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Idea: Straight Point
Showing posts with label India Sri Lanka New Zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India Sri Lanka New Zealand. Show all posts
Freedom 2010
Commitments to you, commitments to who?
Commitments to another India Sri Lanka series that’s who
Commitments to a tri series, yahoo!
Commitments to a Hi! Hi! Series
How low can it get
How low can it get
Let’s go to the paradise island below, again
And again, and again, and again
Let’s go, again, and again, and one more time,
Again…
The people change, the board stays the same
The people change, the board stays the same
Shame, shame, the board stays the same
And same, same, the board stays the shame
Hardened men in white safari suits
If they bowled a ball, or batted an eyelid
It wasn’t in this lifetime
No, no, not in this lifetime
For
Cricket is commerce
It’s terse and it’s dirty
Cricket is commerce
Commerce, commerce
Terse, terse, commerce, commerce
I’m above India Sri Lanka, Dhoni was once
I’m above India Sri Lanka, Sachin is
And Gambhir and Bhajji
And you and me
And Viru and Raina for the weekend
Why can’t we all be
Free of India Sri Lanka
Happy Bored Day India.
Here’s to freedom from India Sri Lanka series
They're bad, they're bad, I know it they're bad!
Paging Praveen Kumar
PK is a thinking medium-pacer; that in itself is a crime. To his credit, he is a rough boy, the kind that ZZ TOP immortalise in their songs.
Two back to back man-of-the-matches in Australia weren’t enough – the Indians wanted him to win the 2007 World Cup, didn’t matter if he played in it or not.
PK swings the new ball, bowls the length, just doesn’t have the right length of hair. He also has the presence of mind to alter his length – he has in his repertoire, the bouncer. When bowled, it targets the eyeballs, not the balls. He can also bowl yorkers at the death.
In the 2 ODIs in Lanka, RP Singh was selected ahead of PK – RP has 63 wickets in 55 games @33, economy 5.38. PK has 30 wickets in 24 games @31, economy 4.97.
Both are in their early 20s, both from U.P., both it appears, are on MSD’s radar. Both can slog, just PK opened the batting in the recent Corporate Trophy ahead of Gambhir – he has seven first class 50s, RP has none.
Pick PK for the finals. He may not have the pace, but then neither did Mathews.
Earlier at Bored: From Pathan to Praveen, the Indian allrounder
The timelessness of Indian cricket
First off, why the heck must we have series like this triangular? To say it's boring would be to attribute more substance than it deserves. God what an utterly meaningless bore....If there's to be any balance - not to mention interest - at all in these kinda series, the next time they field, say, a New Zealand team outside New Zealand, they need to ensure its a rugby game with the NZ rugby team playing our cricket team. Still suffering the effects of yesterday ...It was an evening when Paul Simon would have changed his lyrics to "....i'm empty and aching / and i DO know why / (It was that game)"
Right. On to subject line. Ok, you watch Ashish Nehra open the attack and you're in 2003. Couple hours later you see Rahul Dravid come in to bat and that takes you to 2005.
Two years in a couple of hours !
You get a sense of how fast and how quickly forward Indian cricket is moving.
But then you consider the bevy of trundling beauties slow mo-ing in like an ultra efficient line of left handed robots feeding a run feast, dishing out their 120-130 kmph pies to be carted around the ground. Take this brother - may you massacre my figures. And this. And this again.
It feels like acute Deja Vu but then you remember the deal.
Forget 2003. Forget 2005. Forget 2009.
Not for nothing is this the no.1 cricketing nation.
Indian cricket is timeless.
Short of length Ashish Nehra.
Nehra has been around, not just with his celebratory glides, but before the North zoned in. He’s always been there, before Jatman, before Yuvi, before Bhajji, before you were born. And he knows it, and he says it, and he will continue to say it.
He is the master. Even old man Srinath laughs about Asheesh’s gyaan. Asheesh is all about gyaan.
When he bowled in another age, he was India’s only bowler to land it on the same spot, ball after ball, that sweet short of length. Zaheer was too full those days, and not half the bowler he is now.
Years later, India’s pace attack runs on Zaheer, elsewhere Nehra stumbles into the Delhi Daredevils. That clicks, West Indies ODIs happen, Compaq Cup happens, Nehra happens.
It’s tough to tell how long Nehra will last. If his bony, Bruce Reidlike frame isn’t very encouraging then neither is his fitness record.
But grant Nehra this much: Indian sans Zaheer was all about who will lead the pack? Pat came the reply, I will!
Nehra won’t have it any other way. Short of length bowler but never short of words.
If you enjoy Short of Length
Yuvraj says Thank You Sachin!
Till the previous over with the quicks on, Sachin was at first slip. With Yuvraj’s slow left arm pies ready for delivery, Dravid swapped places with Sachin.
Guptill edged the 6th pie, Dravid gobbled it up. Boy, did he look hungry – like he hadn’t had an ODI pie in a long, long while.
But honestly, if not for Sachin, Dravid would never have eaten. Now what do you say guys?
Pie pie ka hisab karna hai, boss.
Mind it I say.
‘The earth is my bed. The Sky is my ceiling.
The Premadasa is my native place.'
The Premadasa is my native place.'
You can’t empty a bullet into a guy and not expect him to change. I saw Samaraweera’s cricket change here, it was possibly the most manic change I’ve seen in a test player. It was similar to Dravid going bonkers in one of those English ODI summers.
Today’s hundred was expected. It’s tough to beat a guy who’s been dead and back. Samara’ may not go on to be the greatest Lankan cricketer, but from here, I expect him to be the most fearless. You will see it in his eyes, in his cricket. There aren’t many fearless cricketers around, even today’s best are far from fearless. They are weighed down.
Samara’ changes the Lankan batting equation - he adds weight beyond Sanga and Mahela. At least three batsmen make a middle order, till the other day, Lanka had only two players in the ODI middle – the rest, Mathew, Kambady or whoever else comes, can partner Sanga, Mahela or Samara.
Mind it. Samaraweera is here I say.
Compaq Cup: Best played on a computer
Have a look at the itinerary because nobody else did. It’s bad enough playing one-dayers, top that back-to-back one-dayers. And before that a Corporate Trophy final.
Here’s what you got, a triangular that lasts a blink of an eye, devised by some blinking idiot: Tomorrow, 8th Sept., Lanka play the Kiwis, as if they haven’t had enough of each other already.
Then a two day break before which the Indians wrap up a Corporate Trophy final and play the Kiwis on 9/11. 9/12 they play the Lankans.
Land up with your neighbourhood team, the Indians will play you on 9/13. 9/14 are the finals.
Doubt India will make them, 2 back-to-back ODIs, and they’ll be part of the fried fish at the Taj Samudara. That’s when the criticism will start in earnest.
There's a strong chance of rain, as always. About time they started umbrella cricket. Be the much needed boost for one-dayers, what say Sachin?
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