Balloon head!

Anything can happen in Twenty / 20 cricket. Even scoring 36 runs in last over is possible. That is the reason T20 is so popular in cricket playing nations, and it won’t take too much of a time to have result. It is like a carnival show, people go to watch their home teams playing straight after the work. Support the home team, have some drinks, cheers, excitement, thrills and little dance show with few DJ tracks. Modern day entertainment after PS3 and Xbox Kinect!

IPL became food for thoughts for few neighboring countries. BPL is not British Physical Laboratories LLC as me and you identify with. It is representing Bangladesh Premier League! The latest buzz is that Pakistan also planning to have their own Premier League very soon, probably sooner than anticipated. PPL wannabe heads already hinting the possibilities of omitting Indian players from their game. The funny part is this discussion took place even before they could take decision on where to play the cricket!

I have hinted in my previous blog posts that Harbhajan Singh is a balloon head! Still if you guys are not convinced enough; just watch that match reply where Mumbai Indians played against Deccan Chargers. Bhaji was ramming towards the umpire and shouting, umpire was looking for a shield to avoid the saliva spray! At one point I thought he gonna slap the umpire like; you know he slapped someone in first edition of IPL?

Umpires make human errors, but a player can’t argue with umpire! Honestly; I was fancying Bhaji to slap the umpire, so his career would be in jeopardy. As again and again Harbhajan Singh is showing the world he is not only fit to play cricket but also any competitive game at large. Someone has to put this mentally gone case to a mental asylum as soon as possible for the best of the game cricket. He is the captain of Mumbai Indians, I am wondering how the hell an illiterate like Munaf Patel would learn discipline from the leader? Munaf can’t read, write or talk in better words. So only thing he can do is just watch somebody and try to learn from him. Unfortunately he got to look at very bad idol and that too all the time!

Virendar Sehwag is having a bad patch in his life. As soon as he got fixed his bald patch on his head all sort of bad patches start pouring at him left, right and center. His prolonged bad form successfully extended to IPL so far, been dropped from the national team, giving the chief selector Mr.Srikanth hard time to explain the media, his best buddy Gautam Ghambhir lost the vice captaincy to comparatively new comer Virat Kohli. Sehwag’s word of war with Dhoni didn’t improve the cause either. Cost him everything including his position in the team. He was probably too ignorant about the change of tide, initially the power shifted from Mumbai to Delhi, now Delhi to Chennai. Look at the opponent buddy; Chief selector Srikanth is from Chennai, BCCI secretary N.Srinivasan owns the team Chennai Super Kings, Dhoni is the captain of Chennai Super Kings, why Suresh Raina is so confident about his position in the team even after lack of form in recent international matches?, he too plays for CSK, why Bhaji is out and Ashwin is in?

Mera Bhai; tum dekha huwa book cover, poora kahani andar hai!

But one thing is for sure, nobody can mess with the HULK of Indian cricket, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar! And everybody including foreign players are aware of his unbelievable popularity in India. Look at Greg Chappel, he has to say something about Sachin to sell his filthy biography, before coming to play IPL Brett Lee was more concerned about himself than Sachin Tendulkar by making a sweet statement about Master Blaster; consequences he may have to face from Indian crowd for blocking Sachin from scoring a run in recently concluded match in Australia could be pricy! Even Dhoni said Sachin is the ultimate batsman India can’t afford to miss, this came right after his statement about rotation policy and slow fielders. So Dhoni was hitting someone in Delhi by this statement, and he is making sure he meant particularly one player when he made that statement. Slow fielder? Ahum…. Harbhajan Singh is a real Chamcha of Sachin Tendulkar, if anybody come up with a statement against Sachin, Bhaji will be the first one to defend the little master, so what did he get out of this?, a permanent position in Mumbai Indians team, and now he became the captain of the Mumbai Indians!

100^th 100 ton in international cricket is unbelievable by any stretch of imagination; Sachin achieved that feat sighting nobody nearby to break the record.  Even Sachin puffed, huffed and gasped to reach there! If not against Bangladesh he was aiming at Zimbabwe, if not Zimbabwe then new comers like UAE or Afghanistan. Luckily he got there against Bangladesh. Now he can play free cricket as some critics says, that means they too not expecting Sachin to retire in near future! As an ardent fan of Rahul Dravid said; Sachin may hang the boot and hand over the bat to his son Arjun when he is ready to play international cricket!

A media person asked Virendar Sehwag “actually Irfan Pathan is what in your team?”

After a long pause Viru answered “you know, he is a bowler, he is fast medium slow bowler who can bat a little”

“Fast, Medium or Slow… which one?” the interviewer mystified completely, the answer was nothing but a burning stare!

Adios!

The day after the High Voltage Match!

Next day after the clash of two giants in World Cup semi final I went to a salon to have a haircut. Those Pakistan hair dressers seem like so dejected and frustrated, I did not say a word about cricket till they finish their job on my hair, I was really scared of losing one of my ear between their scissor blades if I utter a word about cricket!

I thought it was so strange when I noticed they were watching a Chinese channel on the TV, err.., they were listening to the Chinese channel on TV. Before going out of the salon, after opening the push door completely I asked the hair dresser, “Why are you watching a Chinese channel? Do you know Chinese?”

“Every fucking channel is talking about that chootiya khel cricket. We had enough, all bullshit!” One of the men grumbled with an astonishing anger!

“But that is only a game, one team has to lose. Both teams cannot be qualified for the final game” I put forward a general theory.

“Then why can’t you guys lose the game?” one of them shouted!

I closed the door and walked away, immediately I understood the intensity of the situation! After a while I turned back in fear to check if they are coming after me with a scissors to cut my neck?

I would say the empathetic Indian win against their neighbor should contribute a lot to Pakistan cricket team itself for their dropped catches, sloppy fielding, run out chances and Kamran Akmal.  The Pakistan wicket keeper did something right only to make Goutham Gambhir out. Otherwise he was in his usual form.

Man of the Match Sachin Tendulkar should gift his trophy to Pakistan’s Mis bah ul Haq! He is the one worked hard to see India win. As fuming Pakistan commentator Rameez Raja said “if Mis Bah can hit a six like that in last overs (where there is no hope left) why couldn’t he hit one before?”

As long as Mis Bah Ul Haq is there in Pakistan cricket team India can win any tight, pressure cooker match effortlessly, remember T20 World Cup final?

Harbhajan Singh is under injury threat after taking two or three flying moths in his mouth following the wicket of Pakistan Captain Shahid Afridi! The insects entered in his mouth died immediately, one which narrowly escaped told his friends his three best friends sunk in a toilet bowl! Don’t ever fly nearby that thing, it is highly dangerous! If you don’t sink in it, you might get strangled in curly hair around it!

ICC World Cup 2011 Snippets – Part 1

2011 ICC World Cup kick started with a beautiful boundary from India’s Virendar Sehwag. His survival as a batsman in the crease for the first 5 overs are running on 80% of pure luck. Next 5 overs 60% of luck, after 25 overs it is 100% talent with little or no luck!

Look at his game against England on their second match in world cup. First ball he faced turned into streaky four, well, he wasn’t teasing the team England with those half chances, he was hell nervous out there and Bangalore crowd was aesthetic!

Match between Pakistan and Srilanka too was a good entertainment. But wait…, a young Pakistan batsman jumped on the pitch while batting, apparently spoiling the pitch according to the umpire. Umpire called the batsman immediately and tried to explain not to jump on the pitch, poor Pak player didn’t understand a thing what umpire was trying to convey. Umpire jumped hard on the same surface to show the batsman not to do that!! Srilankan captain Sangakkara was pulling his hair out and finally pleaded to the umpire let it be, if he got it or not. Don’t show it on the pitch sir, we got to bat after this!

Sachin Tendulkar is a living legend, but he is not bigger than team India. Every tom dick and harry says India should win this year’s world cup for Sachin Tendulkar. What about the country? What about millions of Indian fans around the world? Less fortunate street ass riding on Tendulkar’s popularity is not new. Started by one time Sachin’s good pal Vinod Kambli, and it was like a domino effect everyone including Harbhajan Singh backing up the presupposition. Harbhajan Singh is well known friend of Sachin Paji, or Harbhajan created this impression about him and Sachin in media smartly responding on anything about Sachin, in return he gained so much of popularity, a lot of money from the ads and a place in Mumbai Indians in Indian Premier League, even his own state team Punjab Super Kings didn’t rate him so much!

Indian pacer Sree Sranth was very upset initially when he was left out of the World Cup team. He cried on the rooftop to pick up some sympathy (not exactly like how he reacted after getting slapped) Indian Cricket team chief selector Krishnamachari Srikanth compelled to answer the media questions when he visited Kerala; the speedster’s home state. In fact Srikanth was struggling to find a convincing answer. Praveen Kumar’s ill timed injury became blessing for Sri Shant, he played against Bangladesh in opening match and showed the world why he wasn’t picked in playing eleven initially. Now Srikanth is thanking Srisanth for clearing the cloud!

Harbhajan Singh - When will you learn?

Harbhajan Singh is one cricketer who would never leave the lime light even in his sleep, while he suck the thumb in a nice deep sleep you go there to his home with a video camera; strangely you can find his middle finger rising at you – this is his automatic reaction to the media that no doctor in the world have the clue about! That is Bhaji as affectionately called by his fans and friends! He loves to stay in the news regardless of the way how he gets there. Slap gate, spitting, abusing, kicking, staring…you name it; poor fellow had tried everything possible to get his name in the news! He makes even more news after realizing that he did something wrong and necessitates covering it with some crap.

Harbhajan has this uncanny ability to piss off anybody who comes close to him in a mile or so just like his co-player Srisanth! If Sri is a grenade then Bhaji is machine gun, he gets into controversies in rapid pace and enthusiasm that nobody could match. In very rare occasions these giant bulls likes to meet in a ring. Last time when they scuffle in a Wrestling called IPL Wrestle Mania; Bhaji won the brawn game by a huge margin while Sri thrives in brain game. The fearsome pace bowler cried in public like a baby who lost the candy to bring much required camera attention. Nobody had an idea why this beast is crying including the commentators, Kings XII Punjab - Srisanth’s team in IPL; won the match convincingly against Mumbai Indians, hoist the doubt of having him overjoyed tears! When they watched the video; someone in the dressing room found that shocking reality - Preity Zinta the bubbly owner of Kings XII Punjab cuddled every team members except Sri! Is he upset and heartbroken by this merciless act by the movie star? No. Not at all – Bhaji gave him a tight slap, this kind of brainless act can be done by only one person in current Indian team that is none other than Bhaji. Srisanth’s cry caused Bhaji hell of lot money, his burning desire to buy a HUMMER vehicle faded like a line in the water. He bought one this year though, took two more years to fulfill his wish! Even his much sort after HUMMER led him into another controversy for driving the vehicle on Indian roads without proper registration or documents!

In Australian tour Bhaji called Symonds (another short tempered cricketer) “Monkey”! It triggered a lot of controversies even prompting Indian team to pull off the tour! Good for Bhaji this incident took place before the Slap gate or else BCCI will not be buying his version of it! Bhaji refused any wrong doings with the backing of few senior players in the team straight away. He explained “I never called Symonds monkey but I called him Makki Chooth! He misunderstood my native language as an English word!” The explanation was taken, Cricket Australia convinced completely. Bhaji let go without any major punishment, some players in the Aussies side were furious and dejected about the judgment. Now readers in the west will be wondering what did he call Symo in his native language – Makki Chooth means Mother Fucker!!! A term that is much more abusive and offensive than Monkey in India.

No doubt there is a huge cultural gap between west and east. Most of the part in India monkey is god, in some northern cities there are thousands of monkeys living openly in temples and nearby areas. Snatching food and other items from onlookers and hurting people are not a news there, can’t abuse monkeys or smack them, because according to Hindu believes those are “athma” (souls) of dead people, it can be your own ancestors! Who wants to smack their own grandpas?

The word “Makki chooth” is been used by low class uneducated people in India in extreme situations. You can measure the individual quality of a man in Bhaji here! He is the one been awarded by Indian government with one of the highest honor “Padmasri”. Being too big to go and accept the award the off spinner chose to get entertained and shoot for ads with few friends also evoked ripple of controversy!

To add the last one to Bhaji’s ever ending controversy list is jabbing a camera person in Bangalore Airport after the camera man brushed against him while filming. Indian Television channels showed clearly the spoilt brat Bhaji hitting the camera after the camera man pushed forward while the player was retrieving luggage from a car.

Media in India is like bunch of hungry wolves constantly searching for some sensationalism or bits and pieces of celebrity news, may be they knows better how to extract a news out of Bhaji! Succeed in big time, channels celebrated and filled their news hours with this not so important news!

Again Bhaji is in fresh storm. Like everybody does now days to come out of the cloud he too came up with his own version of the story in his own blog.

“I am facing the car, I have no clue what is behind me. The camera man is seen running towards me and the intensity and pace with which his camera clearly hits my head and it was not like just a touch, it hit me hard on my head and patka," Harbhajan wrote in his blog.

"I am very particular of being touched and hit at my head or my patka. As a prompt reflex, not even knowing what hit my head I pushed the object, realizing it after I pushed it that it was a camera. At no stage did I hit or slap the cameraman. Neither will I ever do it," he added.

But Mr.Harbhajan Singh, the camera eyes will not lie, it clearly shows that you are hitting the camera and staring at the camera man like a goon on the street! How long we people have to compromise on your behavior for your contribution to Indian cricket? Is there any problem with the way how you brought up or the transformation happened after you became rich and popular?