Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

http://asuph.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/if-this-isnt-match-fixing-what-is/

Tendulkar has missed six centuries in this year, after crossing the score of ninety. Today, it was another instance where a drinks break dented the set batsman’s concentration. It was just enough for him to be out in the over that followed it. The jinx is in the drinks maybe. Tendulkar was playing beautifully today and also the other day, when he failed to cross the thresh hold. Tantalizingly close and yet not there!

Straight from Kandabatata.wordpress.com:

Here is the link

India kept her nerve, and won by eight runs. This headline is enough for certain people. It shuts them down, and it lets you start your day with happy relief of having watched a tense and thrilling encounter, and reached the triumph in style. The drama is in the detail. Tendulkar, for example, batted either circumspectly, (we can say that in retrospect), or maybe batted in fear of losing his spot at the top order. So did Ganguly maybe, for he is thrown of out equation quite easily these days.

The odds were against us. The holy trinity of Dravid, Ganguly and Tendulkar were missing. Sehwag, Harbhajan and Pathan were making their comeback into the team. The Indian team came without anyone expecting them to get even to the semi-final. The end result is: Pathan has found his rhythm and is Man of the Match in the final. Rohit Sharma backs himself a day after he is dropped from the One day team, scores a Man of Match award, a fifty, a glorious run-out and follows it with great cameo today. RP Singh is the bowler of the tournament for me.

The semi-final is won, and this sets up a grand finale: the dream final of India and Pakistan! Given how India has never lost to Pakistan in a World Cup encounter, and how close Pakistan came to winning last week, leases the final a suspense and excitement which will make the wait for Monday intense.

New rockstars emerge when established ones have a sore throat, and back-up singers take the front stage. The crown prince of the game played yesterday, Yuvraj, was injured, and India were three down with just 33 on board. Messages screamed “the great Indian collapse ” has arrived. Rohit Sharma and Dhoni stuck to the task. A friend queried: “Do you know anything of this dude?

He was almost caught, but our kid Piyush went over the rope. Then the ball went higher and higher and higher and in a span of five balls Yuvraj had conceded five sixes. Thankfully, it was the last over of England Innings. Dravid could have opted for Agarkar, but no sir, he had more faith in Yuvraj. Since Yuvraj is a part time bowler, so I guess we will forgive him. The fact of the matter is that Dimitri could have scaled any bowler. So I guess Agarkar will be all smiles tonight for escaping unscathed, as a mere spectator.

Indian cricket, like a typical Bollywood movie, has all kinds of masala associated with it. Be it the affair of Sangeeta Bijlani with Mohammad Azharuddin, or the reports of Nagma luring Saurav Ganguly or Kim Sharma showing attraction for Yuvraj Singh, we savor the gossip about the cricketers lives as much (or maybe more) than we savor real matches. The whole Indian political system, with its flaws: corruption, reservation, quota and regionalism are exhibited at the expense of national team.

I watch and follow cricket more intently than anything on earth, including women, stock prices, experimental data, mathematical equations and poems. Hence I must contribute to the word of cricket by writing about it. I started my life as prose writer on internet with a comic take on how physics can be taught using cricket, but that was in 2002, and I have not written a word ever since.

This started as a comment to Nitz’s blog, but too big for comment, so here goes:

The worldcup ain’t just couple of years away, it’s couple of decades away. These pathetic bunch of morons would do well to even qualify for the super six or whatever.

So finally the great search is over, and Greg Chappell takes over as Indian coach…