I suspect that...

1. Alastair Cook and RP Singh endorse different mascara brands;

2. Pakistan Cricket Board has assured itself of the inaugural Gandhi Truth Award by revealing the minutiae of exactly what is keeping Shoaib Akhtar out of action these days;

3. When Lalit Modi mooted the two-IPLs-a-year theory, the scary thought fleeting through Glenn McGrath’s mind was that either his bum or the bench he is assigned to warm would invariably catch fire;

4. Sourav Ganguly is betting considerable money on Mashrafe Mortaza hurling three beamers on the trot at Brendon McCullum’s head at some stage in the T20 World Cup;

5. The only way to make Rohit Sharma click as a Team India player is to allow him wear a Deccan Chargers jersey inside;

6. Ventriloquism may seem as relevant to cricket as Paris Hilton is to rocket science but it might actually do the trick for MS Dhoni. History witness, Warne’s voice brings out the best in a Yusuf Pathan and Gilchrist’s words have magic on Rohit;

7. The recent attacks on the Indians in Australia is essentially a backlash of Harbhajan Singh’s highly misinterpreted invocation of Andrew Symonds’ mother in the infamous Monkeygate episode. Incidentally, Harbhajan’s nephew was recently killed by a taxi driver in Melbourne.

Doosra Annual Award 2008

Light…camera…action.

Time for red carpet, stealth light, stretch limos, bowties, pinstripes and black satin gowns. As another year goes by, welcome to the second Doosra Annual Award Gala Night. A tradition started last year, Doosra doles out the annual gongs and the winners are:

Col Gaddafi Club Membership: MS Dhoni, the only other living person with a retinue of female bodyguards.

Australian National Sportfishing Association (ANSA) Man of the Year: Andrew ‘gone-fishing’ Symonds (he’ll collect the award after returning from the fishing trip).

Yo-Yo award: Mohd Yousuf, for completing the ICL-IPL-ICL cycle.

Alcoholic Anonymous Citation: Paul Harris for his legendary candour after South Africa won the Melbourne Test. ("I don't think there's enough beer in all of Australia to satisfy us tonight.”)

Overthrow of the Year: Muntazer al-Zaidi. Having two simultaneous attempts at George W Bush and missing both speaks volume of his waywardness.

Best Ducking of the Year: George W Bush. Ducking two beamers at the same time is a feat beyond lesser mortals and this guy evaded two size 10 shoes hurled at him from less than 22 yards with no umpire to call it NO! Cricket’s loss has been politics’ loss as well.

Anti-Gambling Movement Appreciation Medal: Ishant Sharma for his taming of the ‘Punter’.

Lifetime Shit-Midas Trophy: Greg Chappell. Everything he touched became shit. Look at Australia.

Annual Humble Pie Award: Kevin Pietersen, for his pie-chucker comments.

Lapidary Association Medallion: Sachin Tendulkar, for advocating the evolutionary stone-to-milestone theory.

The VIBGYOR Trophy: Adam Gilchrist, for badmouthing Tendulkar in ‘True Colours of My Life’ and then changing colour and crying hosanna of the Little Master.

Poppy Growers’ Appreciation Medal: Mohd Asif.

Gandhi Truth Award: Gautam Gambhir for his blatant truth that elbowing Shane Watson "wasn’t deliberate".

Of IPL, Gurukul and ballsy tricks

My unflinching scepticism didn’t desert me when perpetrators of the IPL preached it would be a virtual Gurukul where tricks of the trade of the cherry and the blade would change hands, from the battle-hardened bunch to the greenhorn lot.

Ungrateful souls like Cheteshwar Pujara and Ranadeb Bose swear, and swear at, it’s otherwise but IPL has indeed lived up to the Gurukul hype and I’m especially impressed by the guru-shishya parampara in the Deccan Chargers camp.

Guru Gilly has been trying to hard sell his squash-ball trick but few actually heeded to his ballsy theory. Y Venugopal Rao –- so what if he sees a cheap coiffeur -- decided to give it a try and since then, he’s having a ball with the bat and runs haven’t stopped flowing from his blade. The Andhra right-hander is now the team’s third highest run-scorer, just behind his mentor and Rohit Sharma!

Apparently, the trend is spreading like blogging in Bollywood, with Scott Styris too game for such an experiment, even though he plans to do it with a golf ball.

Gilly ready to sledge Punter

Those who thought it’s only politics which makes strange bedfellows, time to get their basics right. So does the Indian Premier League (IPL). Here friends turn foe and hatchets are hurriedly buried for six weeks, as if they didn't exist. In fact, Shane Warne and Graeme Smith would soon take their position next to the wicketkeeper to feature in cricket’s own ‘Slipping With the Enemy’.

Thanks to Lalit Modi, here you have a unique world where Bush hugs Osama, Hillary hosts Obama and China hails Dalai Lama. After IPL, United Nations beckons Modi.

There is other side of the coin as well. In fact what provoked the post is Adam Gilchrist’s announcement in Kolkata that says he’s ready to sledge-hammer his former captain Ricky Ponting. Well, Gilly is perfectly entitled to giving vent to his pent-up frustration after being Punter’s deputy for so long. More so because he is through with international cricket and does not care a hoot if that antagonizes Ponting.

But will that be the case with, say an Ishant Sharma and MS Dhoni? I doubt so. Tell me which nitwit would go after his ODI/Test captain and give him a mouthful and still hope for a prolonged international career? Don’t let the foofaraw fox you. At the end of the day -- I would say even at the start of the day too -- IPL is, merely a six-week romp. The bread and butter, fortunately, Test/ ODI cricket.

Image

Auction? We are not livestock!

Adam Gilchrist felt like a cow and Rahul Dravid hopes it would not happen again. I had gone to meet captains of the all eight Indian Cricket League (ICL) where I asked them how they perceive the idea of cricketers being auctioned. Here is what some of them felt.

Inzamam-ul-Haq (Lahore Badshah): I think it does not sound nice to hear a cricketer being auctioned or sold. They could have easily avoided it and done it in a better way. It is not something I would be keen to see happening with myself. I’m happy with ICL and thank god, I’m not up for grabs.

Marvan Atapattu (Delhi Giants): I think the bidding was an indication of your worth. But they should not have done it in the open. Maybe some players found it humiliating. (Asked if it was a case of sour grapes and Marvan said). I’m where I opted for and I’m happy being here. I’m enjoying my assignment.

Stuart Law (Hyderabad Heroes): It was quite an innovative idea. You can see the auctioning from both ways. But I’m happy doing what I’m doing in ICL and I don’t regret anything.

Image: Reuters

Warne wants IPL to be part of ICC calendar

Shane Warne has a simple solution to rescue players from the moral dilemma of deciding between the Indian Premier League (IPL) and national commitments, if they coincide.

Make IPL part of international schedule, says the retired leggie.

Let's make it part of the international schedule and the ICC and the boards can create a new future tours program.

In his column for The Daily Telegraph, Warne also dismissed Cricket Australia’s objection that IPL might lead to a conflict of interests among the sponsors of the Australian team and those of the IPL.

… here in Australia, each state has cricket sponsors that differ from our national ones, so I don't buy that argument. This issue can be overcome

Warne simply can’t wait to get started and gushed

Imagine how good it would be seeing Glenn McGrath bowling to Adam Gilchrist, and M.S. Dhoni behind the stumps? Exciting, I reckon.

And he urges all to welcome the Twenty20 venture, instead of fighting it.

We should all be embracing the IPL rather than trying to fight it.

Image: Peter Nicholson (The Australian)

Australia may ban top plays from playing in IPL!

House divided.

That’s Australian cricket beneath the veneer. The Indian Premier League (IPL) moolah has done the seemingly impossible and Australian cricket is grappling with a crisis that threatens to leave the game in tatters Down Under.

The situation became so grave that Cricket Australia, struggling to maintain its authority, warned it might ban top players from playing in the IPL.

It has been an exasperating time for the Australia fans. The cash-rich IPL, BCCI’s ambitious money-milking project, has hit Australian cricket like a hurricane and the result is before us to see.

Andrew Symonds, as if he had not problems enough, now faces disciplinary action for his remarks in an unpublished column. Symonds believes he has a right to earn fast buck and complaints how Cricket Australia was coming in the way.

Ricky Ponting too admits the IPL has become a distraction enough to influence of the team’s performance.

The team looks divided, even though Ponting claimed that his teammates, with the lone exception of Adam Gilchrist, were not concern about IPL.

Ponting’s assertion notwithstanding, the lure of the moolah is too tempting and Ponting himself knows it better. Deep inside, every Australian cricket is craving for the money, which puts Cricket Australia on a tricky wicket.

But the Board does not deserve sympathy, because their predicament is their own making. They have been the partner-in-crime of the Indian cricket board in a venture which treats the game as a mere commodity, its practitioners’ slaves and the followers a bunch of sadists who derive perverse pleasure from a slogathon.

In the coming days, the crisis would only deepen. If Australia has been hit today, tomorrow it might be South Africa’s turn. And some other country the day after.

BCCI has become a monster that is not only usurping ICC’s authority but also scrambling after money, whatever be the cost. Cricket has never looked in more trouble.

Zaheer, RP, Yuvraj bag inaugural Cricinfo awards

Three Indians, two Sri Lankans and an Australian shared the spoils in the inaugural Cricinfo award that recognizes exploits in all three forms of the game – Test, ODI and Twenty20.

Kumar Sangakkara (Test), Adam Gilchrist (ODI) and Yuvraj Singh (Twenty20) won the batting awards, while bowling honours went to Zaheer Khan (Test), Lasith Malinga (ODI) and RP Singh (Twenty20).

The jury included Geoffrey Boycott, Ian Chappell, Daryll Cullinan, Tony Greig, Michael Holding, David Lloyd, Sanjay Manjrekar, Ramiz Raja and Ravi Shastri.

List of winners

Test batting - Kumar Sangakkara (SL): 192, Australia v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test, Hobart
Test bowling - Zaheer Khan (Ind): 5 for 75, England v India, 2nd Test, Trent Bridge
ODI batting - Adam Gilchrist (Aus): 149, Australia v Sri Lanka, World Cup final, Barbados
ODI bowling - Lasith Malinga (SL): 4 for 54, Sri Lanka v South Africa, World Cup, Guyana
Twenty20 batting - Yuvraj Singh (Ind): 70, India v Australia, World Twenty20 semi-final, Durban
Twenty20 bowling - RP Singh (Ind): 4 for 13, India v South Africa, World Twenty20, Durban

Image

Tributes to Gilchrist

As Adam Gilchrist prepares to hang up his gloves, teammates, former coach, peers and even the Australian Prime Minister doffed their hat at the wonderful entertainer.

Here is a collection of who said what:

Peter Roebuck, noted cricket writer and former Somerset captain:

Adam Gilchrist has given more outright joy to followers of the game than any cricketer since Sir Garfield Sobers. He will be missed as a cricketing force, as a contributor and as an entertainer.

Kim Hughes, former Australia captain:

Wicketkeeper-batsmen will always be compared to Gilly and they will never be as good.

Mark Boucher, days after losing his world record to Gilly:

He revolutionised the game in terms of being a wicketkeeper-batsman…He is the guy who set the tone for everyone else in the game, and he has changed it forever.

Rod Marsh, former Aussie stumper:

…whoever replaces him will have enormous shoes to fill.

Sourav Ganguly:

… he must be the greatest wicketkeeper-batsman ever.

Kevin Ruud, Australian Prime Minister:

As his prime minister (I) said, 'Gilly you need to reconsider,' and he told me he wasn't.

Ian Healy, who lost his place in the side to Gilly.

It's very easy to talk about his batting, but it was his glovework right from day one, in his first Test match in Brisbane, that I liked.

John Buchanan, former coach:

Possibly his loss is more than even Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.

Jason Gillespie:

He just loved being around the lads in the dressing room, having a laugh.

Anil Kumble:

He changed the way countries would look at wicketkeepers.

Kumar Sangakkara:

He pioneered the wicketkeeper-batsman role.

England ODI captain Paul Collingwood gives voice to what bowlers worldwide felt:

Thank God for that.

Image: AFP

Gilly to go

Adam Gilchrist is about to hang up his gloves. Apparently, dropping VVS Laxman in the Perth Test prompted the decision.

Indeed, he has not been the same intimidating presence either in front or behind the stumps. But still cricket has not seen his kind before.

He has nipped many a bowling career in the bud. His batting in one dayers has been a trauma for pacers and spinners alike. Ricky Ponting, coming at number three, could not stop grinning as he often faced bowlers who had been already beaten to pulp by the swashbuckler southpaw.

And with Gilly behind the stumps – and I’m talking about his salad days – McGraths, Warnes, Gillespies and Lees looked even more formidable. Despite not being in the best of terms with the leggie, Gilly has often been Warne’s partner-in-crime. More batsman have taken the caught-Gilchrist-bowled-Warne way than other available roads to peril.

And not to forget that in the bunch that has been schooled to stand ground and make life difficult for the umpires, Gilly has been a welcome exception, a walker.

Gilly already boasts of more dismissals and tons than any glovesman in the history of the game and Australia might struggle to remain the same force once he departs.

You bungled the job, Colonel!

I have to admit that I had more respect for Dilip Vengsarkar than anyone who laid his bum on the chief selector’s chair in recent past. But to be honest, the Colonel has looked little confused of late and bungled up a sensitive issue.

The decision to sack Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid has been mind-joggling. We indeed need to look beyond the stalwarts and keep the rookies ready to fill the void once they leave the scene. But there has been an unmistakably ugly effort to shove them out of the stage.

As it has been in the vogue of late to ape the Australians, Vengsarkar and his colleagues could have taken a look at the Aussie team, which has Andrew Symonds (33), Brett Lee (31), Stuart Clark (32), Mike Hussey (33), Ricky Ponting (33), Adam Gilchrist (36), Matthew Hayden (36), Brad Hogg (37) and Chris Rodgers (30) -- all in their 30s.

And thanks to their domestic structure, virtually a conveyor belt throwing up new talents every day, Australia apparently is not losing sleep fearing how to manage once the veterans hang up their boots.

While we need to look beyond the Gangulys and the Dravids, I’m not that optimistic about Suresh Rainas, Rohit Sharmas and Robin Uthappa. My cynicism stems from the fact that they have been hanging around for quite a while and behind the Twenty20 veneer, they still have not been able to cement their place in the side. But then, you have to invest in youth, whatever it may cost.

My sole point, however, is that the senior players – considering the service they rendered over the years – have a right to be treated with some sort of dignity, which has been denied in this case.

If the selectors really wanted to show the exit door to the seniors, there could have been dignified ways of doing it. It seems Vengsarkar and his colleagues in the selection committee felt the old horses had outlived their shelf life and hence lead them to the slaughter house to meet the obvious end.

Instead, Vengsarkar could have taken Ganguly and Dravid to a corner, laid his hands around their neck and told them “Guys, we are proud of you for whatever you have done. But time is changing and new guys are knocking on the door. Why don’t you call it quits and walk out head held high? We would host grand benefit matches for you?”

That would have been a befitting ODI send-off for two of India’s greatest servants.

And if the selectors allowed Dhoni and Yuvraj to call the shots, as reports claim, it was unfortunate and I would say Vengsarkar should now have allowed such interference in what is necessarily a selectorial job.

Image