What Ails Olympics Opening Ceremony (1/2)

I did not stay up to watch the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics. I always felt the Olympic opening ceremony is the most expensive way to teach country names to kids. Besides, the timing for Rio was more suitable for burglars and petty criminals, including but not confined to call centre slaves.

Also one loathes the way countries are introduced every year by unimaginative announcers. If you ask me, this is how certain countries should be introduced:

Greece: Dear ladies and gentlemen, we begin with the original host of the Games, who came up with the concept of Olympics and has since gone bankrupt. Remember kids, this is the country which gave birth to Pythagoras whose theorems ruined our teens.

Australia: A country rich with flora and fauna, including Koala, Kangaroo and Andrew Symonds; also a country where every advice begins with “mate...”

Bangladesh: Here we have country that makes most of our designed garments nearly for free. Check the Zara top you are wearing or the GAP jeans, if it doesn't say "Made in Bangladesh", chances are they are counterfeits. They are also the biggest suppliers of domestic helps and rickshawallas to India's National Capital region. Also, as some of you know, they are leading the drive for a blogger-free world.

Bhutan: Here comes the Bhutan contingent, a beaming smile on their faces. As you know, especially those who have seen "The Lunchbox", the tiny Himalayan country is the happiest nation in the world. Medal or no medal, they'd return home happy and beaming. It makes them the Games' most relaxed team, as opposed to China.

China: China's formidable contingent makes a grand entry. Take a good look at their stern and serious faces and you know it's a team under pressure. Some of them will win medals and thus be entitled to a daily bowl of state-sponsored noodles for the rest of their life. Some of them will fail, and will either vanish off the face of earth and be sent to work as a brick kiln worker for the rest of their lives.

Ethiopia: Running behind them is Ethiopia. If you wonder why they are looking more haggard than they normally do, it's because they started from Addis Ababa two months back. The athletes can't afford air tickets and are expected to pick most of the long-distance medals as they return home running. They don't mind some UN aid on their home either.

Iceland: Iceland for you, dear spectators. The flag-bearer is a judoka but who knows, maybe he is a professional snake milker. It's his grip on the flagpole that suggests so. Of their three swimmers, one is an ostrich babysitter, another a professional queuer and the third one clears tiger's ear in a circus. The team includes a javelin thrower who is an earthworm psychologist and a discus thrower who is a promising scarecrow.

India: If there was an Olympic gold for athlete-to-official ratio, here comes the team which would have never missed it. Welcome India. They have sent 46 athletes, who are accompanied by 27 percent of the country's bureaucracy along with their drivers, maids and maalishwala.

Jamaica: Enters the colourful Jamaican squad led by the world's fastest man, Usain Bolt. Err, it's a blur now. I mean he was here! I swear I'm not drunk. I think I saw them entering and they went like a flash. We'll check the tapes folks.

Japan: Next we have Japan, the country that taught us how to eat merely-concussed fishes and call it Sushi. Arguably the most behaved nation, which has stored away its collective anger in volcanoes.

Kenya: The Kenyan contingent runs into the stadium. Like Ethiopia, they couldn't afford airfare either and are reaching here after two months of inter-continental criss-crossing. They are natural runners who started running even before they could walk. Not really a surprise when you grow up being chased by starving Lions and indignant Cheetahs. Even if they don't win a medal, some of the athletes hope to catch Angelina Jolie's eyes and get adopted.

Mauritius: Ladies and gentleman, please welcome Mauritius. Dear little kids, it's the island nation where most of you were conceived. In fact, marriages are not solemnised if you haven't honeymooned in Mauritius. Also draws tax cheats.

Nepal: Ladies and gentlemen, please clap for Nepal. When not climbing Mt Everest after every domestic dispute, they are electing a new PM. Also the country that gave us the wonderful Manisha Koirala and the less wonderful Acharya Balkrishna of Patanjali fame.

North Korea: Here comes the Games' most assured contingent, the wonderfully nuclear-abled North Korea. They left home declaring themselves as the Olympic champions and will nuke anyone who disputes that.

Pakistan: Here comes a small contingent from Pakistan. Apparently, their sports ministry wanted to select the squad but eventually ISI handpicked the candidates. Some believe they are here to find Imran Khan's next wife. (...to be continued)

Cultural difference and others craps

We would surely love to believe that the Sydney bad blood has been flushed out. Disturbing voices, however, still want us believe Ricky Ponting & Co played the game hard but fair.

“Cultural difference, silly!” Well, that’s pure crap. Hogg…I mean hogwash actually.

Let’s get it right that India lost the Sydney Test but Australia did not win either. If Cricket Australia cares a fig about intangible things like ethics and morality, the Sydney Test, at best, was a Pyrrhic victory. But neither Ponting nor James Sutherland is Pyrrhus and nor do they realize that victories like this would leave their reputation in tatters.

Unmistakably, the Australians are so seduced by success that they bring in a kind of ruthlessness that probably guarantees them silverwares but not admirers. Well, if they are happy with that, congratulations! If cricket is global politics, Australia is its America – the big, brash, bully that boasts of everything but admirers. Likewise, Australia’s cupboard maybe full of trophies but they have hardly won anything else.

Specially under Ponting, Australia has fallen from the grace. They have been disgraceful in triumphs and worse in defeats. Like America, they top the hate-list outside Down Under. Preparing a rap-chart, where India and Sourav Ganguly top the team and individual lists, is an exercise in futility.

For quite a while, Australia has been so unflinching in its single-minded persuasion of the one-point agenda of success that it sacrificed everything else – grace, niceties, sportsmanship – at its altar.

Reared up on a perverse notion that skill alone may not be enough to ensure success, the Australians have been schooled to be crook. Sledging is considered a necessity and grip over a filthy vocabulary has been made to look as important as gripping the ball.

Unfortunately for the game, Australia is the hideous face of cricket. It’s rather an irony that cricket has a team at the top that stands for everything that goes against the very spirit of the game.

Alas, Australia is not aware of the kind of cricket it has been practicing and preaching. Now if they decided to play it the way they wanted, I would have no business criticizing them. But what worries me is the fact that the disease if contagious. Frustrated at Australia’s America-like hegemony, countries like India are trying to blindly ape them, bringing a smug smile to Australia’s face. After all, imitation is the best form of compliment. Therein lies the danger for the game.

Image: Getty Images

Lankan Lion has Kiwi in breakfast, Kangaroo for dinner?

(Murali the Magician, again the wrecker-in-chief)


Australia is not the team to step and skid on banana skin. That’s for lesser cricketing mortals, like India or Pakistan. Even South Africa. And thanks God, finally there seems a team with the wherewithal and the guile to upset the Aussie applecart.

Lankan triumph against New Zealand in the first World Cup semifinal conveys the Lankans are here for business. You simply don’t have a better balanced team in the World Cup. Not even Australia – with no slow bowler of worth in their ranks -- can boast of such combination.

The batting order looks a never ending one with each of them having distinction either in the bail-out act or the belting act. And his yesterday’s ton meant Mahela Jayawardene too came to the party and the timing could not have been better.

The bowling is potent enough to bring disorder to any batting order. Australian bats, provided they get past South Africa today, would struggle to see the ball coming off Lasith Malinga’s hands. Vaas may have lost couple of yards but no waning in guile – remember how he and his partner-in-conspiracy Sangakkara stumped Lara? Dilhara Fernando has also developed into an intelligent bowler and he put it on display in that last over against England.

Also, the mere sight of Muralitharan licking his lips and tossing the ball up at the end of his bowling mark is enough to send shivers down the spine. All those innuendoes and cat-calls from the Australian gallery are still fresh in his mind and Murali always loved to sizzle in sizzlers.

Come Saturday, the Lions would be ready to have Kangaroo for dinner.