The Curious Case of IPL2

Its been a week since the second edition of the Indian Premier League began across the Indian Ocean in South Africa. The first edition was a thriller. And there were doubts whether the second edition would retain the same attention. So far, this edition has proven to be a curious case to say the least.

The tournament was moved to South Africa because of general elections taking place in India. But South Africa also had its elections. And more interestingly there were two games held on election day (both proved to be thrillers).

T20 was supposedly a young man's game. But going by this year's results so far, it seems to be a battle of supremacy amongst the golden oldies. Matthew Hayden and Rahul Dravid are leading the race for the orange cap while Anil Kumble is the joint highest wicket taker so far. And there have been good performances from most of the other senior players too. Seems that the South African conditions are truly separating the men from the boys.

Unlike last year there has been hardly any memorable performances from the younger lot. Of couse with the honorable exception of Kamran Khan.

Strategic Breaks: Disrupt the momentum of the game. But are raking in the money for the broadcasters while I utilise it to surf random channels :)

Apart from the games themselves there is a lot happening on and off the field also.

The Cheerleaders: They are back and entertaining the public. After the hue and cry raised against them last year, there have been no comments this time around. So watching them on TV seems to be OK with our moral police.

The Dog: Bruno halted play for 10 minutes in the opening match while nobody knew how to shoo it off the pitch.

The Blog: The Fake IPL Player. Whoever you are Sir, you rock. If what you write is true, then well no comments :P. Anyway the frequency of posts has reduced. But the content is intersting to say the least. Rumours have been floating around the identity of the blogger. There have been reports of him having been caught but the posts still continue to roll in. (And he has developed a huge fan following with over 2200 followers and thousands of comments in his week old blog)

The Hovering Camera: Is causing more trouble than its worth. Provides a top view of the pitch which is useless. All you get to see is the batsman's helmet. And its causing as much trouble as the sight screen for the batsmen as it zooms in.

The Commentory: Well am sick of this DLF maximum and Citi - Moment of Success business. But the roaming commentators are a good idea. Although Mandira Bedi should be thrown out.

And for my view of things

The Hello Tune: On the opening day the entire office had its hello tune changed to the Mumbai Indians theme song. Call anyone up and you get AALA RE blasting from the other side.

The Ad: I like the Vodafone ads witht the cute little cartoon figures. Hate the one with the Hello Hellos shouting on and on.

The Fantasy League: Rain abandoned the one game in which 5 of my fantasy XI were playing :(. Jesse Ryder scored runs after I dropped him from my team while Dravid went the other way :(. Of course I did make a brilliant decision to bring on AB de Villiers. Current rank is in 13000s. Hoping to improve as the tournament progresses.

So this is as far as the first week of the tournament was concerned. Hoping the case gets more curiouser as the IPL progresses.

P.S. Happy 36th birthday to the LEGEND

Fairytales do still take place

The times are bad. Switch on the television to any news channel or just pick up a newspaper. All one can find is bad news coming from everywhere, whether its the global economic crisis or the terrorist strikes happening across the world. The atmosphere is filled with gloom. And it is at times like these that the sports world can provide events which lift up the spirits. The sports arena supplies stories like no other. Stories that touch the heart. Case in point: Afghanistan achieving ODI status in cricket.

Not long ago, the country was ruled by Taliban and had been for all practical purposes cut off from the rest of the world. Then 9/11 happened. And Afghanistan came back into global conciousness after the Taliban was overthrown. Sports play a major role in this (Just look at post-apartheid South Africa after years of international isolation).

About a year and half back a ragtag bunch of Afghans started playing in the World Cricket Leagues. The team slowly worked its way to the World Cup Qualifiers going from Division 5 to Division 2 after winning every single stage. At stake in the tournament was a place in the 2011 cricket world cup and ODI status for the next 4 years. Though they failed to qualify for the World Cup, they did get ODI status. On the way they beat the powerful Associate teams like Ireland, Scotland & Bermuda. The story of Hamid Hassan and his team from the war-torn country provided the romance of the cup. In fact they were the main attraction of the tournament. The whole world loves the underdog and the underdog who performs is even more loved than anything else.

The journey of the Afghanistan team over the last 15 months does prove one thing:

Fairytales do come true

Awesomely Pathetic Lives: PHEW

And after a slightly serious post, I am back with another episode of the Awesomely Pathetic Post. So here goes another footnote in the pathetic lives of our awesome trio i.e. Niku, Deyus & Funkaz.

The Company-which-must-not-be-named decided to move along with the times. Funkaz who has the force with him provided the spark to Niku & Deyus. So now for their regular communication, besides the text messaging they now had Instant messaging option also. The Instant Messaging became a popular tool to carry on their conversations while working. Here they called up each other for lunch meetings, to quickly convey the latest happenings around their awesomely pathetic world or even make an attempt to conduct a survey. The other two were so impressed with the tool that they wanted to spread the spark like a wildfire across the Company-which-must-not-be-named. But Niku's pathetic attemepts at this led Funkaz to add the first acronym in their awesomely pathetic lives

PHEW - "Pathetic Hain Every Where"

Words

Its only words....

and so goes the lyrics of one of the most beautiful songs.

But words are not just words. Words convey thoughts, feelings, emotions. Words also provide finality to any feeling. They are like the proverbial last nail to the coffins of those feelings. Words sting more than a slap on the face.

And Words HURT... like nothing else can.