Another Indian Disaster!

South African victory over India was done when Ashish Nehra had been asked to bowl the last over! So good a man Nehra is, didn’t waste much of a precious time, within three bowls he finished the game and went to the dressing room to have much needed rest and an Orange juice! 4, 6 and 4. Game Over!

South Africa, needing 13 runs off the last over, broke the hearts of a adherent Indian crowd by pulling off exciting three-wicket win. There were pin drop silent in the gallery after the thick Indian crowd comprehended South Africa really won the match! But their real shock came little later when Indian Captain Dhoni defended the decision to give Ashish Nehra the last over of the South African Innings, saying the paceman has been doing a nice job and hoped that the laft-armer will win crunch games for the country later in the World Cup! That means we can expect same kind of horror in upcoming matches too! He is going to persist with left armer!

Difference between genuine quality bowler and not so quality bowler has been exposed in full public glare. Zaheer Khan’s over just before the disaster was top class; MSD most likely thought Ashish Nehra cannot be so bad to giveaway 13 runs in 6 balls that too against tail enders of South African Squad! Well…, Ashish Nehra proved that he is not only bad but dreadful by giving away 14 runs in 3 balls!

“Bowlers need to bowl at the right spots and if you are not doing that, more often than not, you are going to get hit. Bhaji (Harbhajan) was the only other choice but I thought a seamer would be better. Maybe I was wrong, but I thought that was the better option.” Dhoni said after the match.

Dhoni’s statement made a young man chuckle in the Indian dressing room; the young chap could not control his laugh even though dressing room was so tensed and gloomy after the defeat. Went out the dressing room and laughed till he got severe abdominal pain. A curious off spinner in the team who never got a chance to spin the ball till now followed the young pacer to know what is so funny.

“Bhaji will never agree to bowl last over, even if you point a gun at his head in point blank range!” While giggling, the aggressive paceman told the unfortunate off spinner who carries drinks all the time without a break. They spoke in almost same south Indian language, the third curious pace bowler followed them could not understand a single word out of their conversation rolled on the floor laughing! (One and only clue - He has got this inborn idiotic expression on his face all the time, even when he takes wickets, drop a catch or a miss field)

“Had we batted for full 50 overs, we could have got 20 more runs. What is important is you don’t play for the crowd you play for your country. We should have batted the full fifty overs. If we could have fielded better we could have made the score look bigger, but we’re not a side known for our fielding.” MS Dhoni continued.

Is he pointing at Yousuf Pathan, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh or Zaheer Khan for their batting for the crowd? In short Mr.Dhoni is concluding this match defeat by saying they should have bowled, fielded and batted better, that’s all, very small problem to rectify before the next match!

Bollywood actress Bipasha Basu and Abhishek Bachchan were few celebrities attended to watch the India vs South Africa match. Indian cricket team had given back what Bachchan and Bipasha had given us in recent times. Let them know the taste of disappointment. It is sour. Very sour!

Sigh! Sachin scored century – India lost the match one more time. Sachin was fielding like Virat Kholi, he was talking to the bowlers frequently, his presence felt all over the ground. Still his younger fellows could not give him a Man of the Match Award that he really deserved this time!

India's World Cup Defeat – A butterfly effect!

There is stunning similarities between 1987 Indian one day World Cup defeat and 2009 T20 World Cup defeat. In 1987 Kapil Dev’s devils failed to retain the cup they had won so gloriously four years before in England. As installed as favorites the defending T20 champions India were eying for consecutive world cup title; but this time they were carrying hopes of a billion, unlike last time where nobody had put their money on India especially with the absence of Fab Four! Same cycle India had gone through 26 years ago as nobody had believed in a team that Kapil Dev led to their first world cup victory in England!

As I was not grown enough to watch or memorize a live match that took place in India and Pakistan in 1987, last night I had a chance to watch some of the recorded highlights of Indian innings, had a Goosebumps to see some striking similarities in few bowled outs and run outs! Those old fellows must have had the feeling of déjà vu when they were watching the last match that South Africa defeated India!

Almost all the countries have come to terms with niceties associated with Cricket’s newest and shortest form with so much of matches being played over last couple of years. T20 is not as former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad referred, carnival cricket or slam bang cricket. T20 has scope for matters of strategy, cunningness, and tactical planning. Not all Tom Dick and Harry can play T20; it requires massive power, timing and most significantly a huge chunk of luck! Seemingly a small error can get overblown in a result that goes down to the wire as we witnessed several times in IPL.

In India even Muthayya Muralidaran of Sri Lanka used to get mobbed, stunned spin wizard said nothing this sort happened to him in his own home country. I am not talking about Muralidaran here. Indians have this weird propensity to raise a mediocre player to the status of Super Man and praise him left right and center, build a temple and do whatever possible to magnify his good things and rip him apart when he make couple of errors of judgment. Definitely Dhoni is intelligent enough to know this strange behavior of Indian cricket fans well before. “I was told by a senior a few years ago. He said if somebody is appreciating you, don't hit seventh heaven. If you fall on floor, it wouldn't be good for you. So adopt a central path. I try to do so," Dhoni was visibly disturbed and upset by the large portion of the crowd which booed him in presentation party. I suspect that senior is none other than his predecessor Sourav Ganguly, he too had a nasty time to go through.

It was Dhoni’s over confidence that caused the defeat against South Africa in last super eight games though it was a meaningless match. Dhoni retained the same team including the real culprits of the previous game. He wanted to prove a point or two to his critics the defeat against England was just ” a bad day”, look I gonna beat the best team in the tournament South Africa with the same team, he even celebrated the win when India restricted SA for as little as 130 runs. Well, opposition had some other plan in their mind and executed them beautifully, Dhoni was once again on losing side when the game was over, giving more and more chances to the critics to stone him! By the way the Indian captain is known for taking risks isn’t he?

It is not surprising to see the captain is getting most of the brickbats; there are so many other factors also to be counted besides Sehwag issue that left bad taste in everybody’s mouth, Coach is not been targeted much in blaming game of former players this time around, may be because Gary Kirsten is less flashy character than the former coach. Then Dhoni was the one praised far above the ground by every one when he won the inaugural T20 World Cup for India!

Indian Cricket fanatics started shouting for Dhoni’s head just like how it happened to Kapil Dev 22 years ago when his team failed to retain the World Cup. Critics are busy to find and list down the mistakes that Dhoni did in this World Cup similarly what happened to Kapil Dev in 1987! The media reported Kapil Dev had indifferences with Sunil Gavaskar which later on both of them denied identical to the allegation about the rift between Dhoni and Sehwag, Kapil Dev was suffering from decline of his own form as a bowler similar to Dhoni’s own batting form. Kapil Dev couldn’t continue as Indian captain anymore after the world cup defeat….

Let’s hope history won’t repeat all the time or at least this time! Butterfly effect can cause a fraction of a change in same incidents. Remember Dhoni is yet to lose a test match as captain!

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IPL - Why Lalit Modi is smiling?

It was a brave decision to move the whole IPL in to South Africa. Every tom dick and harry had their own share of opinions, suggestions and demands. IPL chair man Mr. Lalit Modi had a meeting with Indian minister Chidambaram prior to IPL shift; Minister wasn’t ready to split his security force for mere entertainment reason over countries primary concern like election. He said the same to Lalit Modi in a very polite manner and requested him to change the IPL schedule to make it little bit later. Knowing the attitude of Lalit Modi, he must have asked the minister why they can’t postpone their election fuzz instead. End of the day both of them stick with their original ideas. Result - IPL in South Africa. Hip hip hurray!

 

Every body appreciated Lalit Modi for his brave move; in fact Modi had made a lot of contract with different TV channels, Ad makers and sponsors. Giving a due respect to the global recession he was scared to lose some of the clients if it postpones two weeks; plus it may clash with T20 World Cup that also going to take place in June. All his team owners including Sharukh Khan and Prety Zinta completely agreed with the idea of Modi. Mr.Malliya was “OK” for anything whatever Mr.Modi says. He always offered everybody a bottle or two Kingfisher weather there is IPL this year or not.

 

Finally it happened. IPL 2009 in South Africa! Modi had last laugh. He left an impression to his fellow business men that this bullshit called “recession” is only in their mind, it is just like a horror fiction by Stephen King without substance. One of Mr.Modi’s friends believed him blindly and invested his hard earned money for Real Estate business in Middle East; he may end up burning not only his fingers but also his… yeah, you know what I mean!

 

Modi was happy, Shipla Shetty and Prety Zinda were happy, Malliya was more than happy as always. Yeah, Sharukh Khan also was happy till his team Kolkatta Knight Riders gone out to the ground to play a game called Cricket. On the half way of the tournament Sharukh gone back to home saying T20 is boring. Dude, your players are boring to its core, look at Chris Gayle, one can forgive him for his sleepy look and droopy eyes, but man, he is making others sleepy too, now that is offensive, then comes Dada, he blink his eyes several times (batting eyelid 25 times in a second) just not to fall in sleep while batting, then Ajith Agarkar, did he ever wake up?

 

When I saw the first match of IPL I understood the fact that, Super Star of this edition of IPL is none other than Mr.Lalit Modi. He smiles, he chuckles, he laughs in rare occasions he pick his nose, he scratch his balls, oh my god, the camera men seems like just can't get enough of him. As a duty of commentators Mr.RaviShastri is the one competing for the first place to praise Modi, another commentator from Chennai also wasn’t far behind (I need two lines to type his name, and I am not sure still I will be able to spell it correctly either) When ever camera focus on Lalit Modi, he never fail to sparkle that special yellow smile. Once I heard Ravi Shastri’s comment about Modi’s “double mobile phone” conversations, yeah, you read it right; he was talking through two mobile phones holding in two hands!!

“Nobody knows how many more mobile phones Mr.Modi has in his pocket!”  Mr.Ravi, this is too silly comment to enlarge one’s image. Public felt pity on you to see your effort to magnify Mr.Modi’s image that actually degraded your image as a person who stunned to see some one is holding two mobile phones!

 

Modi didn’t stop there, he donate 100 rands each to 59 schools in South Africa to make Indian ministers jealousy, he want Indian public to prosecute the minister Chidambaram for not allowing IPL in India, and look what all the fortune India is losing, money, money and more money, Ad revenues, taxes plus a wonderful game of Cricket for public along with some semi-nude dances, some hard core IPL fans said they even can afford to miss cricket all together but not the cheer leaders and their weird dance steps, Mr. Modi should have had little sympathy on these people to keep only the cheer leaders and their dance in India!

 

If Mr.Modi thinks he made Indian government to regret for their stand against IPL this year, then I can only extend my warm condolence to Modi, Indian Government won’t give a damn about your IPL dude, for them you are another business freak from their home country with yellow smile and liked to be in camera all the time, if you want to have IPL in India, then it is fine, if it is not then it is double fine!!

 

Political or not, the show must continue, inside or outside India, let IPL steal the show. Don’t be so greedy to have two IPL in a year, too much cricket also can kill the interest of public, and Mr.Modi, next time kindly avoid the camera as much as you can, I am sure still there will be enough appearance to satisfy yourself during the match. Last time we missed some of the important bowling and boundaries; because camera man was busy showing your weird antics. And it is bad for you too, look at the picture those photographers caught! You too can't have a normal life that everybody is having and enjoying around you!

Adios.