Loose Delivery 21: It's Just a Game, or is it?

Somebody once said, “Cricket is just a game”. I guess he will be eating his hat now. The high-profile semi-final clash between India and Pakistan at Mohali has been turned into a Political circus of unbelievable proportions.

The congress party is hoping that all the drama will ensure that the focus of the public is shifted away from all the recent scams that has plagued the Manmohan-led government.

The opposition party, BJP, is also happy about this political drama. After Wikileaks did a googly on them, even they are looking for a place to hide and this match is the perfect foil to distract the Indian public.

Meanwhile, it has been learnt that the Pakistan PM too is counting on the distraction created by this match. He believes this is the perfect opportunity to sneak another 30-40 into Kargil. Just like the opportunity provided by the “FRIENDSHIP BUS” a few years ago to infiltrate into kargil while everybody was obsessed with the new “FRIENDSHIP” between the two nations.

Also, Sonia Gandhi is going to accompany the Prime Ministers of the two countries in the VIP box. Soniaji said, “With all the high-profile security arrangements for the match, my long-distance REMOTE with which I Control…ahem.. Advice… Manmohanji will not work. So I will be at the stadium in order to maintain direct contact with our honourable PM.”

Loose Delivery 20: A new-look Ponting and India's new Mr.Cool!

THE AUSSIE BOWLING ATTACK

The Aussies came into the world-cup with a bowling attack comprising of 3 out-and-out fast bowlers hoping to run through the oppositions with sheer pace. But They forgot to take into consideration the fact that the world cup was being held in the sub-continent.

It was like arming yourself to the teeth with bazookas and Kalashnikovs to fight against “GLOBAL WARMING”. It just didn’t make sense from the outset! (Author’s note : Sorry about the analogy. Had an overdose of Sidhu’isms y’day. Thanks to Star Cricket.J)

NEW-LOOK PONTING

Some sections of the Aussie media had raised a new conspiracy theory claiming that it was not the original Ponting who played the game yesterday and instead it was an android which exactly resembled him, like in the Terminator movie. They said their suspicions were raised when a completely out-of-form Ponting played a superb innings yesterday and middled just about everything he faced all of a sudden. But they said their suspicions were confirmed only when he took a grounded catch and then instead of claiming it as out, he said he wasn’t sure. “That is definitely not the Ponting we know”.

MR.COOL

Towards the fag end of india’s chase, you could see the whole Indian dressing room rooted to their seats, the tension visible in their faces as Yuvraj and Raina were fighting bravely in the middle. Wait a second! Did I just say “the whole Indian dressing room”? There was ONE guy in the dressing room who was cool as a cucumber. And no, it was not CAPTAIN COOL. It was none other than Munaf Patel. He was happily munching away on his dinner as if telling his team-mates, “What’s all the fuss, guys? Try out the Dal Makhani. It’s really good.”

On a serious note :

It was a really good game y’day with both teams giving their best shot. Some really good sporting moments were there too:

1. Credit to where it’s due. Ponting gutsed it out and played an excellent knock when all the chips were stacked up against him. It was a display of extreme determination.

2. Brett Lee symbolized what true sporting spirit is all about. He was bowling a spell of hostile fast bowling and he did have a thing or two to say to Sachin when he beat him outside off. But you could see that it was more friendly banter than sledging and you could see smiles all round. Compare that to a Shaun Tait or a Mitchell Johnson who would bowl a rank long-hop, get dispatched to the boundary and then foul-mouth the batsman as if it was their fault that the ball didn’t land in the right area. Hats off to Brett Lee. A good fast-bowler and an amazing sportsman!

3. It was really heartening to see a charged-up Yuvraj. He had intent written all over him as soon as he walked out to bat. This is the YUVI we all know and love. Great to see him back.

4. Sachin got a peach of a delivery from an otherwise listless Shaun Tait. You could see the great man acknowledging the bowler for bowling a GOOD ONE.

Loose Delivery 19: Ponting's Captaincy

Ricky Ponting’s captaincy has come under flak in recent times, especially from the Aussie media. So let us look closely into his functioning in the 2003 world cup and in the current world cup and see if we can spot what’s going wrong.

Back in 2003:

Brett Lee has just finished an over of fiery fast-bowling. Ricky has to decide whom to give the next over to. He looks up at the scoreboard and sees:

McGrath : 7-2-21-2

Bichel : 5-0-14-1

Hogg : 3-0-10-0

Ricky says to himself (With a smirk on his face), “Oh! They are all good. I’ll just go ‘Inky pinky ponkey…’ and select one of them”

Cut to 2011:

Brett Lee has just finished an over of fiery fast-bowling. Ricky has to decide whom to give the next over to. He looks up at the scoreboard and sees:

Johnson : 7-0-50-0

Tait : 5-0-40-0

Krejza : 6-0-48-0

Ricky says to himself (With a scorn on his face), “Oh! They are all bad. I’ll just go ‘Inky pinky ponkey…’ and select one of them”

There it is, folks!! Ricky hasn’t been doing anything different. It’s just the difference in quality of the bowling line-up.

Loose Delivery 18: Indian Batting Line-up and the Akmal-Ponting Break-up

After the victory against West Indies, Indian skipper Dhoni said, “Now we have proved that we have an all-round batting line up. There was a lot of talk about us collapsing every time Sachin scores a 100. Now, we have proved that our batting line-up is capable of squandering the initiative no matter who scores a hundred.”

Meanwhile, on Saturday, a spat broke-out between Ricky Ponting and Kamran Akmal. After the match, an angry Akmal told Ponting, “People have been creating a lot of fuss about all the catches I’ve been dropping. Finally, I manage to cling on to one and you don’t walk even when you’ve smashed the leather out of the ball. Ricky, show some spirit and support struggling fellow cricketers.”

A visibly-irritated Ricky Ponting came out with an immediate response. He told Akmal, “Mate! You can drop another 100 catches and you will still be the wicket-keeper in this Pakistan side. But another couple of failures, and I will be booted out of the team by our blood-thirsty selectors. So now who is the struggling cricketer?”

It has been learned that even after 2 days of heated discussions, neither player was able to prove that he is the worst cricketer in this World cup so far. Talk about healthy competition!!

Loose Delivery 17: Are you entertained?

England, once again, lived up to the expectations of being the Biggest Entertainers in this World Cup.

After beating the West Indies in yet another game with more TWISTS that the B’wood movie “RACE”, England Skipper Andrew Strauss stood in the middle of the stadium, thumped his chest and shouted, “ARE YOU ENTERTAINED?” like Russel Crowe in ‘THE GLADIATOR’.

But the fact is, England have been given a close run for the money by all the major teams in Group B – South Africa, India and West Indies. All these teams too have managed to lose games from ‘Its-impossible-to-lose-now’ situations.

In comparison, Group A has been a drab and boring thoroughfare. They have been lagging miles behind on the Entertainment Quotient. Their only solace is that Kamran Akmal is playing in their group providing at least some entertainment value.

Coming to Yesterday’s match, the West Indian batsmen completely seemed to have forgotten about the concept of singles.

They were going : Dot, four, dot, six, dot, OUT…

We came to know later that every time a Six was hit, some money would go to charity and the West Indian batsmen were just trying to do their bit. This being the case, we hope that Dhoni continues to include Piyush Chawla and Ashish Nehra in the playing XI. If they bowl for another couple of matches, we might just be able to eradicate poverty in India. J

Loose Delivery 16: An Australian Bowler's Nightmare!

WORLD CUP TOUR DIARIES :

“Yet another INDIAN opener has come and terrorized my bowlers. What is it with these guys?”, said a frustrated Ricky Ponting referring to Canadian opener, Hiral Patel, who took the much-vaunted Aussie Pace Attack to the cleaners during the initial overs of the game.

When asked about his failure with the bat yet again, Ponting said, “You could say I am due, would have been nice to be not out, but maybe I am saving it up for the big games. Just like Dhoni is saving Ashwin.”

Ricky! Don’t save too much of yourself up for too late. It could save you the blushes.

Shane Watson was in high spirits even though he missed out on a world cup hundred by one scoring shot. “Well! Since I got out in the 90’s, I will now be labeled a self-less cricketer and a team man.”

Wow! Getting out in the 90’s seems to be the IN-thing in Cricket these days.

With all the talk about win percentages when a batsman scores a century, we just discovered someone with a success rate of only 43%. And it’s ICC Elite umpire Ashoka de Silva. His decisions have been reviewed 7 times using UDRS in this World Cup and apparently it had been over-turned 4 times. So ICC has him pulled out of the England-West Indies game and asked him to officiate for the Zimbabwe-Kenya clash, where people are less likely to notice his glaring mistakes.

Loose Delivery 15: India's REAL match-winner!

TIMES NOW-AND-THEN : Thanks to espncricinfo.com and IBM, every tom, dick and harry can now come with his own complex statistical analysis. Now you can filter out the number of matches India has won during Kumbh Mela or the number of runs Sachin has scored while you were having double-Omelet for Breakfast. So, we decided to do our own METHEMATICAL ANALYSIS and we managed to find the answer to the one question which has been doing the rounds on the Internet these last couple of days,

“Only 68 per cent of Sachin’s centuries have come for a winning cause. If Sachin is not a match-winner, then who is India’s REAL match-winner?”

And the answer to that question is….DRUMROLL….. Mr. Mohammad Kaif !!

Kaif has scored two ODI centuries and India has won both games. And what’s more interesting is that both those centuries were against TEST-PLAYING nations, New Zealand and Zimbabwe. That’s a 100% record, that too aginst test-playing nations.

When contacted for comments, Kaif’s response was, “What the hell? Are you guys crazy? You call me India’s Biggest match-winner and people made a mickey out of me by having my name come up three times at the IPL auction until Dr.Mallya took pity on me and made a bid. Go pick on someone else.”

P.S : To all people who are bashing Sachin by coming up with all sorts of percentages from statsguru. Here’s something from a different perspective.

When Sachin fails (scores <>

P.P.S : Now I know why you guys use so much of Statsguru. Creating complex queries and comparing results is as much fun as solving a cross-word puzzle. J

Loose Delivery 14: Sachin and the VICE old men!

Sachin Bashers, or the “Vice (It’s not a TYPO) old men” of Indian cricket criticism, have risen from the ashes like the Phoenix bird and they have put the broken record back on saying “He is not a match-winner.”

One very-knowledgeable person claimed, “Sachin was playing for the sake of his personal milestone. If he was a true team-player, he should have played the full 50 overs. Then he should have opened the bowling and after delivering the ball he should have doubled up to the slips and taken the catch when the ball flew off the outside edge. As the senior player, he should have handled the post-match press conference as well so that Dhoni wouldn’t have had to take the heat.”

Another one asked, “A lot of his fans call him GOD. Well! Not even a single person has been exploited in his name. Not a single war fought on his name. And you call him God! Preposterous!!”

“A match-winner is defined as the person who scores the winning runs. All that comes before are not considered as match-winning contributions. Hrishikesh Kanitkar, for example. He scored the final boundary in that famous chase by India in Dhaka. Now, HE, is a true match-winner. Or Jogi Baba, he took the last wicket to fall in the T20 World cup final. Another true match-winner.”, another VICE guy beautifully explained the concept of a “MATCH-WINNER” between gulps of KF strong beer.

“His fitness level and commitment is questionable. Why are people making such a big deal of 99 international centuries? Look I’m 44 years old and I just brought up my 200^th ODI century”, said the fourth vice man, while slouching in his couch with a packet of Potato Chips in one hand and a joy-stick on the other, playing a popular video game version of Cricket.

P.S : Get a LIFE people!!

Loose Delivery 13: Ind-SA game - The aftermath

Dhoni; “Before the match, I had let out a statement asking the top-order to deliver. Well, OF COURSE, they delivered. But, YOU KNOW, the middle-order misunderstood the message. They believed I wanted ONLY the top order to deliver. And about the single that I took in the first ball of the 49^th over, I wanted Nehra and Munaf to face the heat. Well, OF COURSE, They have to become MENTALLY STRONG like Ashwin so that, YOU KNOW, I can Bench them for the knock-out stages.”

Smith: “Who are the CHOKERS now?”

Manjrekar (During the Sachin-Gambhir partnership) : “India’s projected score is 380. But, of course, they may not reach that much because you have to account for the odd wicket here and there and also some wickets that will

fall because we have so many wickets in hand.”

You didn’t understand the logic? Well, GO FIGURE!!

Sachin: “Forget about winning the world cup for me. At least score some 50 runs collectively, my fellow middle-order batsmen.”

Boria Muzumdar on Times Now : “Nehra should have been given the 49^th over and zaheer the 50^th.”

Well, Mr. EXPERT, then there wouldn’t have been a 50^th over for Zaheer to bowl.

And……

Statement of the week :

Ashish Nehra: “Why me? L ”

Loose Delivery 12: The Scheduling Complexity

The ICC has come under a lot of flak for making this world cup long and boring as they have 2 groups of 7 teams in the first round.

The ICC President Sharad POWER explained the situation, “We resorted to this format after learning a tough lesson from the last World cup. We had an initial round with 4 teams each and India and Pakistan got knocked out within the first week of the world cup. Think about the state of our “POOR” sponsors, they spent billions of rupees on ad campaigns featuring these two teams and they couldn’t even be aired after just 7 days in the competition.

But this time around, we know for sure that no team will get knocked out till well into the competition. So our Sponsors can breathe easy. Think about what will happen to the “PALLU SCOOP” ad if Sri Lanka gets knocked out early or the “HELICOPTER SHOT” if it’s India. This schedule will help our bollywood film industry as well. The format is so long that Akshay kumar can have 3 of his useless movies released and then promote it on TV in the name of cheering for India.”

In the meantime Chief Executive HARPOON BORGAT said that the minnow teams needed to buckle up. “These teams are not even lasting 25 overs in most games. This is costing us billions of dollars as valuable air-time is lost. We are thinking of reducing the number of teams for the next World cup and then converting it into a league format. That way the next World Cup will run longer than ‘Rakhi ka swayamvar.’

Loose Delivery 11: The Akmal song!!!

Kamran drops one…

Well! It’s just one Catch!

Kamran drops two…

He’s just hit a bad Patch!

Kamran drops three…

Can’t really bear to watch!

Kamran drops four…

We could lose the match!

Kamran drops five…

We have a flight to catch! J

P.S : After all the fuss, Kamran, being the true Pakistani Cricketer that he is, might just stump all of us with an amazing performance in the next game. J

Loose Delivery 10: Come Run Akmal!!!

Even though the whole cricketing fraternity has gone bonkers over ‘ComeRun’ Akmal’s pathetic performance behind the wicket against New Zealand, the Pakistan Coach Waqar Younis and Skipper Shahid Afridi said there was no question of dropping him from the side.

In the post-match press conference, Waqar said, “In the long run, Kamran might just be doing a great favor to our bowlers. His “Keeping skills” are forcing our bowlers to keep a stump-to-stump line as the only possibilities of getting batsmen out are either bowled or LBW. Our two most successful bowlers in the recent past, Umar Gul and Shahid Afridi, have got most of their wickets by keeping the balls straight and at the stumps. They owe their success to Kamran.”

The Pakistan skipper Afridi said, “When I take a wicket, I raise both my arms and look at the sky in triumph. When kamran drops sitters, I do the same thing, “in Despair”. So Kamran is not really affecting the way I react in the field.

Also, Kamran and his brother, Umar, come as a family package. So if we drop one, we lose two players.”

Kamran Akmal, who was also present at the press-conference, just “smiled” through the entire affair.

Loose Delivery 9 : The 'SELFISH' Master

A few “Cricket-experts” are walking around claiming that Sachin Tendulkar is a selfish player who plays only for his personal records. We decided to catch up with one such “Expert”.

Q: Why do you claim that Sachin Tendulkar, who has contributed tirelessly to Indian Cricket for over 2 decades, is selfish?

A: Well! It’s plain for everyone to see. All he cares about is his own batting records. I mean. This guy has scored 47 ODI centuries and he has kept every single one of them to himself. He didn’t even help his dearest friend Vinod Kambli through his struggling career. He should have donated 5-6 of his centuries to Kambli and revived his friend’s career.

Q: And you have also claimed vociferously that Sachin wants to win this world cup all for himself…

A: Oh that! I have got some inside info that Sachin is getting a secret tunnel dug beneath the dressing room in Wankhede stadium. if and when India wins the World Cup, Sachin is planning to vanish with the cup through the tunnel.

Q: Incredible!! And just one last question. Can you define Cricket in your own words?

A: Yeah sure! It’s a game where there are 11 players in each side and they have to try and kick a big ball into the opposition team’s net.

Q: Thanks!! That explains a lot…

P.S : Dedicated to all the “WELL! Wishers” of Sachin.

Loose Delivery 8: The New M.Com Paper

The Education Ministry is planning to include a new M.Com paper on Umpire Decision Review System or the UDRS. “With all the complexities and intricacies in the system like the 2.5 meter rule and the accuracy of hot-spot, the UDRS has become more complex than Income Tax computations. There is a great demand for experts in this system. All cricket teams are looking to employ such experts so that they can work around with the UDRS and make the umpires look like fools.”, said the minister of state for Non-productive Education.

If this paper comes into existence, it will be the second M.Com paper based on Cricket. The first one being based on the Duckworth-Lewis system, which is hugely Popular in South Africa.

Loose Delivery 7: The Ticket Estate

ECONOMIC DIMES : After the real-estate boom, a new investment opportunity is beckoning Indians – ‘World Cup Tickets’. “Till last week I was dealing in real estate. Then suddenly I realized that the big money lies in investing in world cup tickets. You buy a ticket for Rs.250/-, hold it for a week until the day before the match and then sell it in black for Rs.13,000/-.You get guaranteed high returns within short time-spans.”, said one of the “Investors”, while sharpening his sword.

One of the top stock-market analysts in the country thus summed-up the situation, “With the sensex dropping points as frequently as the Indian fieldsmen have been dropping catches in this world cup, more and more potential investors are turning to the ‘Ticket estate’.”

World Cup Organizing Committee Chairman “Sharad POWER” said he was happy that the World cup was creating new investment opportunities and helping the Indian economy to grow. When pointed out that this money was Black and not really contributing to our economy, Mr.Power, who is also a central minister, quickly retorted, “Well! That may be true. But then these guys splurge this money on liquor, which in turn, boosts the state exchequer.”

P.S: Thanks to my friend, Praveen, for suggesting the concept for this one.

Loose Delivery 6: The Common man

BCCI President ‘Sharad POWER’ issued a statement yesterday refuting claims that the World cup ticket sale had turned into a scam involving black-marketers and rowdies and that the common man was left with nowhere to go.

He said, “It’s not the money we are concerned about. We only have the interests of the common man as our foremost concern. Cricket is a game meant for the general public in India. We want every Indian to enjoy cricket. That’s why we broadcast it on TV. People can sit at home and enjoy the game in the relative comforts of their living room. Plus they get to watch all the lovely commercials and listen to Arun Lal’s commentary.

We don’t want them to sit in the stadiums and suffer in the sweltering summer heat. In fact, that’s precisely why we are giving away the tickets to rowdies and goondas. It will be a good punishment for them. We want to do our bit to reduce crime-rates in our country.”

He also said that one of the C’s in BCCI stands for “Common Man”, even though the other one stands for “Corruption”.

Loose Delivery 5: Quote Unquote

Reckon this is the last time India will play on a wicket that doesn't spin in this world cup....what you think??;-) Greame Smith on Twitter

Well, Smithy boy! It's called home advantage, the same thing South Africa had 8 years ago. But you guys botched it because YOU PEOPLE COULDN'T COUNT.

'I saw the crowd and forgot everything'

Aravinda de Silva on playing in front of a packed house at the Eden Gardens

'I saw the crowd and beat-up everyone'

Bangalore police official on lathi-charging a packed Queue at the Chinnaswamy

'If this Indian side has one weakness, it's their bowling unit...(a small pause)...and their fielding.'

Ravi Shastry, the ever-green cricket commentator, sums up India's complete incompetence through one-half of a cricket match as ONE WEAKNESS.

Mid-Pitch Conference:

'You go home. I reached the crease first' - Kamran Akmal

'No. You're the one who's out. You go home.' - Mohammed Hafeez

'You kids shut the f*** up!! And one of you go home NOW. My turn to bat.' - "Big Brother" Younis Khan