We deserve to lose

9/29? We deserve to be on the losing side

I decided to do something I have never done in my life today.
I watched a cricket match on a gigantic screen at a mall.
The experience was interesting and like many other cricket-crazy Indians, I was cheering for the wickets and dot balls and sighing every time we made a mess of things.
And then Ashish Nehra bowled the last over.
I swore at him like the rest of the fans when we lost.
But then rationality took over.
We lost 9 wickets for 23 runs.
Had the top order not clicked, we would have beaten Zimbabwe for the world's lowest total.
So I don't even feel bad that we lost the game. We probably deserved to anyway.
The experts in the studio will have their own post match analysis as to what went wrong, but I met a guy after the game, who told me where we went wrong and how we should have selected R Ashwin over Munaf Patel.
This expert happened to be my rickshaw driver, who had a very interesting point. He said, "The reason why they're not taking Ashwin is because he's another off-spinner and with Harbhajan in the side, it makes no sense to have another off-spinner."
Accurate analysis, my dear Watson, but Harbhajan keeps bowling the doosra, while Piyush Chawla, who wasn't in this game usually bowls googlies. This changes their role in the side.
But the rickshaw driver is one of a billion disheartened Indian fans, who wanted to see their side win and ended up in tears after Nehra bowled the last over. Suddenly poor Nehra's Facebook page has gone berserk, with people blaming him for the loss. The rick guy went on to add that Dhoni was probably paid to lose this match.
Speculations like these always arise. My father says that cricket is a whore that has money being shoved into its vagina, while other and colleagues friends say that they lost interest in the sport ever since the match fixing scandal broke out.
I think that we're just a bunch of poor losers.
I'm not talking about the team only. I'm talking about the general culture of the subcontinent. We can act in mobs. Otherwise we behave like pussies. The 1996 Calcutta semi-finals and the pelting of the West Indies bus at Dhaka are just two recent examples that I can think of. Ray Robinson's book 'The Wildest Tests' speaks of several mob outbreaks during the couse of a cricket game and many of them happened in India and Pakistan.
The sad thing is that when we taste success, we get drunk by it in an almost Macbeth-like way. And that's what's generally been the case of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. I cannot comment on the Sri Lankans because I've not read any Sri Lankan paper criticising its players of letting success go into his head. Maybe I haven't read enough or maybe Sri Lankans are far more disciplined that her other South Asian counterparts.

Nehra suddenly became everyone's favourite whipping boy because of his
Chetan Sharma-like last over

I think what my auto rickshaw driver said at the end summed it up beautifully. He said, "Kya kare, boss. Hum log chutiye log hai aur players bhi hum logon ko chutiya banate hai.' (What can we do. We're a bunch of cunts. And the players use that to their advantage and make us feel like bigger cunts)
Maybe someday - and this is the optimist in me talking - we'll finally get to a space where we'll evolve as sportspersons, but that day sadly will be very far away.
But yes, losing 9/29. We don't deserve anything, but to lose.

Why does IPL have such a large following?

For all the years that I've cursed the IPL, I must admit that it makes for a great soap opera.

Sreesanth after getting slapped in
Season1

Season 1: Harbhajan Singh gets banned in his first IPL for slapping Sreesanth. Sreesanth cries at the end of the Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab game.
The Rajasthan Royals is the shittiest team on paper. Yet, the guys go on to take the title. Shane Warne's hailed a genius and people realize that Munaf Patel can actually bowl and field.

Season 2: Lalit Modi decides that the IPL is bigger than the general elections. Wants more security for the IPL and demands that the Home Ministry provides it. The Home Ministry asks Lalit to fuck off and so the INDIAN Premier League moves to South Africa.
The Deccan Chargers, who are the worst team in the first edition of the IPL, ends up winning in South Africa.

Season 3: It's the craziest one of the lot.

Let's fuck Lalit was the Motto
of Season 3

Pakistani players are not auctioned because of 26/11. Shah Rukh Khan says that they should have given them a chance. The Shiv Sena burns posters and effigies of him and he has to apologize.
Neeta Ambani decides that she wants to look like a good humanitarian, so she holds this street kid in her arms during every presentation ceremony of the Mumbai Indians. She even chooses to dance with them when the Mumbai Indians win a game.
N Srinivasan decides that Lalit Modi is bad for the game and wants to fuck him over. The world is watching as there are 22 charges placed against him, including one for fixing IPL games.

Teaser trailers for Season 4: The BCCI decides to eliminate Rajasthan Royals and the Kings XI Punjab for violating laws. There is an agreement and they are allowed to play season 4.
Kochi wants to form an IPL side. Shashi Tharoor tweets about it. The Indian media tears him apart. The opposition wants his head. He resigns and marries Sunanda Pushkar, a Dubai-based beautician, who nearly purchased the team, but backed off at the end.
The Sahara Pune Warriors are formed.
Oh yes, the most important: The IPL decides to reshuffle everyone so that there are new auctions and new teams.

Will slap-gate become murder-
gate in Season 4?

Auction day and interesting facts
1) Ganguly realizes that nobody, not even the Kolkata Knight Riders want him to play T20 anymore. At least, he knows that he will have plenty of time campaigning for the CPI (M) for the West Bengal elections that are scheduled for May, the same time the IPL will take place.
2) Brian Lara decides he wants to come back, but nobody wants him either.
3) This one is my personal favourite: Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds are in the same team. You got to love the Mumbai Indians for this. Instead of slap-gate like you did in Season 1, you may actually see murder-gate.

I've maintained it time and time again that I hate the IPL and T20 cricket for that matter. But going by the way reality television and Bollywood operate these days, it's no surprise that its TRPs top the chart. So here's to Season 4, the cheerleaders, the after-parties, the breakdowns, the scandals and if there's any of it, the cricket.

India vs Pakistan

Despite the madness surrounding the FIFA World Cup, today the televisions were tuned into Neo Sports for the India-Pakistan encounter.
There's something about India-Pakistan games that unleash something in the cricket fan. Something a football fan can never explain.
There is tension, but there are no riots.
There are verbal battles, but there are no deaths.
There are riot-like situations, but no riots.
And the games are usually nine out of ten times, really close encounters.
It's the only time, I see players from both sides showing the potential to be superlative sides.
Pakistan, which off late has been really crap, look brilliant. The last time I saw this brilliance, was during the semi-final with Australia in the World T20. If it weren't for Hussey, they could well have been holding the trophy yet again.
But this is about India and Pakistan.
Where else would you see Virender Sehwag make 10 in 31 balls? It's unheard off on a normal day.
Where else would you see Zaheer bowl first change in a match?
Where else would you see Harbhajan Singh play cool and collected cricket and hit a six as the winning run in the final over of a game?
I'm happy that India won, but this was a great game of cricket.
I feel bad for Shahid Afridi, because he looks like he's taking Pakistan in the right direction. He's led from the front in both games and he looks like he can make a bunch of directionless boys into a winning unit.
I hope that he doesn't prove me wrong and the next time we play, we have an even better game of cricket.

India vs West Indies: A preview

So India play the West Indies tonight.
Personally, I hate watching matches in the Caribbean because I have to stay awake all night.
I've watched the all-nighters, when India or Australia have toured. When other teams tour, I usually watch until I can't keep my eyes open.
But yeah, back to the topic: it is a do-or-die situation for both teams.
West Indies will rely on an all-pace attack, after watching what Australia did to India the other night.
They'll probably take Kemar Roach, although his record in T20 is shit. The West Indies as a unit, personally is shit today. It's unfortunate, but it's the truth. Yet, despite being shit, they show signs of brilliance like the did when they beat England the other day (with a bit of help from Duckworth and Lewis). But yeah, their brilliance is inconsistent and hopefully tonight, for the sake of the Indian fan and the BCCI, whose IPL franchise paid some of their players millions of dollars to play for the IPL teams, they will play like crap.
India have some problems. Barring the brilliance of Rohit Sharma, who batted like he was on LSD the other night, the others are struggling. Yuvraj Singh shouldn't be in the side; the bowlers, except for Harbhajan are out of sorts and the fielding is as good as a child representing his apartment for a cricket match.
So tonight's contest winner will technically be the one who plays less shit. There won't be any brilliance; there won't be any one-man army (unless of course Pollard decides to sodomize us with his cricket bat); there will just be two teams making fools of themselves on the field.