world cup 2007? when did it begin, please?

(Karthik Narayan)

What connects - an expression said to mean goodbye
with
this edition of the world cup?

So Long!

That’s what I would love to say to the organizers. Frankly who would remember that this world cup began sometime back in March 2007? Who remembers that West Indies played Pakistan and actually won in that match? Almost very few people!

And the whole episode seems even longer when it does not have the star cast. Imagine watching Harrison Ford playing Jack Dawson instead of Leonardo di Caprio in Titanic!!

Deserted all over

(Karthik Narayan)

I was watching the England-Sri Lanka and guess what I was seeing on screen? No it wasn’t the “great” cricket that we have come to see in this cricket world cup, but the pitch. Yes that’s right, for the second time in my life; I was left gaping at the middle.

What I saw there was sand, dirt, grime and dust – all like a scraped dry patch of land with players swarming all over! The only other repugnant image of a cricket pitch that I can recall – when India visited New Zealand just before the 2003 world cup, the cricket pitch was all glued together.

This however reminded me of a great desert, or even more familiarly – the great Indian road! After all, this entire game has come to look like a road-show. Reminiscent of my good old playing days in the middle of the road.

If the pitch wasn’t desert enough for you, I must forget not to tell you that the stands wore a deserted look. This was one match for the Robinson Crusoe types I should say – of the “deserted” island…

Definitely not my “dessert”, that’s for sure!

Breaking news - Greg Chappell resigns (BTW what was broken??)

(Karthik Narayan)

The whole episode of appointing Chappell as our cricket coach was a bad idea. You know why? It’s not because he wasn’t a good coach, but he tried to coach a team too good, well known for its performing abilities – the ability to perform on screen and not in the cricket pitches.

Doing nothing is the most difficult job to do because you never know when you have finished doing it. That is precisely the Indian cricket team’s problem. All along the course of the last 3 years they have been doing nothing and have been so good at it that they now don’t know if they have completed their task or not.

So don’t blame Greg Chappell – he tried to change them to do something that they had never done – which is to do something. And that something is called playing a game called cricket.

There you are – Indian cricketers, never fear when I am here. I always stand by your slide! (Oops I meant side)

Warney is back with Simone...

(Karthik Narayan)

And it all ends happily ever after... Warney is back with Simone again. No big cricket news that. but news all the same.

Here is one to u - dearest warney boy!