Apocryphal Stories !!!

The Bangladesh cricket fan has got a sharp sense of memory. If on the opening day of the World Cup they were never shy of reminding India of 2007 then today they were literally whooping for revenge on the Irish, for the defeat inflicted on them in the same World Cup You would not be mistaken if you thought you entered a boxing arena or a staged WWE arena going by the din at the ground today. It has become a popular phrase for the Indian Test team to describe the partisan home crowd as their invisible twelfth man. Bangladesh can also say the same about the Mirpur crowd But it wasn’t all rosy going for the home team. The batting was a collective failure today and the partnership between Rahim and Raqibul gave not only some respect but also something for the bowlers to bowl at. Tamim started off in his customary aggressive fashion and it was his wicket that sparked the collapse The fielding and the bowling of the Ireland team improved as the match went on. Dockrell impressed of all th...

It was just yesterday that Netherlands performed well against England and kept the Associates flag flying high. They almost embarrassed ICC’s decision of having only 10 teams from 2015 World Cup on. It did not take ICC more than a day to get back the feeling of being right Kenya were at the receiving end from Pakistan and found the going tough, generally. On a pitch that aided New ball, the Kenyan bowlers did well to restrict Pakistan and take two wickets as well. The introduction of Odhiambo and the arrival of Kamran Akmal to the middle, seemed to have the opposite effects on the respective sides The spinners failed to have the restrictive line going for themselves and all the bowlers were erratic, which could be found out from the extra’s they conceded. Pakistan playing their first match in the tournament exactly showed where the strength in their batting lies- the late order surges This match clearly showed what their tactics would be going further- Keep Younis/Misbah as the ...

There are two comments about the Australian team that make them stand apart as a team. One was in 2003 when a spectator held up a huge banner which said “ I support two teams- South Africa and any other team that plays Australia” and the other came as recently as October 2010 when Gavaskar said “ Any Victory against Australia is satisfactory, because you know that they have given their best in the situation” Both the statements can be said to  be holding true in 2011 as well. Most of the fans want their team to do well against Australia and they fight with astonishing sinew even when they don’t have those great players Coming into the 2011 World Cup, Australia have lost the pride of their place to other teams and their opening match was waited with bated breath after their lacklustre performance in the warm-up games After winning the toss and choosing to bat, a performance from the top order was expected to set the tone for the match. What happened out in the middle was tot...

What do you do when you enter a tournament with the favourites tag and have a score to settle with the team, that dumped you out of the last tournament. And to add to the so-called woes you would be playing them in their backyard. India would have no better opportunity to test their preparedness for the tournament than this After the Toss was done and Shakib had chosen, the numbers doled out were: 27 out of 38 matches were won by the team batting second. What they forgot to state that many of Bangladesh’s wins had come against the likes of Zimbabwe and Ireland When the match did get underway , Sehwag provided the most rollicking of starts by driving the first ball he faced to the cover boundary.   It was the bowlers who blinked first by pitching it wide of the off stump and on the pads of the batsmen in the middle. No wonder that India were off to a brisk start Just when it looked like the pair in the middle would carry on for a long time, Sehwag did something that would have p...

ESPNcricinfo announced the awards for 2010 in each form of the game for batting bowling. In a simple ceremony, they announced the awards in addition to the Statsguru awards Twenty20 Tim Southee got the award for the best bowling performance in T20 international. The spell by Southee included a hattrick too. Michael Hussey got the award for best batting performance for his 60* against Pakistan in the World T20 semi-final ODI Sachin Tendulkar expectedly got the award for the best batting performance for his 200* against South Africa in Gwalior and Umar Gul took the bowling honours for his six wicket haul against England at The Oval Tests Dale Steyn took the bowling honours for his spell in Nagpur against India and Laxman took the batting prize home for his 96 at Durban, where no other Indian crossed 50 *********************************** The highlight of the evening though was the freewheeling chat between the Test winners and the members of jury, Sanjay Manjrekar and Ian Chappell...

“ I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game *featuring you*, while singing your own song in a new commercial, *starring you*, broadcast during the Superbowl, in a game that you are winning, and I will not *sleep* until that happens. I'll give you fifteen minutes to call me back ” uttered by Tom Cruise, who plays a Sports agent in the movie ‘Jerry Maguire’ Way back in 1996 it was when World Cup was played in the sub-continent for the second time that we came to see what advertising was and how it can hold sway over millions. It was in that World Cup that we were introduced to official drinking partner of XXX, official chewing gum of XYZ, and what not Cut back to 2007, and you would realise that the World Cup in Caribbean was a colossal failure and why? With the exit’s of Pakistan and India, the tournament was shorn of more than half the television audience and the ad’s on TV drastically reduced. So to accommodate that kind of so...

"It is not my fault if I am like a mushroom which seems edible but which poisons you if you pick it and taste it, taking it to be something else," So said Frederic Chopin a tainted genius. What is it that draws people to tainted geniuses? The fact that inspite of being so talented they have some weakness that makes them mere mortal? What can be said about a film that is a hit and has it’s own share of cinematic liberties? Well if the performances are endearing, then it’s sure-shot that you wouldn’t mind the ‘cinematic liberties’. The same thing applies to “ Ala Modalaindhi” The very fact that I have opted to overlook the so-called deficiencies is a pointer to the fact that the movie has got something else as it’s USP that overpowers these ‘liberties’ That USP lies in the well-written, well portrayed, parts of the protagonists and the clear vision on the part of the director. The director does not veer away from the narrative and that keeps us involved throughout The hum...

Just when it was thought that South Zone have gotten over that final from last year, the approach on the third day proves that they haven’t yet forgotten the final from last year On a day where they could have tightened the noose on North Zone, they let the things drift, slowed the pace of the game and virtually have left a door open for North Zone to get in That it was the doing of the batsmen themselves is the fact that will rankle them tonight. Except for Ishant, who bowled an inspired spell either side of lunch, there was nothing that other bowlers did. South had to depend on some valuable partnerships from the tail to get to a position of strength What reflects badly on cricket is that the first change bowler for North Zone was bowling at 117 kmph on an average and his slower balls were clocked at 87 kmph! Despite this South could’t take any advantage Amit Mishra like Badrinath erred in his field placements but unlike Badrinath, he had to pay heavy price for those mistakes as...

If the first day was all about the application of mind by an individual, the second day was all about what can happen if a team performs collectively, where everyone knows their job pretty well South Zone’s day did not start off properly as Vinay Kumar was taken for boundaries by Joginder of the first two balls of the day. And even though, Vinay troubled Dogra he was largely ineffective in terms of taking a wicket. Badrinath then turned to his spin ace Ojha. He delivered and how? He beat Joginder with turn and forced Dogra to hit out to the mid-on fielder. Narwal and Ishant then stitched a valuable partnership before Narwal was castled by Aravind When their turn to bat came around, South started a touch slowly and the innings gained steam with the skirmish between Ishant and Uthappa. Uthappa virtually went on the attack and just when he seemed set for a century, he gifted his wicket away Pandey looked circumspect initially but then came into life with the introduction of the spinne...

Isn’t it somehow the easiest thing in the world to do- to back the underdog. What matters is actually backing them when they begin their struggle. On a benign pitch, North Zone somehow contrived to find themselves in a fix at 30/3 and later at lunch on 57/4 Like the cliché` goes, Dogra stood tall amongst the ruins. It isn’t easy to play the kind of innings that he played today. There were two or rather three turning points in the game connected to Dogra today. One was him surviving the probing spells from the Karnataka pacers before lunch. He seemed all at sea against Vinay Kumar and Aravind, unable to decipher the movement and found a few outside edges eluding the fielders Second was the way he treated the part time bowlers of South Zone. At one stage, both he and Yashpal Singh were on 19 but at the sight of the part time bowlers, Dogra motored away. So much so that when Yashpal got out for 32, Dogra was on 72 Third was the way he dominated Ojha and never allowed him to settle int...

Anybody who has quite been a fan of the Australian cricket team would go back to 1999 and realise that the celebrations for a wicket have got the added lure or pull because of the ordination of the man called Brett Lee This single man bought about a sea change in the way that the Aussies celebrate wickets. Of course there was that man Shane Warne, who celebrated in a hitherto unseen way at getting the wicket of Gibbs in that epic match. It still is an oft repeated clipping, Warne, pitches it outside the leg stump. Gibbs plays all over it and is beaten, the ball clips the top of off and up goes the man shouting with his fists raised in front of his face. He shouts “Come on! Come on!” Bar this singular effort from the wizard, there was nothing of note from the other bowlers. All this was to change with the entry of Binga . At the beginning of his career, his signature celebration was to run all the way to the keeper or the fielder who took the catch At the beginning of the World Cup...