Happy Birthday Yuvraj Singh

     Somethings never cease to amuse us, like the beauty of a peacock, solidity of Dravid's defense etc, but one thing i found very late, yet i knew it all the time, the commitment of Yuvraj Singh, never ending!, i remember an incident about a year ago, India were in Sri Lanka playing a ODI series, yuvi was in and out of the team due to injuries, he wasn't playing but was in the squad, when he went to give drinks to the players in-between overs the crowd shouted "water-boy", allegedly he got into a small verbal fight with the crowd, back then i knew, he would come back into the team and would blast his way through, but i didn't believe that myself, but he did what he does best, he performed and outshone everybody in the 2011 wc, not only with the bat but also with the ball, he performed so well that he was the probably the reason why India ever won this wc, but even that wasn't enough for me to see it, then he was again out of the team due to injuries, but it was leaked to media somehow that he has a lung tumour and that's the reason for his absence from the team, then everybody realized, he played all the way through with a lung tumour and won us the wc, what kind of commitment!, there are kind of players who take rest for slightest of pain and there are players like Kumble and Yuvi who would do anything to win the game for India.

Yuvi with Man of the Series award WC 2011

     India also won the T-20 wc because of this guy's brilliant performance against the Aussies and the English but we all speak only about the captain.

The Dream

     This cannot and should not wait morning, it's roughly been an hour since we held the WORLD CUP, man, how many times should i have to hold those tears back?, everyone in this country wanted this cup, once in their lifetime, Sachin already gave me enough memories and we normal fans before this tournie started all wanted them to win this one for only one person, and we normal people couldn't thank the team in a million ways, this world cup was not just about Sachin, it's the teams whole team effort. I"ve always hated Dhoni but this special innings he played today his 91, i wont forget that for my lifetime. I've no more words to type about how ecstatic i am now along with millions others in the country, just thankful to give all this people one reason to celebrate.

The Phenomenon Ind VS Pak

     I've already written about the Ind vs Pak match and this is another one, this is an incident in 2007 sep, i was in 12th standard at that time, and days were going slow, i had to attend maths tuition on alternate days and i never missed one day there because i really liked it, more than school, the school was getting very strict with all their stupid rules and no one there had any idea how teaching was done, i used to fail consistently in physics and chemistry and somehow manage to pass in maths, all because of this tuition i attended.

The famous Javid Miandad jump

     Anyways that's not at all the point, it was the first time the T-20 championships were played and no one knew the power of the format then, it was not being shown on cable in most parts of the city and the dish technology was fairly new and not many had access to it. As a result most of us chennaites saw the post-match shows on news channels and there was no live radio commentary either, we missed the Pak bowl-out, Sa chocking, Eng and Aus demolition by Yuvraj, and somehow India and Pak both qualified to the finals, and everything came to a stand-still, the match was scheduled to start at 6 in the evening i guess, and almost everybody from our tuition bunked that day, i went to my friends house in east C.I.T nagar, he had a set-top box, so i knew i wouldn't miss the match. But later i heard the final match was aired on cable also. When people say India is a cricket-crazed country, i doubted it, i myself have met many who weren't really "crazy" about cricket, but my tuition served as the best example, that day on the final, only 5 or 6 turned up, and the class strength was nearly 65, and our tuition sir invited those 5 or 6 downstairs to his house to watch the match with his family and from then i never doubted our "craziness". Come Wednesday, exceptions are going to be made, there will be massive bunking of schools, colleges and offices and no one will question them cos they already know it's because of the match, some clever IT companies are going to stop working after 2 and they are going to air the final match in their own offices, that way at least only half a day will be wasted, i have college till 12 I'll return home in time for the toss, for this is not just a match it's a PHENOMENON.
     PS: This is just purely my view, there is a debate going on tv about diplomacy and sh*t, f**k you people!, i don't understand you people, this is a cricket match, not your stupid politics, it will be treated as war between the two nations, we average indian-cricket fans always had this notion and will have continue to have it this way, it's absolutely a war now after what afridi has said, so just shut up, no peace or diplomacy and anything will come out of this match, if possible enjoy the cricket else just f**k-off!

The Worldcup so far

     What a cup it has been so far, it started with controversies that this format is designed in such a way to protect the asian teams, but it did actually protect England too, they would have been first round exits if it was the older format for their loss against Ireland. Spraking of minnows, man, kevin o'brein, doeschate, surkari, tikolo etc can't forget those guys, sadly they might not be in the next wc, but kob's century left an impression, the ICC might rethink it, wc over the years was always about the minnows, remember Dwayne Leverock the fat guy from Bermuda who took that catch at first slip, the world trembled that day, wc is about these moments and it's really sad they are not going be in the next tournament.
     Now, the quarters are over and only 3 matches to go in the tournie, England just got *itch-slapped by the Lankans, Safa's chocked and the word is that the safa-choke is the biggest after deep-throat (laugh if you understood that, if you didn't, just ignore), Wi as usual didn't care much, Aussies we won against them, always love a Ind vs Aus match, got to respect Lee and Ponting for the heart they had, to give a fight like that, they are true champions, even ponting, the ahole he is, is a tremendous cricketer, will miss the ferocity of an Aussie match without them.
     The Lankans, they beat a non-asian team and that too England and on their own home-turf so they had a relatively easy qf, Nz played well but the chocker chocked and every one joked about them, Pak's the most erratic cricket team the world has ever seen and they beat Wi which is also relatively easy, India had the toughest match of the qf, yuvi was great throughout the cup, and hopefully for the rest of it also.

     This leaves us with Sl vs Nz and Ind Vs Pak sf's, i don't care about the first sf, thats will most probably be one-sided Sl victory, IND vs PAK that's the dream, that's called rivalry, the ashes can suck it's own ash compared to this, the ashes is complete mismatch England almost never won until the recent years and it has a following, but this was never like that, both teams fought a battle, only with bat and ball, i not going to hype it anymore than it's already hyped, and hyped as it deserves to be, I predict a Ind vs Sl final. Afridi just said a few hours back this,"Sachin will have to wait until after the World Cup for his 100th international century because we are not going to allow either him or any other Indian player to play a big innings" all i can say is wait until 30th and you'll made to mince your own words.

The Wc '11

     I hadn't written a post in a while and i thought it was time, first things first, i hate dhoni, i hate him cos, he had talent and when he took the captaincy he just forgot how to bat, and was riding on luck and performances of others.
     Ind vs Sa, we scored 296 something, where we should have scored more, we didn't, not that we batted badly or they bowled well, but batting the wrong batsmen at the wrong time, that was a mistake, i still suppose dhoni is human, so he's bound to make a few. Second half, Sa batted brilliantly, we bowled and we fielded bad, Zaheer came, changed things on its head, we were in a winning position, 49th over bowled by zaheer, superb over only 5 runs in that i guess, last over 13 required, robin peterson and faf du plessis batting, we had bhajji, nehra, y pathan, yuvraj, to bowl the last over, we still remember the 5 sixes of yuvi's last over in england, pathan inexperienced, nehra fucked up the last over many times in the past(he's good bowler, just the death overs), the obvious choice was bhajji, dude's experienced also, yet that asshole of a captain gives the ball to the delhiwala, i can't blame nehra here at all, not that i hate dhoni i am blaming him now, just that logic was no there.
     Lets consider this situation last over of the '07 wc (t20 championship), last over given to joginder fuckin sharma, just think, if that over had failed and Pak won that match, where would have our "captain cool" been today, that over was a obvious bad choice, but luck favored him and i for one believe that matches have to be won by skill rather than luck.
     Hindsight is always 20-20, last match against WI, we made 268, lesser than we would have scored, i personally felt raina should have come in earlier where dhoni came and to the last both the beasts y pathan and dhoni, would have been perfect, but let's face it, we batted really bad and that too without roach, second half, this is where the problem was, Wi didn't have gayle, chanderpaul, and yet they almost chased us, ashwin and zaheer the only 2 proper bowlers we have in this tournament, ashwin was wasted in first 15 overs itself, and zaheer was not given the ball after his first 2 overs, and we bowled all part-timers from 6th over onwards, i didn't understand it, i thought fast bowlers get the new ball and the spinners get the used one, but it was the reverse, and that too using part-timers not even yuvraj, it was raina and pathan for most of the time, dhoni was waiting for reverse swing i guess, as if we have a wasim akram, waqar younis, abdul razzaq kind of bowling attack all we have in the fast bowling is zaheer, the only Indian who could reverse at present, all we should have done is bowled bowlers not the part-timers at fielded properly, if this kind of tactics persists in the match against the aussies, i am sure we're losing it, and i'll blame dhoni and solely dhoni only for that.
     But something inside me says that, we're going to win that match, this world cup is all about Sachin, and we still have Shewag, Gambir, Yuvraj, Kholi, Ashwin, Zaheer, we have a team that can win, things are all not falling in place, it's just like a puzzle and when the day comes i hope we find all the pieces in it's proper place. 

Gallantry, wizardry, whatevery

     Last year in the month of feb, i posted about 11 posts and this year none, there was world cup, sehwag's brilliant 175, the nerve-cracking tie with england, one or two good movies to write about but my computer broke down. The SMPS of my computer burned out owing to a stupid 9 year old UPS which shuts itself down during a power failure than doing the opposite. It took 450 bucks and a week buy a new SMPS and as soon as i bought one and fixed it, i realized that there was something else, no power to the motherboard! after trying some stupid things like removing the RAM and rubbing it with an eraser and inserting it back and speculating the mother-board might be gone for 2 days, i realized that the power cable was the problem(with some help over the phone), replaced with another cable and bam, power supply to the board but moments later my joy came crashing down as i find that i've successfully managed to make the "on" switch on the cpu to malfunction by repeatedly hitting it while it was not working, i somehow learnt some basic ece and with help learnt how to short the pins on the board and make current pass through the board and thus make the computer work. This feat of gallantry and mastery of technology make my computer the only one on the planet to start when the reset button is pressed and to stay still when the reset button is pressed.

Suresh Raina !?

     I don't get it why some people hate Suresh Raina, and i mean a certain section of cricket fans in general (is that an oxymoron?), so i thought of writing a small post on the pros and cons of this guy, first of all i like Suresh Raina, not like i am a fan of him but just like him.

CONS:

• Suresh Raina bats like sh*t on bouncy tracks, this is quite true, we saw how he batted in SA recently and even otherwise he has a reputation for playing like sh*t on leave bouncy tracks but short-pitched deliveries also,
• What the f*ck did he do to deserve a place in the 11 for the first 30 odi matches he played?, as far i can remember he hit some match saving 70 odd runs in one of his first 5 matches and he went on for nearly 25 matches without scoring any useful runs,
• Look at his technique! it resembles Dhoni's Neanderthal style in some shots, especially the big pull shots where he gives the spectators a free view of his abdominal area, yeah his batting looks sick and thats the most logical reason why he cant play the short ball properly.

PROS:

• He is a very good Fielder,
• He has a great record in the sub-continent,
• He is a handy part time bowler,
• He is not an asshole like Appam (people also call him Sreeshanth) or has any weight/attitude problems like Yuvraj Singh,
• He is already being groomed to become the next captain (Sachin (i.e God) knows how many they are training),
• all other Sh*ts included

     Basically i perceive him as a good T20 and ODI player, but downright unfit for tests, he did score a century on debut but that was in SL, dusty flat tracks even Dhoni can hit a triple there, fielding he has always been great, bowling , i don't get it how he is even allowed to bowl, but it always seems to work, captaincy and sh*t like leadership skills i have no idea, overall watch out for him the WC.

   PS: Damn!, this post looks a 8 mark answer i write for my exams!