Have a good weekend, though!

Right-arm over

After around a million F5's (page refreshes) in cricinfo, I finally got to play the game. I have joined the county cricket club which was started recently. In India, I have played extensive "under-arm" cricket (with tennis ball) and not much of "ground" cricket. But this one, is the real deal.

Our team is a bunch of desis, some of whom have been playing for quite a while. I daresay that I bowl a decent leg spin, so there you go!. Batting - I am not quite used to these kinds of conditions - namely, pad, abdominal guard, helmet (all very uncomfortable, but very essential), so it is a bit hard running with the gear. But I hope I would get used to it.

Sarasota la marundhukku kooda cricket equipment illa. The salesperson at Sports Authority brought me a croquet set when I asked for cricket items. And then, adding insult to injury, she said, "Oh, I thought it was so-o cute that a guy plays croquet!".

So after settling for a guard worn for cycle-racing (err, it is similar) and a white tee-shirt from Walmart and an almost white pants, I was ready!. The first match of this season(!) was against a team from Ocala, FL. I was expecting another bunch of desis, but my jaw dropped when I saw that they were all Carribeans.

The match was 30-overs a side. We won the toss and decided to bat (3 more players on our side were still on their way, you see!). It was a mat pitch and we scored 131/8 in 30 overs. Since I am a specialist(!) spinner, I came low down the order - almost when the match was over - and scored 2 runs N/O.

After a short break, it was their turn to bat. Pacers started the proceedings and the first ball was smashed with such force I have never seen in real life to 4. Now I know how bowlers feel when Sachin smashes them around. But somehow we came back and plucked 4 wickets out of nowhere. Their chase was a mixed-bag. We bowled well in patches, and got wickets regularly. There were 4 pacers in the team, so I got to bowl later, and that too only 2 overs. I did not pick any wickets, but they did not score more than 8 runs in my "spell". But I did run-out 2 of their batsmen though. Very agile cover and square leg fielder, you see!. End result - we won by 5 runs. I think we had a bit of luck, as they were all set to win.

They were very nice and a sportive bunch. There was a lot of bantering on the field, and their accent was interesting, least to say!. Since we hosted them here, we had ordered lunch. The match had everything - a bit of rain, some blows taken by the batsmen, catches taken, catches dropped, etc. In short, a very enjoyable game. My respect to test cricketers and test matches has greatly increased after playing this one game. Next week, we would be having an informal match for our club sponsors and a pre-christmas party.

So, after watching cricinfo go back in time and reduce the scores magically, its time for some real fun!