Late Cut

It was not surprising that Aussies and Ricky Ponting have started their preparation for the upcoming series against Pakistan. If you are looking for details on a cricket camp you sadly underrate Aussies. Their preparation begins by hurling a few testing verbal bouncers at their opponents. Ponting decided to "compliment" the new Pakistani test captain Shahid Afridi (any one remembers how many have come and gone?). Nothing new there. Aussies believe in softening the opponent captain first. However the quantum of statements about Afridi ("He hasn't played much Test cricket of late, has he?" OR "he's....not necessarily one of their best Test players" etc), especially after winning the last series, tells me that he may be a tad worried about Pakistan team getting together under this new captain. Read his last sentence..."...we just have to make sure we're focusing on our little things to be the best team we can be when we play them." Love...

What the heck! Since when is it that you can't call ordinary, ordinary?? Isn't it lot better than telling a player "Good Morning, how is your wife and my kids?" (alleged famous sledge by Rodney Marsh to Ian Botham). Gautam Gambhir got reprimanded for calling Rajasthan Royal batsmen ordinary. Here is what he said; "I think Rajasthan was never a threat. Except for Yusuf Pathan, the other guys were pretty ordinary," Gambhir said. "We weren't really worried about anyone else." He was found guilty of Level 1 offense due to "Public criticism of, or inappropriate comment in relation to an incident occurring in a Match or any Player, Team Official, Match Official or Team participating in any Match, irrespective of when such criticism or inappropriate comment is made." Poor Gambhir, with a name like that he is taken seriously every time he opens the mouth!! (Gambhir in Hindi means serious). That put the bee in the bonnet of IPL...

If you were frozen in early 70s and thawed today, you won’t be blamed for being surprised at not recognizing the game of cricket. Night cricket, coloured clothing, bright lights, skimpily dressed cheers leaders, loud music and an almost universal par run rate of 6-8 runs per over, would certainly confuse you as to the identity of this vaguely familiar beast. And if you were unfortunate enough to see or follow “Player Auction” you would have required medical attention! Historians and anthropologists tell us that evolution is an extremely slow process. Hence I consider cricket fans of my generation, extremely lucky. We can claim to have seen evolution of a game that hardly changed for over a century, from its “ Lagaan ” days. No one, including the protagonists knew that Kerry Packer’s fight with the Australian cricket board to get Australian TV broadcast rights would turn out to be lot more than merely a clash of egos. When the push came to the shove, Packer’s so-called circus ended up...