How does it matter if the IPL is fixed?

Dear closet CSK fan (in other words, Dear people),


I agree you are an ardent cricket fan, you worship test cricket and you have an XXL size Dravid poster on your bedroom wall. But what is your problem with IPL? I mean one moment you sit quietly and watch Pune Warriors and Deccan Chargers play one blade game, once Chennai starts winning you start reacting like you ate Molaga Bhajji (Chilli Pakoda/ Roasted flour with chilli in between). You cry all over saying IPL is fixed. These people are cheating the public. Well, if you expect quality cricket in 20 overs both sides will end up scoring 80 odd runs and then IPL will die a slow death like Raju Rastogi's father in 3 idiots. If you want entertainment AND quality cricket, you should play one in your computer only. It is entertaining and you will definitely not admit that it is of poor quality because you are the one playing. 


Let me ask you, did you find Siddhu irritating before you created a twitter account? Some people found his statements cliched and started dissing him, yes. But you wanted to be noticed. 


You wanted to blame IPL. And you wanted to be heard. So, you started tweeting everything with #IPL. I mean there is a level of desperation dude. If you tweet " YAY!!!111 My dog successfully moocha-ed today #IPL" Danny Morrison won't read it out. 


Most people claiming that IPL is fixed are claiming so because the matches go down till the last ball. Well, you wanted entertainment. There, you get it. How many of us watch movies repeatedly just for their entertainment factor? This happens once a year, have got a good fan following, why not let people enjoy? No, you HAVE to find faults with it.


First, you said it is spoiling quality cricket. But you want Sehwag to score a century in 50 balls in a match where each team plays 50 overs. Even in a test match you watch till Sehwag gets out and refresh cricinfo once in 20 minutes when Dravid is batting. Why should you talk about spoiling the quality of cricket?


I wonder if you would have cried out 'match fixing' if your favorite team reached the play-offs or the final. When United wins title after title you seem to have no problem. But it is CSK, so you should claim that it is fixed. 


Dhoni hits a six, it is fixed. Morkel hits a six, it is fixed. Murali Vijay gets Hussey run out, it is fixed. Warner makes a fool of himself, it is fixed.


Amits and Gults think this is JEE and Chennai people are not supposed to fare well. Well we ended up bidding you farewell. KKR might end up winning the final but you will complain if CSK fans update status saying we have done it twice. You will take pains, research cricinfo pull up statistics and all just to prove us wrong. But we will simply reply saying that we have won it more number of times than you have reached the finals. 


You can like IPL, hate IPL, but when a billion people are watching it, you just cannot ignore talking about it. If you don't like the idea of it, do not watch or endorse. It is not like test cricket is dying because people are watching IPL, it could be because there aren't enough people who are watching test matches. But I'm quite sure that's not the case.


Anyway, put whistle. 

I will simply go ahead and call this article Rahul Dravid

I don't have a stack of statistics to throw or a bunch of anecdotes to quote but if it wasn't for one man I wouldn't have realised the need for perfection in anything you do, The Wall. He is also sometimes known as Rahul Sharad Dravid when his father is angry and summons him to his room.

I remember watching his debut at the Lord's. A recorded footage of course. Me, being the Sourav fan I am, usually skipped the rest of the match every time except for Dada's innings. I grew up as the kid who loved every batsman who could clear the boundary. If you were able to hit a six, you were a superman to me. Be it Tendulkar or Agarkar. Dravid always came off as the guy who slowed things down, brought the run-rate to single digit figures as soon as Sehwag or Sachin got out. But once I crossed the age of 15, run-rate and sixes did not mean as much as consistency or  temperament. 


I started following test cricket more religiously. Dravid and Laxman made me assure myself that white kits are more pleasing to the eye than the coloured kits. With his cover drives and late cuts, it was love at first sight with Dravid. It was that period of school life where discussing stuff like batting average and bowling figures was thought to be  'cool'.  And it was RSD's side who always won the argument when it came to batting average. He made us realise how hard it was to remain consistent. And the guy who was mocked at for bringing the run-rate down and slowing down the game ended up scoring one of the fastest ODI half centuries in the history of Indian cricket.


Dravid is that corporate guy who would come to a business meeting with a tie and shoes even if it was wear-a-t-shirt-to-work day. He was a man who respected the game. He was the man who taught us how to look at it. Dravid was charming and was loved by the girls for the way he was. Dravid was a text book cricketer who was loved by the guys for the magic he cast on the field. He was someone who could not be hated. He was someone who could not be not loved.

He has played at all the positions, fielded at all the positions, kept wickets, bowled, took wickets. He would probably transform into a coach for the Indian team in a few years proving that his name is synonymous with Indian cricket, whatever be the format. 


You feel guilty when you expect someone to perform even at the direst situations where there is nearly no hope of recovery. Dravid ended up making us feel more guilty by delivering every single time he was expected to and even when he wasn't. People would scream out loud that the match is a lost cause even then their hearts would hope for a knock from Dravid. Because people knew him. People believed in him.  He broke down when he couldn't get the team past round one during the world cup when he donned the captain's role. That probably was the only role he thinks he couldn't pull off. I would say he was the captain the team did not deserve and that's the reason they faltered, failed under him.


Dravid is that kid in school who slogs day and night to achieve excellence. And having achieved that, struggles harder to maintain the momentum. Dravid, though performing at top levels almost in every game, probably had the fear of failure all along which made him work hard, harder than the rest and hardest of them all. As  Siddhartha Vaidyanathan has mentioned here  Dravid was the player who never once came into the field without his shirts tucked in. He was the worshipper of the game. He held it that close to his heart.



He hasn't played the blame game. He hasn't criticised his team mates or other players of the game for that matter. He has always been humble, even when he walked into the field with his head held high. He never gave excuses when he failed to exceed expectations. He just did better in the next game. When the formats changed, the game changed, the colours changed, one man remained consistent.


Most of us ended up praising some other performance in the games where Dravid's innings played an integral part but did not contain as many boundaries or wickets. We ended up cursing him when he declared when Sachin was on 194 at Multan. Blaming him for the pathetic exit in 2007.

He endured all that. Because he is whatever the country wants him to be. Because sometimes truth is not good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. They want their faith to be rewarded. 

A hero. A hero whom we did not deserve. A hero we needed. He was the silent guardian, a watchful protector, the Dark Knight of Indian cricket.

When in India, be a cricket fan

Its been an hour and half and I'm still not sure how to celebrate the greatest Indian accomplishment I ever witnessed.

Curses, praises, screams of joy and swear words were all that I came across when the Indian team was up on the field battling for the holy grail of international cricket. I remember 2003 world cup, probably the first world cup from which i have memories. 2007 was a disaster and I couldn't catch every single match due to the time zone difference and all that. Coming back to 2003, the tourney saw the complete wrath of the man I worship, Sourav Ganguly. He was remarkable and I was believing he could bring us what Dev and his men did years ago. Sadly, it never happened.

This year, at home, almost everyone of us believed we could do it and we did. For Sachin, for Yuvraj and most importantly for 1.2 billion people. Imagine, its the world cup! I remember almost ever single ball, savouring  the match with my dad. Complaining, scolding and losing hopes more than once when Sehwag walked to the pavilion without as much as a single boundary. Sachin disappointing yet again and when Gambhir seemed like he was struggling. After the 30th over every fog of doubt got cleared and there was this comfortable red carpet that led us to the cup of glory.

That catch Sehwag took off Tharanga's bat, the dive that I saw of Yuvi at backward point after a millennium, the way Harbhajan and Yuvi hugged each other and cried, the saint like expression on MS's face after he scored the winning runs. Every single moment shall remain deep in our hearts. Every single player upon whom doubts were cast played today. I bet even though Sachin has a million other innings to remember and cherish, this would top his list. That medallion which reads "winners-world cup 2011", will be wet with tears of the great man himself.

I have been giving my opinions on how Sachin is overrated and all this god worship. But today, I tell you, one needs a quality to be overrated and he has it. Cricket truly being the religion that we proclaim it to be has united Indians across the stands of the Wankhade, across towns and cities, across the country and across the globe. I'm pretty sure the celebrations have not ended yet.

Every year it needs 190 plus countries to discuss world peace and unity and today we showed the world that a sport can unite a nation.

Eleven men to rule them all, eleven men to find them, eleven men to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.


I'm proud to say I lived when India won the world cup. I'm proud to say as a result of today's match, I lived.

The wizard of oz

Born as the eldest of the four children of Lorraine and Graeme on December 19 in Tasmania, Ricky Thomas Ponting made his debut as a number six against South Africa in the Quadrangular series that included India and New Zealand also. 


I probably have not been such a faithful fan of Punter to quote all this statistics and hence I had to quote my friends from Wikipedia. 


Australia won the world cup for the first time in the year 1987 and there was no turning back since then. They have been putting up a phenomenal performance every single time and from 1999 till last Thursday the Aussies were pwning the international arena.


Now, coming back to Ricky Ponting, he was part of the world cup team for the first time in 1996 and ended the tourney with a decent average of 32 odd runs. And then started his dream run. Ponting was always groomed to become the captain one day and he took the torch from the legendary Steve Waugh when Steve underperformed in 2002.

And there was no turning back from then. Ponting is easily one of the best players, perhaps, at times he was on top of everybody, even the over-hyped Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. I respect Sachin and all that, but he is over-hyped. Dot.


He is a captain whom I consider the best only next to Sourav Ganguly.
Again, I'm not good with stats and hence being the simple and silent fan I am, I restrict myself to telling everyone who reads this the reasons why whoever is bitching about Ponting shouldn't be bitching about him: 

~ First up, Ponting is one of the VERY BEST, agree or don't read further.


~ You hate Ponting because others do, ask yourself and you'll know you cried everytime he got out between 95-99.


~ You and I weren't around when Bradman played and cricket has changed in a million ways since then. Ponting is Australia's greatest for my generation. Of course excluding Glenn-God-Mcgrath and Shane Warne. 


~ The way he plays the lofted cover drive has given orgasms to many. You're kidding yourselves if you are even trying to disagree.


~ You have played cricket since you outgrew the length of a bat and still you'd love to play if you getting out goes unnoticed. Stop cribbing. 


~ The pressure of defending the world cup for the second consecutive time. IMAGINE how humongous it would be and yet he scored a brilliant century in the very same match where others failed. 


~ I haven't jumped or enjoyed my beer along with a million other Australians when Ricky scored a century every time but many a time I have been one of the very firsts to heave a sigh of relief once he crosses 99. To pull statistics he is just a few runs short of Sachin whose statistics stands the tallest. 


Respect him, cheer for him, put your hands together and let yours, yes you the silent fan who was ashamed to rejoice when the man scored, be one of the first drop of tears that fall when Ricky Thomas Ponting leaves the field for one last time.

All hail number 14!

Summer of '09

Oh when I look back now

That summer seemed to last forever

And if I had the choice

Yeah - I'd always wanna be there

Those were the best days of my life

Its around 4 in the morning. I've been feeling nostalgic about school, since I listened to Summer of 69 some two hours back. The song got stuck in my head and there goes my post after a long time( Usual show off ). Looks like I have written about you in almost every post and there has never been a single post concerning you. Well, here it is :)

You realise, this is about you don't you?

Should I stick to chronology here? 

Three of us, right from kindergarten, been a wonderful journey. Frankly I remember very few incidents, bleak memories till class four. 

Jimmy quit and Joey got married

Shoulda known we'd never get far

Class four was when he left and I never thought he'd come back. So did he. And it was just the two of us. Class seven and we were moved to two different classes. There were no special promises made? No BFF or something like that. 

Class eight and he came back to Chennai. Sadly a different place, different school. 

The two of us who remained had few occasions to interact. 

All the while you were in a different class. Time takes its own time to untwist chords that have been entwined ever since. We got introduced, still rarely interacted.

There came class eleven and that brought the four of us together. I have so much to share but there are so few words to describe what I feel for you three. 

And now the times are changin'

Look at everything that's come and gone

There came the summer of '09  when time was up. We literally had to move away from each other. No shared lunches anymore. Cricket kept us together until academics ate up everyone's day. 

This whole post may not make any sense. This knows no order. 

We still meet up atleast twice a week *touchwood* I want that to remain the same and if not increase.

I wish the four of us always have each other.

There has never been a promise made but always kept. 

I wonder to the day as when the bond was born :)

You're more of a family than friends :)

I Wish we'd remain the same till all our hairs turn grey,

I Wish we'd remain the same till we lose all our teeth,

I Wish we'd remain the same till we gift each other a walking stick,

I Wish we'd remain the same till we blow a hundred candles off our cake,

I Wish we'd remain the same always and forever, whichever comes last.

Oh when I look back now

That summer seemed to last forever

And if I had the choice

Yeah - I'd always wanna be there

Those were the best days of my life

With tonnes of love and what not,

Summer of 69 by Snipedify

Return

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 14; the fourteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

 He was surprised.He was taken aback seeing that he had been doing it wrong all the time.It was supposed to be left foot forward and then bring your right foot once the bat connects the ball.The coach was explaining that to a group of students.


It was the sandy shore of one of the most famous beaches in the country.The hub for street cricket.Place where so many professionals can be spotted in the bud.Perfect weather all the time.Place where you can find people from all states of social positions.


He was listening intently,between the sounds(a lovely one that is) of the waves kissing the shore.He could not really hear much as there was a whole team of guys around the coach and he was not that tall.


The last minute lessons were over and the match begun.The ball was hit and the projectile ended near his feet.He did not make an attempt to pick up the ball.He recollected the day when he was shouted at by the coach and so many others for having caught the ball at the wrong time.


It was around 7 in the morning and yet there was a decent crowd.The usual sight for him.He usually was up by four or even three,around the time when his dad starts for his day's work.The church bell sounded seven times.he counted Seven using his fingers.


It is time he left.His mom would already be searching for him.There had been a heavy rain a couple of days back and hence today would be a long day.


His dad would come home with a good catch.He with a  half-heart left the place.He had to join the other kids of his age.Would be a long day in the market.


And at a distance he saw his dad's and a couple others' boat.


He knew it was time for him to return.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.