I got this picture as an email forward yesterday. This is one of the VERY few cricket related email forwards that actually made me laugh. For those of you who are not in the know, the conversation is actually from this movie. Non-Tams, please excuse. The point of the joke’s lost upon explanation.

…Shanthakumaran Sreesanth!

Ask Dhoni if you want..

Asked what advice he gave Sreesanth before the last ball of the match, Dhoni said, “I told him to be free, and control his mind. He’s like a computer, he just has to bowl one ball but he might be thinking of bowling 100 different deliveries.”

Heh!

While the world waits to hear the explanation from the WMSC about the $100 million penalty that McLaren have been hit with, Planet F1 has an interesting comparison of statements made by McLaren team principal, Ron Dennis and FIA head honcho, Max Mosley about the let off for the McLaren Mercedes’ drivers – Hamilton, Alonso and DeLaRosa. (more…)

Five years ago, in my first ever guest post on Cricinfo (other posts here and here) , I wrote,

But why have most of us chosen to turn a blind eye towards a player with all the prerequisite skills and caliber required of him? Just because he seems laid back, or is this another case of the “regional bias” that has plagued Indian cricket over the ages? The second excuse seems a bit far-fetched, considering that many players from the same zone have won places in the team in the last few years; I must stress, incidentally, that the quality of such players is never in doubt.

Although I do not know the reason, Sadagoppan Ramesh seems to the black sheep that nobody wants in the team. Is his footwork, or rather the absence of it, the cause? Admitted that this aspect is quite alarming, but his flowing strokes and awesome timing still catch the eye.

A online survey to pick the 16-member squad for the West Indies reveals the flawed and perhaps mistaken opinions largely prevalent in the minds of the average Indian cricket fan. At the time of penning this piece, Ramesh’s replacement Deep Dasgupta gets twice as many votes as Ramesh (913), while Shiv Sunder Das gets more than four times as many. I attribute this more to ignorance than to clarity of thought. Ramesh’s career stats should be a eye-opener to anyone who thinks that he does not merit a place in the team. (more…)

YouTube link (via Autoblog)

Funny, but interesting ad, considering how the McLaren drivers’ working relationship has panned out IRL. Watch out for a special appearance at the end. The Europeans surely put the “F” in the word funny.

Aakash Chopra, writing on the TMS Blog, writes (via),

In this millennium, India have won more Tests away from home (16) than any other country apart from Australia (26) in the same period.

Interesting. But how many of these have come in series that India has won? I would say (without going to Statsguru for reference) that this number is either 3 or 4. And if I remember right, most of these wins have come either in test no. 1 or 2 of a 3 (or) 4 match series.

Why do we win one and lose the rest? Complacency? That’s the most obvious answer.

While I think that this will be fact of choice for Team India’s ardent supporters for some months to come (incl. me), I’d be happier to quote the number of series wins as my reason to support this Indian team.

As for Aakash Chopra, his dropping continues to irk. Sure, Jaffer has his occasional monster score, but Chopra tended to inspire more confidence. And also the context of a Chopra innings is different. I think even with a test average of 23, he did quite well, considering that the man at the other end was Sehwag playing a swashbuckling innings. So to me, Chopra remains a “what if”.

A big thank you to whoever linked to my latest post on UberDesi at the South Asian Journalists forum’s post announcing coverage of the World Cup finals.

I’m flattered, considering the state I was in when I wrote the post at 3 am this morning.

Is Subhash Chandra trying to do a Packer? Is this what India needs? Let’s wait and watch as more details unfold…

Incidently, another Cricinfo piece by Sambit Bal calls for something similar – A revolution, if you please. Hmm…

For more, head over to my World Cup guest blog at UberDesi….

As I mentioned earlier, I am going to be guest blogging the cricket World Cup ’07, exclusively on ÃœberDesi.com. Here are the first few posts.

• Confessional first post…
• The carnival begins…
• The carnival begins – part deux
• Cricket’s most momentous day – The St. Patrick’s Day massacre
• India vs Srilanka and the group of death… (*new*)

With the upcoming World Cup in mind, the uber cool chaps over at ÃœberDesi.com have invited me to blog about cricket as their first ever guest blogger. As if just that invite was not enough, they promised a killer intro too. So, like the attention loving egotist that I am, I jumped at the chance and agreed.

So I shall run off now and get my first post up before they change their mind! Hope to see you guys around there. And as usual, do leave your comments.