Feb 19

South Africa beat Bermuda in ICC women’s cricket with 296 balls to spare

cricket, ICC World Cup 1 Comment »
Anyone who knows a bit of cricket must be astonished to see “with 296 balls to spare”. Yes, it is true. In yesterday’s ICC world cup women’s qualifying match between South Africa and Bermuda, Bermuda women batted first and played for 18 overs to score …. 13 runs! Of these 13 runs, 10 were from extras!
Usually commentators would say “Only three of their batsmen managed to go into double figures”, but here they had to say”Only three of their batswomen managed to get off the mark with each of them scoring 1″.
The South African women finished off the match in 4 balls (from the only over bowled) that included 9 wides and 1 no ball. Probably, the women from Bermuda were learning cricket during this game.
The scorecard from the game can be found here.

Btw, have you seen the new cheerleader costume for the Mumbai Indians after the existing one was banned by the moral police? Check out the exclusive photos here. If you didn’t manage to get the scoop behind the monkey-calling episode of Harbhajan and Symonds, check out the research done by the lawyers of Harbhajan here.

written by Rajaram S

Jan 31

Did harbhajan say maaki or monkey to Andrew Symonds?

bollywood, cricket, India 1 Comment »
Now the issue is whether Harbhajan Singh said maaki (in Hindi) or monkey (in English) to Andrew Symonds. To the casual reader, this issue might see very trivial and not worth the exposure it is getting. But, there is lot more to it than is visible on the surface.

Harbhajan had indeed referred to Symonds as a monkey, but he wasn’t aware that this would be considered racist. So, his team of lawyers along with BCCI had decided to take the approach that Harbhajan had in fact referred to Symonds as a white monkey and not a black monkey, but the Indians didn’t know how the australian legal team would twist the case to a racism abuse. So, for the past two days they were investigating alternatives for their defense.

This somehow leaked to the media and they started talking about it on television. One person who was watching this felt that he could help the Indian team in this situation. He was Javed Akhtar, the noted bollywood lyricist and scriptwriter. He felt that he could help because he was so much into writing rap crap in english for bollywood movies, that he could definitely could come up with some alibi in English for Harbhajan.
So, Javed Akhtar started searching for homonyms for monkey in English. The only one he could come up with was mucky. But mucky meant dirty and australians would consider this more offensive than monkey as they were known for maintaining cleanliness by covering all the dirt on their faces with sun-screen lotion.
Then, out of the blue, an idea struck him. Why not look for a homonym in hindi? It was much easier to form words out of the given syllables. So, the first word he got was makki, meaning a fly. But, he didn’t want to use this, as he wanted to bring the australians down to earth and not on cloud nine like a fly. Javed was frustrated and the team working with him started swearing at Harbhajan, as he was the one responsible for all this mess.
Like all hindi speaking people, Javed started referring to all the relatives of Harbhajan as he started swearing. The moment he said “Saala Uske Maa Ki” , a BCCI member jumped up from his chair and shouted “Eureka, monkey mil gaya”. Then, Javed realised what he had said and jumped up in joy.
Thus, the indian defense panel decided to use “Maa Ki” as an alibi. And the rest is history…Harbhajan was not charged with racism as swearing at one’s mother or any other relative, in Australia was all in a day’s work for their citizens.
QED.

written by Rajaram S

Jan 10

Oh, you Australian Monkeys!

cricket, India 2 Comments »
If Harbhajan Singh had called Andrew Symonds a monkey, was he being racist? This actually depends on which monkey he was referring to, when he was referring to Symonds as a monkey. Was he referring to the White Faced monkey or the Black Spider monkey? We may never know. One thing is sure. He wasn’t definitely referring to Hanuman.

Did harbhajan Singh refer to andrew symonds as a white faced monkey? Did harbhajan Singh refer to andrew symonds as a black spider monkey?

So, why does it matter which monkey he was referring to. When i think about this, I get doubts as to what racism actually means.

A standard definition of racism:

  • The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
  • Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

I am confused! So, if race is the main concern behind racism, why does calling an australian a monkey amount to racism? Race is often equated to colour and looks, as different races do look different from each other. So, if you say to a black person: “You blacks don’t deserve any better” or if you say to a white person “You whites have got no brains”, then this is racism, at least from my understanding of racism, because you are insulting a black based on his black colour and similarly for the whites.

So, if calling a australian a monkey is racism, does that mean australians have more in common with monkeys than rest of the human beings. So, referring to them as monkeys would be insulting them because of this unfortunate similarity (as seen below). So, it actually didn’t matter whether Harbhajan was referring to either of the monkeys above, just calling him a monkey was enough. Case closed.

Is andrew symonds a monkey?

Not exactly. I am still confused. In fact, most of the Indians are confused. Indians are used to complaining against racism whichever part of the world they go. Indians are stuck between the so called whites and the blacks. Being white is considered superior in Europe and other western countries and being black is superior in Africa and other parts of the world, but where does that put us? We don’t fit anywhere. In ayia napa here in Cyprus (supposedly the clubbing capital of the world), whites are welcomed for their cash and blacks are welcomed for their party-atmosphere creating capabilities, but we indians are considered good for computer-related jobs only. But,we have one advantage that the whites and blacks don’t have. We can be racially discriminated against in the lands of both the whites and the blacks!

In my opinion, Indians are the most racist in the world. We practice racism on a day-to-day basis, the most prominent being the north india-south india divide. okay, the east indians also complain, but that is more of a geographical racsim, so we shall leave them aside. North Indians are fair and south indians are dark, so ? Actually, the only people who can “practice” such racism in India are the Kashmiris! They are fair! Everyone else in india is dark compared to them. When i joined BITS Pilani, there were many girls from Kashmir in my batch. They would have been the perfect candidates for “Fair and lovely” not the pyts from bollywood.

I started off with Australian monkeys and went on a totally different track to kashmiri beauties. I am confused!

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written by Rajaram S

Sep 24

India win again Pakistan in the final and are the twenty 20 world champions

cricket, India 3 Comments »
Wow, this was some amazing final. After India’s poor showing with the bat, everyone felt that Pakistan would easily overhaul this total and win the final. But, it was not to be so. The Indian bowlers though wayward at times, kept their cool and somehow managed to win by a narrow margin of 5 runs. This was a good game for India and more importantly, a good one for the twenty 20 version. This version is here to stay and it is the future.
Guess what, I didn’t have to cook up any false reason to go home early. Amdocs decided to screen the big final on the big screen for all to watch. Way to go Amdocs!

written by Rajaram S

Sep 24

India Pakistan final at the twenty 20 world cup today

cricket, India No Comments »
Leave alone the mother, it is the grandmother of all cricket matches! An India Pakistan clash at a final of a world cup, it is the dream of every Asian cricket fan.
India will grind to a halt today starting 5.30 pm (luckily, it is almost the end of an office day). Poor me, the start is at 3 pm local time here in Cyprus. I am still working on the pretexts i can give, to leave early. I hope that this match turns out to be as exciting as the India Australia semi-final clash and i hope that someone hits six sixers in an over just like Yuvraj did the other day.
All the best India!

written by Rajaram S

Sep 20

Yuvraj Singh hits six sixers in an over

cricket, ICC World Cup, India 1 Comment »
First, it was Herschelle Gibbs, now it is our very own Yuvraj Singh. It was the penultimate over of the Indian innings and god only knows what came over Yuvraj Singh, he just broke loose hitting poor Stuart Broad for six sixes in the over. In case you missed the India England match yesterday, you can watch the video of Yuvraj Singh hitting six sixers here.
All you Singhs/Sardars/both, it is party time. Go ahead, shed your apprehensions, raise your hands and dance!

written by Rajaram S

Jul 30

It’s cricket world cup time again – Twenty20

cricket, India 1 Comment »
Even before the wounds from the cricket world cup had a chance to heal completely, we have another one just around the corner. It is the twenty 20 format this time. The twenty20 cricket world championships were formally inaugurated recently in South Africa and will start on September 11th with a match between South Africa and West Indies in Johannesburg.
India is grouped with arch rivals Pakistan in Group D. Maybe, they did this so that fans are assured that they will play against each other. During the world cup, the organisers committed a blunder by assuming that India and Pakistan will get through the preliminary round and planned for their clash in the Super-8s. This time though, they learnt from the experience and put them both in the same group.
So, who do you think will win the Twenty20 cricket world championship ? Take this poll and let us know.

written by Rajaram S

May 24

What more ? New Coach ?

cricket, humour, ICC World Cup 1 Comment »
What more does the Indian Team want? The Indian team wants Whatmore. I am worried by the current trend of demands put forth by the Indian team. They want more perks, they want the restrictions on the number of ads they can appear removed, they want more salaries and now they want whatmore!
This is ridiculous. What more can a cricket board provide for its players?
Whatless, a 21 yr old woman from Trinidad and Tobago was shocked at the way the Indian cricket team played their game in the world cup and now, when she heard that they wanted whatmore, she burst out into profanities and even composed a song extempore.
Dude, this is a song by whatless,
for a cricket team which is toothless!
When ur bowlers bowl the ball,
it gets hit to the next-door mall.
when ur batsman face west-indies
they start peeing in their undies!
How dare you ask for what more?
In fact, you won’t even get whatless!

Whatmore, on hearing this song, had words of praise for whatless and even proposed marriage to her and wanted to raise “more or less” a family.

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written by Rajaram S

May 16

Old habits die hard

cricket, photo 2 Comments »
Last weekend, we had the annual amdocs cricket tournament. Until last year, we used to play on a dusty school ground, but this year we shifted to a dried-up lake bed. In winter/spring, this becomes a salt lake and we have thousands of flamingos stopping here on the way to Africa. When the lake dries up, it becomes an ideal boundary-less ground for all kinds of sports. If Ravi Shastri had been here, he would have loved to try his key-into-the-pitch report here, for the key would have gone all the way in. Such is the moisture in the surface. A smooth and soft surface leads to a very even bounce and thus a good game of cricket. To make it even better, the teams in which i and vidhya played won the cup in the respective categories (Yes, we had women’s cricket too!).

cricket tournament

cricket tournamentcricket tournament

Anyway, back to the subject of habits, if you notice all the photos below, there is one common aspect which you should notice. No, not that i am in all of them, they are meant to be my pictures. One common thing which you should notice in all the pictures (apart from the grotesqueness of my face in the last one) is the way i am biting my tongue in the pics. This is a habit which has stuck with me for a long long time. I always do this when i am concentrating at any sport. I don’t realise this and since many people ask me, no i don’t feel it nor does it pain! The first photo is from last year’s event (at the school ground) and I am at it then too. If you compare the first and the second photo (taken this year), I am surprised that i am amazingly consistent in my bowling action, right up to the position of the individual fingers on my hand!

cricket tournament cricket tournament

cricket tournament cricket tournament

cricket tournament

Back in High School, i used to participate in the Long Jump Event. My trainer at that time used to be very concerned about this habit of mine. I later learnt from him that his concern was not for the well-being of my tongue, but for my performance in the long jump. If , in the process of taking a long jump, i bit my tongue too hard and it fell off (!) behind me, the place where the piece fell would be counted as the distance i have jumped, since technically it is a part of my body. This was the reason he was always warning me about this habit, it seems :-)
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written by Rajaram S

Apr 04

Indian Team Manager to back Chappell’s asses

cricket, ICC World Cup No Comments »

so says NDTV’s sports section.

Digg my article

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written by Rajaram S

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