Square Cut 10 : Indian Batting!

The Indian skipper stresses on the importance of processes.....

World Cup through the eyes of an Overzealous Sachin Fan!

Bowling still matters!

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 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 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 1: THE TICKET MATH

BANGALORE HORROR: A new controversy has sprung up regarding the allocation of tickets for the India-England world cup match at Chinnaswamy stadium with more people coming out and demanding separate quotas. But KSCA officials vehemently turned down these demands saying they had to keep the interests of the common man in mind. Unofficial sources quoted Anil Kumble as saying, “ Man! It would have been easier to PLAY in the GODDAMN world cup than manage all these quotas as president of KSCA.”

Here is the current list of Ticket quotas:

Total Capacity: 43,000

Barmy army, horny army and all other armies from England: 10,000

ICC: 5,099 (Nobody will occupy these seats. These are just for the ICC to show its clout to the world)
BCCI: 5,100 (Again these won’t be filled. But the BCCI is just showing the world that it has bigger clout than the ICC)

Ministers, MLAs, lesser-known politicians and people pretending to be politicians ; 10,000
Their wives and children: 5000
Their neighbours and their wives and children : 5,000

Collectors, Police Commissioners, BBMP officials, their wives and children and ‘their’ wives and children : 2800

General Quota : 1 Ticket.

General quota tickets will be on sale to the public at the stadium counters from 21st Feb. Special security arrangements have been made to ensure that people follow the Q-system.