Australia!

Cricket’s back to IST+, which means early morning consciousness. Or in my case, very very late night consciousness. Cricket is the only human activity I can voluntarily be awake for at 7 AM. As a largely crepuscular creature, to bed at 6 AM is a normal late-night for me. 8 AM is an irritating but acceptable start to the day. Awake at 7 AM! Only for cricket.

There is nothing on the cricket calendar quite like the boxing day tests, and we have been lucky to play them two years in a row. The fact that it is boxing day adds some intangible bit to the excitement surrounding an always anticipated series.

Watching cricket in Australia is a real joy, some bit of it captured in one of Laxman’s recent interviews, and this nice piece by Monga. You just need a look at the pitch to know where the cricket is happening. It is really distinctive.

Like I did for the England series, I feel we have a chance here. I’m not quite sure what happened there. I think we will better understand in time, but it should not have been a bad as it was. My gut feel is that most of the team didn’t care enough since we had just won a world cup. I hope that it was that, combined with injuries and an opposition that was very skillful in its home conditions. None of it is excusable of course.

For a life-long Dravid fan-boy, England 2011 was a wet-dream ensconced in a nightmare. Everything was exactly as I pictured it when I drifted off to sleep every night. Except that it turned into a FUCKING NIGHTMARE!

That tour has made me a little reluctant to make predictions, including ones of competitiveness. But for most of our stalwarts, wining a series in Australia is pretty high on the list of priorities. Since we have never done it before, it might be the highest for some. Motivation should not be an issue here.

For us, I am looking forward to Ashwin, Yadav, and Kohli. This will be a proper test for the three of them and an opportunity to earn real respect. I think we will miss PK, and the selectors might have missed out on a trick by not picking Irfan when Aaron pulled out.

And of course, as always, I am looking forward to our creaking terminators.

For them, I am looking forward to Warner, Cowan and Pattinson. I don’t want any of them to do well, but if any of them are going to (as I’m sure they are), it would be nice if it was these three.

So merry Christmas to one and all, here’s to a great series.

And oh yeah, fuck you Ponting.

Mr. Potato-Head anyone?

Hysteria, and its effect on a cricket enthusiast.

This post is not about Sachin Tendulkar (OK, it might be a little, but he is really a metaphor for a wide variety of things). It is definitely not about some nonsensical milestone that anyone who has to produce a few time-bound-bullshit-words for a living has so much to say about. It is about the popular media, and the effect that unrestrained commercial motivation, a largely unsophisticated viewer base, and a complete lack of imagination have on an intelligent cricket fan.

For the record, I love Sachin. I started watching cricket in 1994, when he was all of 21 years old and I was 9. My granny, whom I watched all my cricket with then, loved him too. But that’s because she thought his trademark grimace when he fronted up was a smile. She liked the way he smiled.

Through the years, my craze for cricket has only grown, as has my respect for Sachin. But he has never been my favorite batsman… never the guy I get up at 3AM to watch in New Zealand or stay awake till 5AM to watch in the Windies. As a batsman, I have always considered him a class apart. I don’t enter into debates about him v. someone else because he is, clearly, a class apart.

He has never been my favorite because of the hysteria. Because his worth is devalued by the excess of nonsense that occupies the public space by the hangers-on… the once-were commentators, the word-for-money sports journalists, the downright-stupid newsreaders, and the rabid and unintelligent dickheads that populate bars and comment-spaces on the web.

Sachin is the greatest batsman I have ever seen. He is also my countryman. And yet I cannot find the joy I should in his feats because of these hangers-on. What fucking assholes! As an extreme comparison I think of what an intelligent and sensitive German might have felt about Luz Long v. Jesse Owens during the 1936 Olympics… When sport ceased to be about the sportsmen, but rather about their damn following.

For an informed cricket enthusiast, the nationalistic fervor, the rabid fanaticism, and the unrestrained commercialism that always surround Sachin are good reasons to not invest emotional energy in his achievements. And this is a real pity, for he is such a great batsman.

For my part, I love the way he scurries around the outfield these days, like the familiar ragged teddy bear that you just don’t want to give up. And for that grimace-smile as he strokes his way to ninety-something.

What’s that? Ninety-something? Not thirty four short of something else?

Stupid Fucks.

Dhoni on reverse swing

"Now the reverse swing also depends a lot on the nature of outfield and how you make the ball, but of course legally."

Ha Ha Ha.

The truth about Dravid's LOI retirement

Rahul’s relationship with the BCCI, and for that matter a large section of ungrateful Indian cricket fans has been kinda like being extremely in love with a really shallow bitch.

Rahul loves cricket. Rahul loves playing for his country. And he is very good at it. One of the best ever, in fact.

If Indian cricket was Rahul’s girlfriend, he got up early, made breakfast for her, drove her to work, spent lunch listening to her banal bullshit, picked her up in the evening, flew her to an exotic locale just for dinner, made crazy-passionate love to her, spent more time listening to her banal bullshit, made crazy-passionate love to her again, and cuddled her to sleep.

And cleaned the house after.

Every single day.

But shallow bitches are exactly that, and your relationship tends to revolve solely around their needs. If there is a potential replacement on the horizon, you might stumble upon her sucking his cock in a closet at some party. They derive happiness from you when they can, and use you as release when they aren’t.

Rahul always knew he was good enough for her. So when she chose to switch loyalties to some trophy-fly-by-night operators, he didn’t bother saying that he was leaving, or saying anything for that matter. He would announce it himself when he felt he wasn’t good enough. Not for little quickies or long extended sessions… when he wasn’t good enough, period.

When she ran into trouble, she asked him for help. He came along, helped her out of it, and took it with typical dignity when she asked him to fuck off later.

And typically, she ran into trouble again, and she asked again.

And this time he said “Of course my darling, but you can fuck off after.”

With typical dignity of course.

Fuck her Rahul. You are way too good for her.

What is Stuart Broad saying?

This has been troubling me for some time. According to cricinfo, Broad said: “I actually had a cheeky feel of his edge when the ball went past, but there's no Vaseline or anything on there.”

This has pissed off some, who feel that it is thoroughly inappropriate behavior to be doing such things. Others of slightly more fundamentalist leaning have raged at Broad having the gumption to doubt Laxman’s unquestionably virginal morality.

I on the other hand, am thoroughly confused. What exactly is Broad trying to say?

a) That he has the ability to feel what the ball feels and therefore felt the edge of the bat as it went past and concluded there was no Vaseline on it;

b) That he went up to Laxman after the ball went past and asked him (cheekily) whether he could stroke/lick his bat. Laxman said yes, and such stroking/licking yielded no Vaseline;

c) That he went up Laxman after the ball went past and pretended to be asking him out on a date while surreptitiously stroking his bat, only to find no Vaseline on it;

or

d) That he went up to Laxman after the ball went past, grabbed his bat and rammed it up his ass cheeks. It hurt like hell and he concluded that there was no Vaseline on its edges.

Will someone please help?

2nd Test, Trent Bridge, Days 2, 3 & 4

All the cutting posts I had planned for the English will have to wait for another day.

Right now, they are lording it. So it is best to shut up and say well played.

And that Ian Bell is not just 'perhaps naive', he is a certified idiot. But well played to him too.