Something to Write

It's been a long long time since I have written anything, no not anything , anything except code. In the initial days Luthra kept egging us on to write something but now even he has got into the habit of writing only Code. Now since I have got no body to motivate me, I remember the words of one of our Professor – Self – motivation, ya self motivation is the word. So here I am trying to put something which makes some sense.
Last time I wrote I think it was after Wimbledon, some 5 month back. So I will try to recount all those events which occur in these months.
Cricket –we won the world Cup, what a tournament that was, that victory was the clear reflection of new India, bold, fearless and in your face attitude. But that victory gives rise to another debate, seniors vs. juniors, which is quite a natural thing corresponding to the fact that it was the youth which brought glory to our country. But do u think that Sachin Tendulkar is not among the best 11 players. Well I cant imagine an Indian team without Sachin, may be I am biased, but for me he alone is the man who is responsible for the growth of cricket. For my generation the image of Tendulkar Cover drive will always be the first one which comes to our mind, when the topic of Cricket comes up. And as far as Indian Cricket is concerned best is to enjoy it and then forget it. Leave the analyzing and dissecting part to India TV and AajTak Experts. They will definitely find out who is “Match ka Muzrim” .
Tennis – the only new finding of the past quarter Roger Federer can be defeated and that too by a 35 year old man. But that man is one Pete Sampras. Man that guy at 35 can still play, and play well to defeat Federer. Roddick hasn’t done that for I don’t know how many years. Well I would strongly suggest USTA to contact him for Davis Cup final against Russia. There is no way he will ever lose against the likes of Daveydenko and company. Other than that FedEx was quite awesome, you just cant hate that guy , you will want the other guy to win but still you will never want him to lose, and in most of the other cases it’s the second feeling which get the better of the first.
Football – beautiful game is it?? Arsene Wenger young lad shows us it’s still a beautiful game. Fabregas,Hleb,Rosicky,van persie make us forget certain Thierry Henry. Arsenal right now is at top , but this time surely the league is much more interesting with anyone of the big 4 having good chance of lifting the cup. And one more thing we wont be able to Stevei G and Wayne Rooney in next years Euro.
So my crap comes to an end. Do I miss something ya one thing Chak De India !! wonderful movie desi do write something on that….

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ICL : Beginning of a new ERA

Tomorrow a new chapter will be written in the history of cricket in India, when the monopoly of the most mismanaged highly bureaucratic and run by the same politicians who have ruined this nation in short BCCI will be challenged with the opening game of the ICL between Chandigarh Lions and Delhi Jets . Lot of people are saying that the launch of BCCI's IPL have taken away the craze or hype or motive from the ICL but in my opinion in a big country like India there is a scope for 2-3 cricket leagues.

Lots of sponsors have gone away at the last moment but these initial glitches are bound to take place whenever a new thing is started. The league will be a learning platform for the youngsters who have decided to leave the tent of monopolistic BCCI and join the ICL. All the 6 teams have got players of awesome reputation as the coach also.

jerseys of the teams

These is a lot of scope for the ICL, it can be expanded to the subcontinent. There will be lot of players in the pakistan who will be game for ICL same is the case in lanka and bangladesh. I see the number of teams like Lahore Warriors, Karachi Champs , Dhaka Tigers and Colombo Rambos coming in few years and even more teams because there are lot of cricket players in the subcontinent who deserve more then what they are getting now. One would say that without stars nobody would watch them play, in my opinion there are lot of fans of the game in the world who would watch the young players become stars, many of us watch the county twenty20 cricket and we enjoy the matches.

With great Kapil Dev at the helm there is no doubt that the ICL's 3D strategy of Discovery, Diligence and Display succeeds will succeed.

Now coming to the launch, its expected to be a gala event. Business tycoons like Anil Ambani filmstars Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan are expected to grace the ocassion and with Zee deciding the telecast 30 minutes of game in every zee channel I would be able to watch the game :)

img: from ICL website


Cricket, IndianCricketLeague, Lara

Good Luck Kumble

Though a bit late as the test has already been started but still better late then never, we wish good luck to kumble for his first test as captain.
We at penthegame were the first one to predict that ' kumble will be made captain' because we always believed that kumble deserve more then what he has been given till now.
In the poll conducted we got 199 votes though there were some hard core dada fans polling for him many times.
I believe that series against pakistan will be cakewalk for the Indians as Pakistani team is missing the aggression required to win the series.
Regular meetings between the two teams is slowly deteriorating the passion which used to be there when India Pakistan used to meet.

Real test for kumble will come in the series against Australia and I am eagerly waiting for that series.

Will write about the ICL soon :)

Bhains Ki Taang, We Won!!!

It was the Great Indian Wet Dream, having an India-Pakistan WorldCup final, and surely proved to be one. Starting with the resolution this tournament has been quite up on its sex quotient. This was twenty twenty is all about, its what Sex and Violence do to frigid cinema, its all about adding that extra much needed masala to a great game going through its worst phase after a uber-boring World Cup and suppa-disappointing Champion's Trophy last year.

It hits back badly on purists, most notably the well known Greg Chappell, last employed on the post of decimator of Indian Cricket Team, the one who thought Tendulkar lacked attitude and skill, Pathan is always low on confidence and I won't mention what he did to my favourite cricketer Dada. According to that guy this is just hitting, I just pity him now that this team which doesn't include his favourite player Suresh Raina (wtf) won the world Cup without the coach.

Match Day

Superstitions, a Mallu Star, a Mazdur and a back in Form Pathan

Venue- Quark's Den
Edibles- Veg Puffs, thums Up, Some Desi Namkeen, Some Haldiram stuff and those cheesy chips by Lays (which give me a nauseating hit)

Match started on a poor note, our Match routine which involved,

• a can of Kingfisher for the quark.
• a bottle of Knock Out again for quark.
• a bottle of Fosters/Budweiser for Daisy. ( no Fosters in Australian Match)
• Mast Mirchi Bhajji worth Rs.15.00

was missing. As if this was not enough our sitting arrangements were much more varied then the previous ones and I think that lead ton India's debacle.

Although the Pakistani Bowling was superb. Main mast moments were the opening sequence(run out appeal against Yusuf Pathan), six hit again by him and Rohit Sharma's mast knock. I like this guy because his favourite dish is Kanda Poha which his family was telling the recipe on AajTak. I love Poha(also called Pouva someweher). Just one of many reasons why I simply adore Shara-Pova ;-)...

The second one was the real thing, RP was up right from the word go, it just took an innovative profanity(read Mayawati ka Bhai) to generate that spark and make him pick up the first wicket.

Sreesanth according to me was the real match winner for us, offlate we have compared him to a dangai (rowdy or something, the one involved actively in riots) who can't even throw stones properly. They are all over the place. The Mallu Star is as unpredictable as one could get. Ok he is a match winner if can bowl well, but that rarely happens as it happened against Australia. But I don't really see him out of the team too. surely we have next Ajit Agarkar ready.

Anyway in case these kinds of bowlers are more popularly known as Rhythm bowlers, who bowl when they are Rhythm, utter crap, even I can bowl 6 yorkers an over if I am in Rhythm. Also I think Agression is OK as long as you have stuff within, a samosa without aloo can't even become a papdi.

So such a bowler didn't even hear to all the profanities flying all around the room like charms were in Howgarts (refer final few chapters The Deathly Hallows). In came a new idea to call on Sankatmochan and a round of Hanauman Chalisa brought calm and produced a maiden and another good over.

Similar chants were fixed for each and every bowler,

• Irfan- Jai Dada, with dashes of Jai Dona-Dada
• Sreesanth- Hanuman Chalisa
• Bhajji- Nothing really worked, we tried everything from Jai Siddhu to Jai Monty Panessar to Jai Bhajji himself.
• Joginder- Main Mazdur mujhe devo ki basti se kya- "Ramdhari Singh Dinkar". Refer Bal Bharti NCERT, Class VII. It seems people identified him as a Mazdur from that poem.
  

We were damn superstitious with sitting arrangements fixed, a particular person locked inside a room and me diving at every lofted bowl to the foot of TV stand.

Anyway all this crap somehow worked till the deadly bhajji over and then it were the Indians who won the game. Although I should Pakistanis were an awesome side. Misab is surely the new age Miandad (he almost did a name change from Joginder to Chetan...)

The end would have been surely a disastrous one, all the mantras failed in final four overs, so our brave Sreesanth didn't find his Rhythm and jerked of few forgettable ones. He took a wicket later with a sensible one. RP's next over was again a mast one.

Then came the final one, I have backed Joginder throughout this tournament, according to me belongs to the league of Gavin Larsen/Chris Harris kinda bowlers who can suck of the runs in the middle overs for opposition by their slow line length bowling. Although when his first wide happened, I thought its over, and then a six and it WAS over.

The End couldn't have been this bigger, bigger than the Jim Morrison the end or a Hindi Cinema The End. Or much ironical as Sreesanth held on to an awesome catch (whatever it be it was still awesome for me). In the words of one of my friends company mate,

Misbah thought he was sending the ball to a place where there was no one. He did not know that there is a Malayali in every corner of the world!!!

Anyhow no qualms against Sreesanth as of now, he is the part of the best cricketing moment we ever witnessed. Pathan's comeback has been the most delightful thing which happened, amazing comeback to prove his strength as a bowler and fowl all attempts made by Chappel to destroy his career. Also RP has been awesome throughout the tournament. all in all our bowling looked nice and quite non-scrappy.

What we witnessed was the Best Blue Film ever with 11 Men in Blue completely You-Know-What the pakistanis...

Post Match

It was surreal, completely unbelievable, we were dancing, hugging each other, the neighbours and their kids came out to the balconies, everyone was dancing running around, firecrakcers all around, millions of SMS's being sent around. And when Dhoni lifted the Cup, it was just so GREAT.

Shoaib Malik's post match comments etc...hmm, they were extremely disappointingly. I won't reiterate the same but with so much ire back home it must have been something to avoid it. Pakistan has always been my favourite team when it comes to any tournament (obviously after India) and the only thing I sometimes not so like about them is the importance religion takes in the proceedings. Cricket is the last thing we want to be hampered by such differences. Also I think that it would be better if players are allowed to speak in language of their own choice, it avoids confusion and players can speak out what they feel properly. With Ravi Shastri up their a normal conversation could have been struck and maybe what Shoaib actually wanted to say would have been much more clearer. Even French, Russians, Chinese etc. do it in every game, I think Cricket should get past its colonial hangover of English usage.

Aur Main Ban Gaya Dhoni!!!

Dhoni is here to stay, after Dada he looks the only guy who suits the job. Dravid's captaincy should be forgotten as a pathetic phase in Indian Cricket(though I don't have anything against Dravid the batsman). Dhoni is calm on field, he TALKS, shows less of emotional jhol jhaal, has loads of ads under his tummy (he too has one) and quite unlike most of the Captain brigade he is much more fit.

He has lead India to its greatest victory after 83 world Cup, the first big Indian victory in my life span and many others. Add to that the batting by Yuvraj and comeback of Pathan and you egt the best three things to India this World Cup.

What Next???

Nothing let us roll our Aussies in India, about Ganguly, Dravid and Tendulkar I won't comment much, but for people already starting to shout in favour me not so much in agreement with them.

All in all a great victory and a moment to cherish throughout our lifetime. But all this makes the next year for me and few of my friends so much difficult following celibacy as fallout of the victory.

Never mind anything for the country...:)


Pics from WorldTwentyTwenty

Technorati Tags: Cricket, TwentyTwentyWorldCup, Final, India, Pakistan, Dhoni

Shoaib Malik and his remarks

First of all, I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world,” Malik said at the awards ceremony on Monday night.

This comment cannot be attributed to the poor english of the pakistani captain but this was intentional.

Islamist pakistani cricket team this is what I can interpret from this statement. Earlier the team under Inzy used to show its religious side by praying on the field and doing other Islamic rituals but now they have openly declared that they only play for Islam.

How will Dinesh Kaneria , Iftikar Rao and other not Muslim players react to this i don't know. Above all this statement has shown that sentiments of people of other religions who support their cricket team have no value.

Shoaib Malik your please remember that India has more Muslims that your country. Though there is no gainsaying that many muslims in India support the pakistani cricket team. Many time my colleagues who stay near Jama Masjid area have told me how the muslims play crackers when India looses. When Pakistan defeated the NZ in the semis sweets were distributed in the area. When you congratulate a Muslim (not all but there are few like this) on India victory they will feel sad.

But I reckon these unpatriotic people to be very few in India the supporters of the India will be far more then those not supporting.

This islamic sentiments and jehadi feelings will surely lead the whole pakistan to doom few years down the line. You don't have a political stability you allow militants to grow in your county. Though under General Pervez your country has grown because of his dictatorship but the same militants who were allowed to grow as they had to attacks other nations will attack your country in few years and spell doom.

You represent your self as a Islamist first not as a pakistani and this is the real difference between you and us. (Chak De !!!) The Indian team members see themselves as Indian first then from different states and the religion would be the least in their mind I am sure.

Cricket Unites India and Cricket has now Divided the unsecularized Pakistan

Hail the Team and Hail the Indians

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