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Created by Scorpicity , first seen at his blog Cricket Fizz.
Showing posts with label scorpicity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scorpicity. Show all posts
Game over
A few days back you had to see Jadeja, Praveen and Ashish Nehra not being able to score 3 runs.
Now here they are scoring over 100!
The noose is around the Indian team's neck. Praveen and Jadeja have decorated it to make it look a bit better.
Fancy that... Couldn't score 3 but can score a 100. Good effort boys. That's what you call a real slap and a giggle.
Australia have sent their entire cavalry to India. One more man down and you will have their school children playing and kicking our butts. The medical tourism department of India failed to cache in on the opportunities. They would have made a killing over these freaks instead they are happy harassing poor Sanjay Bangar.
Doug Bollinger takes a fiver. Very well deserved sir. He watched as Siddle jumped the line over him. I always felt he was the smarter bowler of the two and both are going about quite nicely. His number came and he said “five”.
As for India's defence of 170, I have a premonition.
Dhoni bowls and takes 7. He snarls like a beast and takes apart Marsh with a chopstick. Nehra takes the catch of the century... Upside down and between his legs with only six degrees of separation between.
Is the match over yet? Or should I still be dreaming.
Game and series over. Fancy playing 3 fast bowlers in the sub-continent. Dill-logical my sorry arse.
Here's to some badass grass!
Bored member Scorpicty talks tough about India's fielding, and then goes soft here:
"To start with… Dear BCCI, the richest board, how about some nice grass on our grounds? After all there are no shortages of cows on the roads to trim them. What a pleasant sight, the outfield in the grounds in many of the non-Asian countries offer. You almost want to get down there and roll in the grass in complete glee."
Lovely, isn't it? As is the rest of the article, where he takes on Robbing Singh and other pretenders.
The Bored Chennai meet
Well, finally the Bored Chennai meet did happen. After months of our bored president throwing the BCC! Slogan* at us on getting the Chennai chapter started, the bored meet did happen, though most of the members were not available.
It was left to K from Delhi who was in town along with me and a friend of mine. We met ahead of schedule at the Residency towers and headed off to “Bike & Barrel” for some mild refreshments and chow.
It is football fever now in Chennai and the TV screens didn't give a hoot about the Ashes. The closest thing to Freddie was a “french fry”. Needless to say, we spoke about cricket, some of our fellow bloggers and other events in our life.
A few hours later, we decided to get going and so we jumped on the suspended Norton 500 along with their fishing net and rode off to St.Thomas Mount to have a panoramic view of the city. Right on top, we thought it would be cool to sandboard down the hill.
One thing led to another and before we knew it, we were right outside Krish Srikanth's house, wondering whether we should wake him up in the middle of the night and pull his mustache out. Fortunately for him, he was out-of-town and so we headed to the beach and amused ourselves digging holes in the sand till the high tide swept us away in the morning back to our workplaces.
K and Scorpicity amusing themselves in the beach.
Oh, well... None to this obviously happened. We had a pleasant time at the residency for the first Bored Chennai meet and hope a lot more fellow bored members meet up the next time, so we can do some of these above things.
Thanks K for coming down.
Yawns from Chennai!
* BCC! Slogan – tere maa ki
Predicting Ishant Sharma's hairstyle
Ravi Shastri never fails to mention how Ishanth has come a long way from that magnificent Australian test series. Only thing so baffling about such repeated hype is that Ishant Sharma's record has indeed come a long way from being promising to plain mediocre over the recent few series, often in danger of even surpassing Ajit Agarkar's record baffling territory.
If there is any significant improvement in Ishanth over the years is the fact that he has learned all the showmanship antics of fast bowlers, with all the sledging, quizzical looks, the just-missed jokes and smiles at the batsmen and so on. That is if any except Ravi Shastri could define that as an improvement.
All right, I am being unnecessarily harsh and there is still time for the good bloke to get his act together and stay focused. Besides, I like this guy and no, not in a gayish pansy way.
The other significant aspect is the number of hair style changes he comes up for each series. From short to a flowing gold streaked hair, yours truly has introspected on whether Ishant has the old teenage dilemma on whether to sport a plain old next door neighbor boring boy look or to be the wild man from Borneo a la Tarzan minus Jane with only the monkey for company look.
To research this phenomenon on whether there is a relation to the hair lost by all the cutting and his form, I decided to seek the help of the mad scientist, whose formulas could not arrive at a conclusion on whether the hair being cut has an impact on form.
However, surprisingly what the formula derived was a pretty accurate prediction on what hair style will Ishant sport for each of the series being played in the Future Tours Program.
I reproduce the formula minus the calculations for a query on the hair style which Ishanth will sport in the next Australian test series against India in 2011.
And behold... the answer.
All right... This is meant to be a joke. I like Ishant.
The legend of Cheeka: An urban legend?
It was the good old days in the late 80's from my memory. Srikanth was dropped from the national team for a while. He was the butt of all the cricketing jokes in every way gleefully disrespectful from the fans whatsoever. Common lore usually was based on how he is a nothing cricketer who only wildly swings his bat in a vain hope of connecting. Yes, even Srikanth went through a lot of flak from the selectors to the fans when his form deserted him... perhaps on many counts rather unfairly.
With this as the background, the Don Bosco school in Chennai had invited him to be the chief guest for their sports day event. Don Bosco at that time had two promising players in the name of Tanvir Jabber and an another bowler, whose name I cannot recall. Both these guys were already big names in the national junior circuit and their very names was enough to make school kids in the zonal inter-school competition go in a state of panic and outright fear.
So when the event happened, the script was to him coming in as a chief guest and play a couple of deliveries to kick off the school cricket competition. Sure enough, after the standard formalities, Srikanth went to the field to face a few token deliveries to get the crowd going.
First ball: The great fast bowler of the school took a shortened run-up, made a few smart stereotyped laughable quirks to the fielders nearby and bowled the first ball rather casually. Cheeka didn't move his feet, hit it not very cleanly but the ball sailed over the boundary for a six with such ease.
The crowd went berserk.
Second ball: Furious, the bowler went back muttering angrily... Took an extended run-up, more than what he usually does and charged in with all his might. The students held their breath back because that bowler was indeed quick. The bowler let loose a fast and short riser... Cheeka simply danced down the track and hit the bouncer on the up right out of the school compound all the way into the Don Bosco junior school compound across the opposite side of the road! One of the biggest sixes ever seen.
Crowd went ballistic... He smiled and left.
It was the much needed humble lesson every one learned. For the fact, that if someone made it to the national team amidst all common odds, there is a significant untold brilliance, which no common fan can ever know.
While this could well be an urban legend, since your truly was not there to witness this but took a stupid decision to watch a western flick instead on the sly without my parents knowledge and add to that the fact that I was a football buff back then, this incident is still being sung as far as a few days back as this huge urban legend on Srikanth, told over generations from the ones who watched it unfold on that day.
To me, I take it as on that day, there were many who learned a much needed lesson in life, including me.
The Bench warmers X1
By scorpicity
This is a long hop and for the Test x1... There are obviously many missed off my memory and hence it is not a well thought-out comprehensive line-up but one born out of waiting endlessly in an airport lobby.
The Batsmen:
Shaun Marsh
Arguably the best of the lads being churned out of the Australian domestic system. Chances of him playing for Australia are when the legendary batsmen in the current line-up develop acute chronic hernia.
Ravi Bopara and Owais Shah
England could easily feature an alternative 11 that will beat their national team 50-0 in any format of the game... that includes playing immediately after a bypass surgery. Victims of the sub-organization that unofficially run the ECB called “Stick-up-to-the-Bum-pals Inc.”
Yuvraj Singh – captain of the bench warming x1
Do we need to say more.
Boeta Dippenaar and Mohammed Kaif
Both remain an eternal mystery on all fronts... One, being, are they actually good enough at this level. Two, where they unlucky to be born at the wrong time and place. One can never know. The only positive is that both are incredibly boring when they bat, which is really cool for us and all the pensioners in the world.
Mark Ramprakash
100 first class centuries, a county cricket legend and a role model among the kids taking up the sport in England... A living testimonial of how overrated English county cricket is.
Russell Arnold
The fall guy, who averages over 40 and has rescued Sri Lanka countless number of times and yet invariably found himself on the benches. Had no choice but to buckle down to a fat lump of solidified flour through much of his career, usually as the by-runner.
The bowlers:
Andre Nel – Spearhead
The chances of this fiery bowler playing for South Africa again under the quota system would be when few of his white team-mates contract hepatitis-C.
Charles Langeveldt
Did a first among the benchwarmers and went straight into the hall of fame. An opportunity to play under the quota system arose for him and he chose to go into voluntary bench warming exile. The last news heard was him calling up Nel on the phone and singing the Def Leppard classic “I'll be two steps behind”.
Nathan Bracken
Australia's best fast bowler in all the shorter versions of the game. Somehow doesn't find favor for the longer version. Maybe it is those ugly hair bands that don't look cool in whites. Pray, cricket Australia did a smart move in not introducing two bowlers like Clarke and Bracken in the same match. Imagine the agonizing hara-kiri fans in the stadium will be committing watching these two boring bowlers in action.
Sajid Mahmood
Right arm fast and wayward. The twin brother of Ashish Nehra, separated at birth.... It is unmistakable... that nose.... All Nehra's have that nose. With the “Stick-up-to-the-Bum-pals Inc.”in full operation, he has no chance other than being the water boy. Not very sad but true.
Stuart Macgill
For over a decade, he was Shane Warne's groupie and trusted sidekick. When he did get promoted, it was too late... he had contracted hip dysplasia along with Shane Warne's Labrador. A really sad but true story here.
Murali Karthik
One like Russell Arnold... An Indian parallel. His best hope is if Middlesex and England adopts him.
Now that we are through with the players, we ought to go for the bench warming coaches. Hey! I know all coaches in the world do nothing but warm the benches. But these are special.
Dave Whatmore
Perhaps the only coach in world cricket today, who has incredible turnaround results in his kitty... Yet, he has no respect or stature as they say due to either what he was as a player or possibly what he showed to his team mates in the changing room. A really really sad but true case.
“Guru” Greg Chappell
Of course, none will associate Greg as a bench warmer... no way. But I say, he will soon be for the future. I doubt after his stint with the Indian team and especially his 'yet-another-failed-vision plan' for Australia in that Indian series, it will be a brave or homosexually desperate board that will employ him in the future.
Sadly, even among my bench warmers X1, there are 14 listed candidates, which means even among the bench warmers, there are candidates likely to be a bench warmer's bench warmer. That takes the cake and the baking soda.
Now who will be so cruel to do that. Not me!
The saffer song
By Scorpicity
Die, die, die my darling
Don't offer a single shot
Die, die, die my darling
suck up and kiss Johnson's mouth
Ill be seeing you choke again
Ill be seeing you choke in hell
Coach, don't cry to me oh baby
About how great your team is
oh, don't cry to me oh baby
I should have seen this coming
Don't cry to me oh baby
You all know, to choke is your power
Don't cry to me oh baby
Can't bat, can't bowl when required
Don't cry to me oh baby
Now you go choke on a drain plug line
Don't cry to me oh baby
Die, die, die my darling
Don't offer a single shot
Die, die, die my darling
suck up and kiss johnson's mouth
I'll be never placing a bet on you again
Ill be seeing you choke my beer bill in hell
Die, die, die, die, die, die....
Not poetic at all like NC... I put my neck out and like all fickle Indian fans who had the nerve to support the saffers, my fickleness is showing through.
Song originally by the misfits... However you can hear Metallica's version to sing along.
Damm you Saffers.
The really bored quiz... Episode 1
By Scorpicity
How many times does Jason Krejza jump on the same spot immediately after the delivery has been bowled and played by the batsmen?”
If you need a clue, the Aus-SA series is on.
The curse of Chennai
By Scorpicity
The curse of Chennai is back yet again to haunt cricket fans in what possibly could be yet another washout due to rains for the England test series. If India had spent millions just for this tour and moved boulders and mountains to convince the ECB, I wonder why a rupee cannot be spent on checking with the met department on the feasibility of play happening due to the weather at this time of the year.
Same old story over and over again.
There is rain folks now. When all the drama in Mumbai was happening, a cyclone had hit down south causing more damages to the property and perhaps even human lives and it all went away from the radar of the media. TRP's and the world's highest heart rate increasing word 'terror' is worth more.
When the Champions league was scheduled to happen in Chennai, folks here were in hysterics and mad at the same time with the BCCI for being stubbornly stupid beyond any reasoning. Even if there is no rain, there will be heavy dew, starting from the second week of December and peaking in January. In short, not a very conducive time to play cricket this time of the year in Chennai.
There was a depression warning a few days back, the second one after the cyclone. It is starting to rain again here and would be a miracle by itself that this test series is underway.
Or maybe it is one of those grand plans by the ECB and the BCCI to select a venue which is not conducive to cricket this time of the year and also considering the current 'terror' circumstances and it becomes easy for all to remain in their hotel room, not move an inch, the public gets fooled into buying non-refundable tickets and television rights contracts are also not breached since the series is happening as promised and everyone in the boards gets their money with out any mitigation fiasco.
Ticket sales will indeed be interesting this time around and primarily for the fact that the Chennai public has been bitten hard by loosing money in rain affected matches.
A long time ago, I read a weird news piece in the Hindu, on how in many places here, there was this ceremony of the 'marriage of the frogs' to bring in rain.
An actual marriage ceremony of frogs!
And invariably it rains in a few days after the marriage. A ceremony which cheats the simple minds into believing hocus-pocus fed by people who have knowledge on the elements, which they take to cheat to gain 'power' in society.
However the real BCC! is not fooled. Those cricket fans who want the match to happen in Chennai should do the following cunning strategies to reverse the karma for five days and invoke the Gods to do a 'reverse-miracle'.
Find all possible married frogs in the south and get them divorced!
Cunning isn't it?
Throw every applicable case at them... marrying a minor frog, marrying of the same sex, domestic violence, door-bell campaigns and everything including polygamy to reverse this karma.
The test match is likely to happen in this cunning, indigenous venture promoted by the BCC!.
Ah! I hear a few croaks now outside the window. I'm off now to save test cricket.
Are you colour confused?
By Scorpicity
You have a team called India Green which has an outfit completely yellow.
Then you have a team called India Red which has an outfit all blue.
I have not seen India blue but am pretty certain their outfit will be turn out all red or pink if Mandira Bedi is lurking around.
Add to that a white ball which looks black... sometimes even green.
You are colour confused. So am I.
And just how many Ohja's are there in India? Looks like every Ohja in this country is playing cricket and playing well. Soon all fans will be singing
"ohja rey ohja yeh woh ohja, ohja rey ohja yeh woh ohja"
Remember that 80's song.
I'm getting back to the match and resume crying hearing V.B Chandrasekhar's commentary.
And no V.B. does not stand for that cool Victorian brewery company.
Naughty fellow that VB. I tell you.
The use of face paint in cricket
Well, I was quite stumped when a 8 year old asked me about why and what these cricketers wear on their face. His questions was difficult. So I thought maybe I could use the help of our fellow bloggers in tracing its history and its accurate use.
From my memory, I reckon it started with Craig McDermott or Merv Hughes to compliment his mush. But am not sure. What I certainly know is that Allan Donald revolutionized it.
Originally meant to be some Zinc oxide moisturizer, for the sole purpose of attracting moisture to your nose, Allan Donald went on to state that it was his 'war paint' to scare the opposition. The other explanation is that it is a sun screen lotion to protect the players from the sun. I remember an article in the media making fun of it, after all it was ridiculous then and the notion of Indians using a 'Kathakali' mask in response to Allan Donald's scare tactics was common lore among the cartoonists desperately searching for 'bad' ideas.
15 years down the line, it has become a must for every player and the silliness quotient has not reduced one bit.
So what is it? Sun screen lotion or some dumb moisturizer.
You have Mike Hussey dumping an entire pack on only his nose, to compliment an animal which they take offense to when mentioned about.
And then you have these 'kunjoose' asian teams who share the entire pack among themselves rubbing it all over their faces, armpits and groins, where the casting crew will be spoiled for choice in who is to play the role of joker in batman. Shabby as hell.
So what is it for? If it is sun screen, then why only on the nose and if it is a moisturizer why apply it so shabbily all over your face, arms and legs especially since you already sweat.
The silliness quotient still remains.
Reverse swing?
Or are there any logical answers? Damm, I hate those pesky kids who ask difficult questions.
Lalit Modi in an ad...gaaaaw
By Scorpicity
Feeling all blue with a rather stubborn flu that has persisted for nearly a week, my channel surfing suddenly brought Lalit Modi in his suit talking about his so-called IPL dream. First thoughts was, this was an initiative by the BCCI for the BCCI to thrown in a brownie for the ICL or some promo for an interview in a sports channel. But no, the shocker came at the end!
It was an ad for Tata Indicom! And Lalit is the brand ambassador!
Ridiculous and even more ridiculous... goodness sake... To start with, what is wrong with Modi?
And even more ridiculous was what that so-called advertising agency was thinking. Do they think Lalit Modi is a hero among the masses that can help sell a product?
Next what, Lalit Modi spraying a can of rexona and people go, "wowee, Lait uses rexona... maaan, we got to go buy one now!"
This has got to be the most weirdest WTF in Indian advertising history.
Match fixing in book cricket
By Scorpicity
After VM's take on paper ball cricket and Ankit's guidelines on gully cricket, I decided to let out the last version of cricket which I played, thus completing all the nostalgic action on cricket from my childhood days.
Ta.da... Presenting the unassailable book cricket!
It all goes back to my childhood studying in the 6th grade where boring math classes forced us to indulge in our favourite pastime. Our math teacher was a good teacher, however she was very fast in her didactical progress and therefore I often got lost to a point where I gave up listening to her. She assumed that since the brighter lads had it figured out, the rest of the class also did. My maths teacher could have been a great cricket player for one valid reason. She could wield the cane with deft precision and power. There are many teachers who often miss with the extended hands (ball) of some students being whisked away on time anticipating the pain but oh no, not this one! Her backlift could put Brian Lara to shame and when it came crashing down, there was never a miss nor an edge... sweetly timed onto the meat of your palm.... reverse swing, inswing, whichever damm way someone tries to move his hand (ball) away, she always watched it like a hawk.
So now that leaves us with the thickest textbook available at that point in school... the dreaded maths book. I don't think there is any need to explain book cricket in detail. In short, it worked on probability and the player has to randomly open the pages of the book. The last digit of the page numbers were considered the scoring runs with numbers like 5, 7.8 and 9 being 'no runs' and with 0 being the dreaded ball where you are out. This game was a rage in school and the first corrupt seeds of match fixing prevailed on me at an early age, where soon I became the undisputed champion of book cricket.
How I fixed it was simple... after the first 50 odd pages, I tore away all the pages with 0 in it and that gave me the leverage of playing extremely well because of the knowledge of the conditions. It got my classmates pissed off because they could never figure out how I kept winning all the time and they never would have imagined anyone tearing off key pages of a textbook! So I lived to become a book cricket legend!
Phew... now that's a whole lot out of my chest!
I never got caught playing this game during the maths class and I closest I got was when one day while she was correcting the submitted homeworks, she caught me rapidly opening my math text book and scribbling something on my notebook. So she came to be and said
Teacher: “What do you think you are doing”
Me: (no response) (gulp!)
She examines my notebook and see it filled with different scores, numbers all over.
Teacher: Are you taking a random problem from your book and solving it? Rapid maths practice?
Me: yes ma'am.
Finding the lost Trescothick
By Scorpicity
A couple of days back when boredom hit a new high where even having a cool glass of beer was a boring thought, I decided to watch some English county cricket. I know... I know... If I watch the English County leagues, it is a good sign of depression coming over me. After all, I have time and again maintained that “English county cricket is like Sandra Bullock doing a pole dance and you still won't get it up”.
But what got my attention was this estranged guy...”Marcus Trescothick” playing. I thought he was busy with his new found association of sensitive cricket players (ASCP), strengthened by vice-president, Shaun Tait and groupie, Tim May. But recently Ottayan in his blog, highlighted some excerpts of Marcus explaining to the world on his depression that stopped him from pursuing cricket. So watching him a day after I read that piece on Ottayan's blog, I was surprised to see him play. Curiosity to watch the man who by far could have been a force to reckon with for England got me watch a full match.
40 over match, 330 runs scored... 300 plus runs for the first wicket and Marcus unleashing one of the most brutal innings I have seen. Heck... even the commentator went brutal this, brutal that. The 170 odd runs that he unleashed got me thinking about the man who seem to be a softie ice cream that dissipates at a lick yet is so strong, flowing and majestic on the field with the willow. One wonders what England as a team could have been with Marcus on top, Bell, Collingwood, KP and my most hated English cricketer, Flintoff all in one flow. Nevertheless, it would be cricket's great loss if this player, doesn't ever come out of his depression and get back to where he belongs... not some crappy county team but for the national side.
For more brutal stuff, you could listen to Nile.
BTW, after scoring 330 they lost that game by D/L.
Peace!
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