Trials of an Underdog...

The underdog has a very significant place in our everyday life. There is no other thing as hugely motivating as their triumph and that is the reason that any piece of literature or movie depicting the underdog's triumph has won accolades , awards and affection , Lagaan being a stellar example of the same .

Not all avenues are kind to the underdogs.When it comes to sports ,they have been defeated,nine times out of ten and that is why an upset / win by an underdog has always been special . In Cricket , the underdogs are given the tags of associate nations and Kenya is the name that first comes to mind when we speak about the triumph of the underdog. In a world cup campaign that took place in their backyard way back in 2003 , they were called rude names ( which included whipping boys and which alienated Sidhu from cricket commentary for years to come) and were expected to bow out pretty early into the tournament.Bow out they did , but in a spectacular fashion , in a semifinal against India. They gave a shock to most of the teams that took them lightly breaking certain egos and careers in the way until the Men in Blue brought the Masai Mara Express to halt.

Considering the fact the ICC has brought the Axe down on the associate nations for the 2015 world cup , nothing would have been better than the Kenyans defeating the Kiwis and thereby making a statement on behalf of the underdogs. Sadly it was not to be. It was a blink and miss game with the Kiwis walking away with most of the honors. On a sunny morning in Chennai , Kenya won the toss but it was the first and last thing that they did right on a day when almost everything went wrong for them. They looked like caricatures against the Kiwi bowling trio of Bennet , Southee and Oram who practiced their trade with considerable ease.

Coming to the Kiwi chase , it was more of a net practice than a world cup match . The David Vs Goliath match up ended tamely at the seventh over of the Kiwi chase , the Kenyans heaving a sigh , having come to the end of the nightmare finally.

Hero of the match : Southee was good , Oram better , but the man who won the laurels was a certain Hamish Bennet , who came into the match , replacing Kyle Mills. I loved the way he bowled and would love to see more of this man.

The Villain of the piece : If there is anyone I would call the antagonist , it would be the committee who designed the fixture. A match up between Kenya and another associate nation like Canada or Zimbabwe would have been a great morale booster for Kenya. Wonder what is the logic that goes behind designing the fixtures.

This might not have been the best of fixtures but it was really disturbing to see the stadium nearly empty. I agree no sane soul would pay an exorbitant amount for such games , but the least thing that the ICC can do is allow free entry to students so that they can learn to enjoy the game while the teams would have an audience to applaud their effort.

There's another match happening right now between Srilanka and Canada and hopefully it will be an interesting game , considering the trouble Canada gave England during the warm-ups.

Watch out this space for more on World Cup..
Ciao

The Taming of the Tigers

People in India are crazy about cricket. They root for their team like zealots but their love for the game transcends beyond that. I've known people following cricket matches played between countries other than India , religiously refreshing the browser windows of their famous cricket site  or by catching live coverage. An average Indian kid when asked to name his cricketing icons would go well back into the late 80s to name the greats and would be having an update on at least the top four test playing nations. Therefore it is not much of a surprise that the 2011 world cup in the subcontinent has been billed as the cup that counts. It has been a long wait for the tourney to start but what a start it has been.

India Vs Bangladesh , on an ordinary day could have been counted as a warm up match but today there was a lot of hype surrounding both the teams. It was the Bangla tigers who had sounded the death knell to India's world cup campaign in 2007 and a lot of Indians were a bit worried and unsettled due to the fact that our opening match was against them. Though they had been the traditional whipping boys , they had began winning matches consistently as seen in the recent series against the Kiwis. The fact that they had a couple of young talented cricketers added to the worry.

Therefore it was with a bit of anxiety that I had switched on my television to see India start their campaign , by losing the Toss and being put in to bat. The match started very well with Sehwag and Sachin looking in Good form and I was assured that we could see some fireworks going off today until the unfortunate amateurish mishap happened and Sachin walked off the dressing room having scored a paltry 28 due to Sehwag's wool gathering. I was angry with Sehwag ( like most Indians would have been ) but he made up for it in the most spectacular manner. I can wax eloquently on his footwork and shot selection for 2000 words and more but still end up not doing full justice in describing his innings. What an innings it was. Having decided to stick on to the crease , he played his shots judiciously and at one stage it looked like he would score well past his mentor's highest of 200. Yet he fell at 175 equaling Kapil's knock against the WI and made us realize that he too was human and it is in his nature to get fatigued.

Now that I have described my Hero it is time to go ahead and talk about the sidekicks. Virat Kohli played a beautiful innings and would have been praised to the rafters had it not been Viru's day.  He played so fluently , so effortlessly that I had to remind myself at times that this was his first world cup campaign. A century on World cup debut is a very impressive achievement even if it has been against the supposed Minnows . I guess I wouldn't be in the wrong to assume that this lad from Delhi is going to be a key part in our world cup campaign.

Harbhajan Singh. What can I say about this man. He wears his power and talent so lightly on his shoulders. It may have been Munaf Patel who was among wickets in today's game but we have to thank this man for today's victory. He came in when the tigers were cruising and almost singlehandedly brought the Bangla Juggernaut to halt along with Zaheer and Munaf.

Zaheer once again proved that he wasn't called the spearhead of Indian Bowling for nothing. He bowled really well and his economy rate which is the lowest among all Indian Bowlers testify how much of a miser this man is. when we talk of being miserly Munaf cannot be far behind. when Sreesanth looked , bowled and behaved like an overgrown orangutan , Munaf was a revelation . He adapted well to the condition and brought about a breakthrough every single time his captain brought him on.

At the moment India's cup overfloweth with joy and contentment but a win against England would further cement our position as the tournament favorites.

Well what can we say about Sreesanth. All that I can say is I had great fun at his expense in social platforms - especially in twitter. It certainly looked like he turned up on the field wearing the wrong uniform. A word of caution / advice to you dude : It is not enough if you have the attitude of a pace bowler. You should have talent and dedication to go along with it. If you want people to start respecting you as a bowler , you better roll your sleeves up and start contributing to the actual cricket.

Before I sign off for the day , I can't help but mention this

Shakib , Rubel , Imrul and Tamim Take a Bow. You were really good just not good enough to win the match for your country.

Well I'll be back tomorrow to talk about Newzealand , Srilanka , Kenya and Canada...
See ya later guys!!!!!!!

Chatter... Chatter

Its been a couple of weeks since I've been away from my beloved blog. It is not a case of neglect or terminal illness or the dozen myriad reasons that I would love to cook up to explain my absence , it is simply the common illness that plagues all the wannabe writers like me - writer's block , and a severe case of writer's block at that.

For the past couple of weeks , I've had one great idea after the other , only to discover that the words wouldn't flow when I open my blog and start typing out . The hours became days and days became weeks until I hit upon something I wanted to write about at about 12:00 am in the morning , when I was sipping a cup of chai , with KK crooning O'Mama into my ears via my current boyfriend - my I pod. Considering the fact that Valentine's day has just passed by and I haven't yet tried my hand at a mushy post extolling the virtue of that hallowed day which generates a lot of revenue for all those corporate houses that promote eternal undying filmy love stories , and taking into consideration the fact that I do not possess a single mushy bone in my body , I decided against a post on valentine's day ,not wanting to tarnish all those sweet love stories floating around

That drove me into a frenzy ,as I had  to arrive at something else to write about and immediately an image of the cricket world cup flashed in front of my eyes. There are just two more days to go for the ultimate quest to begin and soon there would be a team which would be successful in the quest for that holy grail of Cricket .I hope to God that it won't be the Aussies who hold it again, the simple reason being , why spend so much of time , effort and resources scheduling a tournament if you are gonna hand over the cup to the same team for the 4th time. Better schedule a teleconference and be done with it. Neat Ain't it? Now that I don't want Australia to win, and knowing for sure that SA and England would not reach the finals , SA being the traditional chokers and team England having enough Protean players to be called South Africa A , I find it real hard to choose a team to root. I ponder over all the remaining teams and still don't have a clue as to whom I should back. Consider this as the craziness of a cricket freak or a sheer escapist act , I have decided to follow all test playing nations and root for all of them ( Errr.. may be not all of them ). I just hope that this edition of the world cup goes without a hitch and is as much as a hit as the PEPSI ads that are being beamed across the TV channels prior to the tournament.

This presented me another topic to ponder about : cricket advertisements. It is sometimes said that cricketers have a keen sense of humor and that is reflected in some of the ads that they star in. The ones that comes to my mind immediately are the PEPSI ads for the 2003 world cup starring bhajji and sachin respectively.. Google the ads and you would know what I am referring to. These ads are unique in a way that they bring out the sneaky side of the team India. That being said , the most recent cricket ad that had me smiling was the one starring Billy Bowden and his famed crooked finger signal to indicate that a wicket had fallen....

And that immediately triggered extreme happiness within my heart . Feelings of elation and success smothered me and I was completely clueless about the chemical locha taking place inside my head until I realised that I finally had a topic for a blog post...

" Billy Bowden ki Ungli Hamesha Tedhi Kyon Hai"...

PS : Satisfied with all that humongous effort , I hit the publish button on my chrome browser... I was tired but happily so , having discovered a topic to blog about....