Maybe you guys know him better as Sachin Tendulkar :) Just wanted to make my wish and/or blog unique. I will bet the last dollar in my pocket (it is another question, if I actually have any right now - yes! that is how the smart people roll :) that the number of Indians who donot know this annual event is definitely less than the highest no. of votes the Loksatta party is going to win in any constituency. That is how big Mr.Tendulkar is. The amount of adulation this guy has received over the last 20yrs is just astounding. Even more astounding is the fact that he has kept himself grounded amidst all this God-like status we Indians have bestowed upon him. Minimum controversy, Maximum efficiency - that is what SRT is all about. You must be quite cruel to not appreciate a sportsman of his achievements. (and I am not even talking about, how he has avoided controversy like desi parents avoiding "adult-situation" movies to keep their kids from getting "perverted". (They are the main reason Karan Johar/Sanjay leela bhansali/Sooraj Barjatya, - pick your poison, have more commercial success than sensible directors like maniratnam, farhan akthar or other non-mushy directors.)
Today, this blog, is about SRT. I am one of those millions of Indians who have had the privilige of following the career of sRT and for the most part living vicariously through him :) Did not do well in an exam? Dont worry SRT thrashed Warne. Dad and mom had one of those forgettable days as a couple? Not to worry, SRT manhandled the aussies. The neighbours' dog died? Not to worry, SRT became the leading run scorer in ODIs. It died coz you kicked it when it wouldnt stop its annoying yelping? Who cares? SRT just gave a mouthful to Mcgrath. I am sure most of the people who were suckers for Indian cricket in the 90s can identify with what I am saying. Ofcourse, maybe you are not as honest as I am in confessing my biggest troubles in the 90s. (Who is to blame you if you had unconfessable problems like ED or some sick STD or that the hair on your ass was growing faster than the hair on your head, or.... ok I have to stop, the last image was traumatic even for ME. Let me take a quick one minute pause to get that disturbing image out of my smart brain :)
OK, pause over! Hope all of you have found your own ways to get over that one. Sorry for that guys, my brain just got a little too imaginative for my own good. Getting back to SRT (from a very temptingly humorous topic, i must say!) the 90s was just about him. Infact, in one of my brain's wildly imaginative times (like the one I just had ;) I just cant get that sorry topic out of my brain, guys!) I think the remaining Indian cricket players in the 90s spent the better part of their net-time plotting how to make the situation more and more dire to see what SRTs limits really are. A fly on the wall (or maybe the nets?) would have told us a few conversations " Hey, do you think Sachin will manage a 100, if we all refuse to get into double-figures :)" or "Dude, do you think Sachin can chase down 53430503 if we all score nothing at all!" Those who are laughing at me, I suggest exhibit A - the SAn World Cup team of 1999, who implemented this strategy, quite successfully we must all agree, against Klusener to provide us with some of the greatest batting exploits in ODI history. I will bet the last dollar in my pocket (remember I had no dollars and used up one at the beginning of the blog, so actually i am investing a negative dollar, so if I lose, I will owe negative dollars :) I told u guys, I am smart, didn't I? :) that the main reason Azhar or Cronje got into match-fixing was with the noble intention that they could raise the challenge level for SRT and klusener ;)
Looks like I wrote a whole lot of horse-crap where I just rambled the blog was about SRT without actually talking anything that a Cricket Geeks club would approve ( I still feel I am a part of it, but try to disguise it when I try to get it on with the girls! take it from me that they NEVER EVER get turned on by that clip of SRT top-cutting Akhtar for a 6 in the 03 WC. The next time someone tells me boys and girls are equal, I am going to whoop that feminist-punk-ass with SRT's 3lb bat! You can see youtube videos of guys jerking off to that clip, but not one sexy chic would so much as wink at me when I showed them that clip. Hey, just incase some of you guys (you know who you are - the-totally-addicted-to-watching-all-kinds-of-weird-videos-on-youtube guys) are heading off to you-tube, take my blog with 1kg of iodised salt, alrite? Part of the challenge for anyone who wants to interact with me is to figure out when I am doling out the facts and when I am not! :)
For the umpteenth time, let me get into geeky cricket talk about SRT. Yesterday I saw an article on TOI (not toilet-paper of India, times of India...) and there was a discussion among the players who attended SRT's surprise b'day party in SA, over what SRT's best test knock is. The young (ignorant?) ones like yuvi and bhajji felt it was SRT's 100 against England recently. The oldies (like Mr.Gavaskar, himself) picked the perth knock in 1992 (114?). That set my smart-geeky-cricket-brain (shall we call it Deep Blue, please please please!) racing and the SRT faniac (fan + maniac) that I am, I was like russel crowe in beautiful mind when he cracks the code for the american military. All sorts of numbers, scorecards, pictures, videos, articles, discussions with my friends whizzing past like racing cars in F-1. So believe me it was tough for me to pick the very absolute best. I really really imagined me being asked that question at gun-point and the Winner is....
The 136 at Chennai against our good-non-terrorism-promoting neighbours in 1999. I would still argue it is a better knock than a knock that was played parallelly by Lara, a few continents away and which most, including, good old-elitist Wisden. His 153* at barbados against the aussies. Wasim akram was at the peak of his powers (I still consider his dismissal of Dravid the greatest over bowled in test cricket. He made Dravid look like a silly fool before bowling him clean and square) Waqar was at his lethal best enhancing the W-square as one of the most lethal pace pair and saqlain with his doosra was like Mendis last year, totally having the best players of spin in a daze. Warne cannot even dream of doing that to the Indians, he was thrashed hopelessly, less than a year before at the very same ground by SRT ( in one of my other fav SRT knocks and one which I saw live on the ground :) - his 155* at chepauk) Mcgrath was way off from the lethal bowler he was in the 2000s. Infact later in 1999 when SRT captained India in Ozland in one series most Indians shudder to remember, yet to a SRT faniac like me that was the series that sets SRT ahead of even lara. Mcgrath, waugh and warne were as usual upto their bull-effing-crap of targetting the opposing captain and Mugra (coined by a dear friend of mine :) promised to expose SRT's supposed vulnerability outside off. Mugra and warne came distinct losers in their battle against SRT (forget the 3-0 flogging India got!). Mugra needed major help in daryl harper and other umpire errors to have SRT knee before wicket twice (that too when our 5'4" tendlya was on the hop) and the very well documented Shoulder before wicket. I cant even remember SRT edging on the offside in that whole test series. Point is, Mugra was just talk then and warne as usual a big zero against quality players of spin. They couldn't hold a candle to the W-square and saqlain in 1999. And SRT tuned them to 136 coming at 88/5 in an awesome display of patience and concentration. To hold the one fatal mistake against him is cruel and/or stupid depending on how much I like the person making that point ;) Just incase the media has brainwashed you into believing Lara's 153* was flawless, you can go and verify that lara was dropped by healy with WI 4 or 5 runs off victory. Would Healy taking that catch diminish lara's 149 or 150 incase WI lost? I dont think so bro. Bottomline is that SRTs knock got shunted by frustrated Indians who chose to burden him with the you cant score when it matters nonsense. Really? 136 out of 256 scored doesn't count as scoring when it matters? Can these people be non-critical even if SRT scored the whole 272 by himself? I am not inclined to believe so. There is no denying the greatness of the knock and I choose to rise above the tragedy of losing the match to place it as the best SRT knock ever and 2nd best knock of all time in test history. You want to guess the 1st? :) Answer at the end of the comments, if there are any :D
Adios and hope to have more tennis and cric discussions in the future with any guys who will be willing to hang around here :) Bookmark my blog ppl ;) Alrighty, with that moment of shameless self-promotion, hope to be back with a blog soon.
Today, this blog, is about SRT. I am one of those millions of Indians who have had the privilige of following the career of sRT and for the most part living vicariously through him :) Did not do well in an exam? Dont worry SRT thrashed Warne. Dad and mom had one of those forgettable days as a couple? Not to worry, SRT manhandled the aussies. The neighbours' dog died? Not to worry, SRT became the leading run scorer in ODIs. It died coz you kicked it when it wouldnt stop its annoying yelping? Who cares? SRT just gave a mouthful to Mcgrath. I am sure most of the people who were suckers for Indian cricket in the 90s can identify with what I am saying. Ofcourse, maybe you are not as honest as I am in confessing my biggest troubles in the 90s. (Who is to blame you if you had unconfessable problems like ED or some sick STD or that the hair on your ass was growing faster than the hair on your head, or.... ok I have to stop, the last image was traumatic even for ME. Let me take a quick one minute pause to get that disturbing image out of my smart brain :)
OK, pause over! Hope all of you have found your own ways to get over that one. Sorry for that guys, my brain just got a little too imaginative for my own good. Getting back to SRT (from a very temptingly humorous topic, i must say!) the 90s was just about him. Infact, in one of my brain's wildly imaginative times (like the one I just had ;) I just cant get that sorry topic out of my brain, guys!) I think the remaining Indian cricket players in the 90s spent the better part of their net-time plotting how to make the situation more and more dire to see what SRTs limits really are. A fly on the wall (or maybe the nets?) would have told us a few conversations " Hey, do you think Sachin will manage a 100, if we all refuse to get into double-figures :)" or "Dude, do you think Sachin can chase down 53430503 if we all score nothing at all!" Those who are laughing at me, I suggest exhibit A - the SAn World Cup team of 1999, who implemented this strategy, quite successfully we must all agree, against Klusener to provide us with some of the greatest batting exploits in ODI history. I will bet the last dollar in my pocket (remember I had no dollars and used up one at the beginning of the blog, so actually i am investing a negative dollar, so if I lose, I will owe negative dollars :) I told u guys, I am smart, didn't I? :) that the main reason Azhar or Cronje got into match-fixing was with the noble intention that they could raise the challenge level for SRT and klusener ;)
Looks like I wrote a whole lot of horse-crap where I just rambled the blog was about SRT without actually talking anything that a Cricket Geeks club would approve ( I still feel I am a part of it, but try to disguise it when I try to get it on with the girls! take it from me that they NEVER EVER get turned on by that clip of SRT top-cutting Akhtar for a 6 in the 03 WC. The next time someone tells me boys and girls are equal, I am going to whoop that feminist-punk-ass with SRT's 3lb bat! You can see youtube videos of guys jerking off to that clip, but not one sexy chic would so much as wink at me when I showed them that clip. Hey, just incase some of you guys (you know who you are - the-totally-addicted-to-watching-all-kinds-of-weird-videos-on-youtube guys) are heading off to you-tube, take my blog with 1kg of iodised salt, alrite? Part of the challenge for anyone who wants to interact with me is to figure out when I am doling out the facts and when I am not! :)
For the umpteenth time, let me get into geeky cricket talk about SRT. Yesterday I saw an article on TOI (not toilet-paper of India, times of India...) and there was a discussion among the players who attended SRT's surprise b'day party in SA, over what SRT's best test knock is. The young (ignorant?) ones like yuvi and bhajji felt it was SRT's 100 against England recently. The oldies (like Mr.Gavaskar, himself) picked the perth knock in 1992 (114?). That set my smart-geeky-cricket-brain (shall we call it Deep Blue, please please please!) racing and the SRT faniac (fan + maniac) that I am, I was like russel crowe in beautiful mind when he cracks the code for the american military. All sorts of numbers, scorecards, pictures, videos, articles, discussions with my friends whizzing past like racing cars in F-1. So believe me it was tough for me to pick the very absolute best. I really really imagined me being asked that question at gun-point and the Winner is....
The 136 at Chennai against our good-non-terrorism-promoting neighbours in 1999. I would still argue it is a better knock than a knock that was played parallelly by Lara, a few continents away and which most, including, good old-elitist Wisden. His 153* at barbados against the aussies. Wasim akram was at the peak of his powers (I still consider his dismissal of Dravid the greatest over bowled in test cricket. He made Dravid look like a silly fool before bowling him clean and square) Waqar was at his lethal best enhancing the W-square as one of the most lethal pace pair and saqlain with his doosra was like Mendis last year, totally having the best players of spin in a daze. Warne cannot even dream of doing that to the Indians, he was thrashed hopelessly, less than a year before at the very same ground by SRT ( in one of my other fav SRT knocks and one which I saw live on the ground :) - his 155* at chepauk) Mcgrath was way off from the lethal bowler he was in the 2000s. Infact later in 1999 when SRT captained India in Ozland in one series most Indians shudder to remember, yet to a SRT faniac like me that was the series that sets SRT ahead of even lara. Mcgrath, waugh and warne were as usual upto their bull-effing-crap of targetting the opposing captain and Mugra (coined by a dear friend of mine :) promised to expose SRT's supposed vulnerability outside off. Mugra and warne came distinct losers in their battle against SRT (forget the 3-0 flogging India got!). Mugra needed major help in daryl harper and other umpire errors to have SRT knee before wicket twice (that too when our 5'4" tendlya was on the hop) and the very well documented Shoulder before wicket. I cant even remember SRT edging on the offside in that whole test series. Point is, Mugra was just talk then and warne as usual a big zero against quality players of spin. They couldn't hold a candle to the W-square and saqlain in 1999. And SRT tuned them to 136 coming at 88/5 in an awesome display of patience and concentration. To hold the one fatal mistake against him is cruel and/or stupid depending on how much I like the person making that point ;) Just incase the media has brainwashed you into believing Lara's 153* was flawless, you can go and verify that lara was dropped by healy with WI 4 or 5 runs off victory. Would Healy taking that catch diminish lara's 149 or 150 incase WI lost? I dont think so bro. Bottomline is that SRTs knock got shunted by frustrated Indians who chose to burden him with the you cant score when it matters nonsense. Really? 136 out of 256 scored doesn't count as scoring when it matters? Can these people be non-critical even if SRT scored the whole 272 by himself? I am not inclined to believe so. There is no denying the greatness of the knock and I choose to rise above the tragedy of losing the match to place it as the best SRT knock ever and 2nd best knock of all time in test history. You want to guess the 1st? :) Answer at the end of the comments, if there are any :D
Adios and hope to have more tennis and cric discussions in the future with any guys who will be willing to hang around here :) Bookmark my blog ppl ;) Alrighty, with that moment of shameless self-promotion, hope to be back with a blog soon.
Nice dude. I cant imagine an Indian Score card without Sachin. It totally looks odd. Your blog is good, but I dont remember a time when Sachin dominated McGrath thoroughly. The shoaib akthar six was ok and I feel its over hyped. Try showing girls the six he hit Caddick in the same world cup. Girls did get interested when I showed them that six.
ReplyDeleteGood article
ReplyDeleteSahitya,
ReplyDeleteThat is as less-sports-geeky as I can get. Anymore and the content will be too mushy for my Macho image B-) you can hit the other blog www.non-sufficit-orbis.blogspot for the mushy-mushy posts. I have a vague feeling, you must be aware of that site :) Thanks for the encouraging words :)
Vissu,
Till the 2001 aus tour of India, where VVS scored 281, sachin had the upper hand. Till then DeVilliers/bishop had troubled him more than mcgrath ever did. Then Mcgrath got lethal and no batsmen ever dominated him. If one batsmen played him the best, it had to be Sachin. I am not talking about abdul razzaq type 5fours in an over domination. It is to win the war over a span of years. Like Sachin and lara annihilated Warne.
Shoaib Akhtar six cannot be overrated. We can agrue, there was much more at stake in that one shot than any other shot Sachin played. It is like how many pakistanis feel about the Javed Miandad Six off chetan Sharma. For a country that was haunted by that memory, Sachin played the exorcist. Ofcourse, I just loved the fact that the match and Sachin lived upto the inhumane hype before the match. You think the shot was over-rated? Go back in time and see how big the match was. It was by a mile, the match of the tournament. One of the matches where, cricket can actually appear to be ready to take on football as the premier sport in the world.
Anon,
Do I know you? :) thanks anyways, ciao around :)
Try to write about the ongoing IPL, I think that will be exciting.
ReplyDeleteI guess I should :) The pace at which the whole darn thing is unfolding makes it hard to keep a tab of it, unless you are a pro! It is definitely exciting to see Sachin and Sanath go after Mendis and take him to pieces :) It will be fun to see them against Mcgrath, murali and warne.
ReplyDeletenenu nee blog ni anni sachin fan communities, anti sachin communities lo petta ra, if you can write on every match thondaraga manchi popularity ravachu nee blog ki, roju oka ganta koorcho deeni meeda, ayipothundi. nenu naa friends ki, sowji valla friends ki motham cheppesa. so entha thondaraaga raasthe blog ki antha manchidi, nuvvu late chesina koddi janalu lite theesukuntaaru.
ReplyDeletegood article
ReplyDeleteThanks chinni :) keep checking for more articles :)
ReplyDeleteremove above hate comment by some loser
ReplyDeleteThanks Anon (the GOOD one).
ReplyDeleteAfter much investigation on blogspot, I succeeded in booting the bad ANON!
ciao around!