Cricket

Watching Cricket today was like the old times. Whether or not India wins, the World Cup sure has taken me back to Cricket nostalgia. Somewhere between all this, I just remembered how my own website started as a blog to write about Cricket back then - around 10 years back. It had started out as a little set of HTML pages on Geocities (a service that was provided by yahoo). I had this huge fan page just about Jammy (Rahul Dravid) and much of the website was mainly about Cricket. It was those Cricket crazy days. Any excuse could do to watch Cricket even during exams or just to go out and play Cricket on the road. Now, the craze just ends at an occasional game of Cricket on Android!

However, the addiction before getting out of the craze, had become catastrophic. I had to make a conscious attempt to keep away from anything that was Cricket except for rare visits to Cricinfo (which has now been acquired by ESPN and has become ESPNCricinfo). I had been quite successful in keeping myself away from watching Cricket matches for last few years - keeping myself busy with something or the other - more so when there were matches that couldn't be missed! The annoying ads played between every 'over' on TV was sort of an excuse or probably was one great excuse for me to not watch Cricket matches. It had worked really well. All that changed with an HD DTH connection I subscribed to last month. ESPN has a dedicated HD channel that telcasts live with amazing picture quality and without ads in between! The DTH service provider must have seen Cricket crazy people coming back to their old habits of watching Cricket through this or it might have been just me. I was completely bowled by the offer. Good thing though, because of that I now get to relax watching Nat Geo or Discovery in HD on occasions when I'm able to find time after the day's work.

When much was said about Malya's Royal Challengers team being a test team, there could have been some immediate damage control. Instead the team composition sailed half way through the tournament tasting flops with the likes of Joshi (!!), AnilKumble (!) and Kallis. They might be classy cricketers, but the lack of aggression in a T20 scenario is conspicuous. Was it Dravid's overconfidence that did them in?

We keep hearing that Cricket telecast elsewhere in the world have less ads than in India. Ads between every over might sound crazy, but this might just be good in a way. Watching TV without breaks might strain the eyes, but telecast with commercial breaks every over? you might be keeping the remote at your hands reach pressing the mute button every now and then (which is good exercise, btw), and taking your eyes and mind away for something else that lessens the strain while also giving you a chance to get out of the addiction and switch off the TV set!

Photo: Cricinfo

It was a jumbo hundred and no Cricket fan in India would have missed watching it today. The [:http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/engvind/engine/current/match/258470.html|second day of the test match at Oval] between India vs England was all batting to watch unlike the last two test matches where the Cricket ball ruled the contest. It came as a surprise to see Kumble stick to the crease and bat like he did - the innings was full of several surprises, not to mention the kind of stroke he played to get to his century! It brought laugh on to people watching it, but Kumble really deserved the century. Congratulations to Jumbo!

[:http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/304635.html|The Jelly Beans episode] has put a lot of speculation on the attitude of the English team on Cricket field. Lawrence Booth on Guardian.co.uk [:http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/08/01/jelly_beangate_the_unanswered.html|writes in an article probing] the unanswered questions about that episode:

Given the money spent on bowling coaches, computer analysts and masseurs, this comes as something of a relief. But a rumour has reached the Spin suggesting that England employed a similar ruse to unsettle Marlon Samuels during the recent visit by West Indies. And on that occasion, the confectionery of choice really was a jelly baby, standing proudly to attention.

(emphasis mine)

So, if this is what the English team has been doing in tests, should part of its success be attributed to sledging? Surely, it doesn't backfire all the time [:http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/columns/content/story/304671.html|like it did in the last test match] at Trent Bridge. And if this continues, and English team keeps winning (apart from one or two exceptions like Trent Bridge) would England go down in history not just for bringing Cricket to the world, but also destroying it?

We were in a discussion today when an SMS informed us about [:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6921960.stm|Ingmar's death]. The discussion suddenly took the backstage and SMSes flowed in and out of mobile phones. A film student friend of mine wore a sorrow look on his face and while he tried to SMS the sad news to other friends, his hands were shaking. This might not surprise those ardent followers of artistic cinema who remember Ingmar's direction and the everlasting impression he's left with it.

There were articles all over the web pretty soon, and some TV News channels here ran features on him too. Some links below following the news:
* Time - [:http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1648084,00.html|Why Ingmar Bergman mattered]
* [:http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/cinema/features/ingmar_bergman_profile.shtml|BBC Profile - Ingmar Bergman]
* [:http://www.ingmarbergman.se/|Ingmar Bergman website]
* [:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6922552.stm|Why Bergman was an artistic gaint] (BBC)
* [:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20041463/site/newsweek/|Dark As the Night] (MSNBC)

Photo: BBC

For many Indian Cricket fans, a nice Sunday evening of watching good Cricket was spoiled by two utterly bad decisions by the umpire. The decisions came ironically from [:http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/7918.html|Simon Taufel] who is regarded as the best umpire in International Cricket.

Sachin Tendulkar lost out yet again on (yet another) century. Saurav Ganguly's fans lost more than what Ganguly might have lost - he looked in great touch with his batting and batted like Saurav of the Sahara Cup days. The batting was great to watch. Some of the great Cricketing shots were played. The bowling was evenly matched - [:http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/engvind/content/current/player/20187.html|new seamer of the English team] bowled like he's been around for ages. It was a very nice test match to watch, until Simon Taufel sent Sachin and Saurav back to pavilion with his frightfully bad decisions.