7 Possible Reasons Why England Axed Pietersen

It cannot be just a coincidence that England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) decided to get rid of Kevin Pietersen in the same week that saw Azam Khan’s buffalos disappear and reappear under mysterious circumstances.

Neither Azam Khan nor ECB could offer convincing reasons behind the extraordinary circumstances that led to the disappearance/sacking of the sacred cows.

While Doosra cannot pinpoint the exact reasons behind Pietersen’s shock sacking, here are seven possibilities that may have forced ECB’s hand:

1. KP was caught red-handed stealing Alastair Cook's mascara;

2. KP's exciting shot-making was proving a bad influence on the impressionable young minds in a country determined to practise and perfect a brand of batsmanship that can cure insomnia;

3. KP was found to have replaced Andy Flower's shampoo with a mild pesticide and when caught, offered this bizarre explanation: "This is a standard horticulture remedy for any pest-ridden Flower."

4. His IPL earning was embarrassing UK's GDP;

5. KP was a divisive figure even at the breakfast table. While others asked for bacon and egg, he insisted on egg and bacon. It only proves KP never really embraced English culture;

6. KP winning matches single-handedly was a blatant act of defiance and gross violation of what is essentially a team game invented by the British;

7. KP often behaved as if he were KP.

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Why you need to think twice before getting chummy with Yuvi

What do you do on your birthday?

Majority of the populace tends to throw a party in the evening. Blowing some timid candles here, cutting an innocuous cake there, if you know what I mean.

And then you realise that the fiends who run the local bakery have sold you down the river and gift-wrapped what is essentially glorified cow dung, the mass consumption of which is liable to invite hardball genocide charges.

Too late to pencil in a substitute, you figure out the lone purpose that the crystalised bovine excreta can serve under the circumstances. So you astutely declare open the face-smudging ceremony, a microcosm of the dog-eat-dog world we live in.

Eggs all over face – for that is supposed to be the binding agent in a cake – everyone is out to deface every map in circulation and you grope in vain for that elusive face-saver.

From fitness point of view, it's quite a calorie-combusting exercise and the verve and vim of the frolic party nosedive once they have completed the gamut of faces on offer.

This is invariably followed by generous knocking back of the liquor on offer and benevolent wolfing down of the munchables around.

A clandestine stocktaking of the gifts and a formal vote of thanks precede the dropping of the curtain and that is by and large how an average birthday party goes.

But then some people have other ideas.

For instance, Yuvi is not content just being the pie-chucker, as Kevin Pietersen had once classified him.

History witness, Yuvi takes his birthday bash quite seriously, and literally as well.

On his 25th birthday party, Yuvi bashed one of the frolickers, apparently because he had the guts and gall to be his namesake.

On his 28th, Yuvi bashed a Lankan side which had at least two of his Kings XI Punjab pals in it.

Well, lack of data on his other birthday bashes sort of undermine the credibility of this study but since prevention is often better than cure, think twice before you gate matey with him.

For it comes with that 'at-your-own-peril' tag.

Contemporary cricket's 7 most talked-about body parts

Doosra gets physical. Well, make it anatomical. That would not only pre-empt dirty connotations but also lend the piece a rather serious tone.

Much like Stephen Fleming talking about blockhole. Or is it Stephen Hawking talking about blackhole?

Whatever.

Gone off the rails a bit? Well, let me put the record straight.

Doosra goes anatomical. Mind you, that is what we had agreed on. And a bit metaphorical as well.

You'll agree, any blogger worth his salt, sugar and jaggery would do everything to bring Lalit Modi and John Buchanan into the picture and hence the detour.

So here goes the list of contemporary cricket's 7 most talked-about body parts, both figurally and figuratively.

1. Spine: The vertebral column that Virender Sehwag, fed up of the invertebrates, insists on in every Delhi selector.

2. Nose: The Olfactory System belonging to John Buchanan, cricket's own Pinocchio, which has a mind of its own and a tendency to poke itself at the slightest opportunity.

3. Forefinger: The erratic appendix in Rudy Koertzen’s body. Some batsmen are ready to bear the expenses if Rudy agrees to get it surgically removed.

4. Toe: An average cricket administrator's most endangered part when Lalit Modi is around.

5. Ear: The portion of Sachin Tendulkar that the latent Mike Tyson in Phillip Hughes wants to 'chew off'.

6. Heel: The posterior end of the foot that actually belongs to Kevin Pietersen but medics insist on calling Achilles'.

7. Knee: The joint of Andrew Flintoff's right leg, a definitive testimonial of how dud NASA is.

Kebabs, Ashes and KP

And you thought Alastair is the only Cook in English ranks!

Move over Colonel's Kebabz. Here comes KP kebabs!

As an afterthought, I never suspected Dilip Vengsarkar of actually running kebab joints since I was rather under the impression that 'Colonel' had other fishes to fry at Mumbai Cricket Association.

Anyway, ignore the allusion and return to the protagonist of the piece.

You are the alpha bat but rendered hors de combat.

Your teammates do the unthinkable without you. They shot a poisoned arrow into Ricky Ponting's Achilles heel while you are left to nurse your own.

So what do you do? You swap the bat for skewer and make kebabs for Indian fans in a London club!

With no Onions, of the Graham variety, in the vicinity, the salad was bound to be as much a let-down as a Ravi Bopara or a Monty Panesar.

And it's not known either if they served T20 – as dessert is called in Tendulkar parlance -- in dinner.

What is known, to Doosra that is, is finally when the party had dispersed, KP removed the grill, collected the Ashes, filled the urn he had bought and pocketed the stuff with characteristic cockiness.

So now you know who has more Ashes under the belt, both figuratively and factually, among the Three Lions.

For the Strauss & Co and their vainglory, replace the Don Pedros, Benedicks and Claudios with Cook, Bell, Trott and similar monosyllables and you have, by and large, Much Ado About Nothing II.

Pix: Daily Mail

Hamilton’s brush with cricket

"Where do I stand? Mid-wicket? Now what’s that?"

Well, this is not generally what the fielding captain often asks his teammates.

"I bat or we all bat?"

An innocent query on the surface but clearly not what you expect the captain of the chasing side to ask the umpire.

"Am I standing in the right place?"

This is not what you expect a batsman to ask the commentator before taking guard.

"No, no, you people go first. I don’t want to let the team down."

Unlikely to go down in history as definitive instance of leading from the front.

"I don't know how to hold the thing. I was holding it like a golf club and I don't know how to play golf."

Candour is fine but this is not how you explain your stance.

Well, unless you are Lewis Hamilton, that is.

No wonder, the anchor quipped "You are better off in Formula One, spare cricket."

"I knew you'd crack this joke. Give me two day's practice and I'll kick you’re a**."

Harsha Bhogle could not help taking a dig either. He got a better treatment, being told about an alternate career option.

"You can be a comedian."

###
WHO: Lewis Hamilton.
WHAT: Tennis ball cricket with locals in Delhi.
WHERE: A shopping mall in Rohini.
WHEN: Aug 1, 2009.
WHY: He was promoting a mobile network operator.
P.S. Hamilton revealed Kevin Pietersen seeks tips from him on cars. Hamilton has also met Shane Warne and apparently was impressed with the Aussies’ collection of vulgar SMSs meant for plump British nurses.

Pix: PTI

7 Reasons Why England Can’t Win Ashes

1. The John Buchanan miasma. This should be the cinch;

2. By scheduling the opener in Cardiff, England essentially and inadvertently opted for an away match and lost the home advantage;

3. Keeping with his form book, Andrew Flintoff is destined to miss the bus to the ground on the most crucial day of the series;

4. By placing Matt Prior behind the stumps, England has made the prior announcement that they are taking Caught Behind and Stumping out of the equation. While this is very chivalrous of them, England’s bowling does not look good enough to get 20 Australian wickets sans these two crucial modes of dismissals,

5. Kevin Peter Pietersen, Order of the British Empire (OBE), would deliberately under-perform, fearing another Ashes triumph would invariably incur a similar mile-long obnoxious title which no 21st century man in his senses would fancy;

6. Cricket Australia’s threat of bringing back Buchanan, in case of an Ashes loss, ringing in ears, Ricky Ponting and his men would settle for nothing less than a win;

7. Leaving no stone unturned in their preparation, Australia had no less than F1 driver Mark Webber telling them how to run faster between wickets. Sadly, neither Lewis Hamilton nor Jenson Button displayed as much patriotism and bothered to turn up at the Poms practice.

Pix: Mike Egerton/EMPICS Sport

Revealed: English selectors can’t think out of the boxers!

As if we needed evidence, England selectors proved they can’t think out of the box and boxers as well. Considering Claire Taylor's rich vein of success vis-à-vis the men team's vulgar World Cup record, they actually needed her most in the other T20 side and here's why:

1. She is more masculine than say, Stuart Broad;

2. Her T20 strike rate is better than Ian Bell’s;

3. She is fitter than Samit Patel, keeps better than Matt ‘Mint-With-the-Hole’ Prior and doesn’t get homesick like Steve Harmison;

4. When you can deal with players from Essex, Sussex, even Middlesex and Godknowswhatsex, why can't accommodate the opposite sex?

5. When and if Alastair Cook returns to the side, he can borrow Taylor’s mascara;

6. Claire has studied maths at Oxford which would not only come handy during the Duckworth-Lewis mumbo-jumbo but also can be a safeguard against John Dyson’s calculia if Dyson takes over as England coach; and finally

7. Unlike Pietersen the Peacock, she won’t seek leave midway through a tournament to see her spouse dance on telly;
Pix: Getty Images

IPL fantasy becomes a rewarding exercise!

Post-IPL, I often wondered what if Andrew Flintoff joined Kolkata Knight Riders. Would he and Sourav Ganguly relive the Lancashire dressing room drama, going shirty and possibly shirtless too? Or is it actually Shah Rukh Khan who would eventually lose his shirt in such a possibility?

Similarly, I wonder how many, if at all, teeth John Buchanan would have retained had he been the Rajasthan Royals coach and popped the multiple-captain theory to Shane Warne!

Wait before you dub me a loony. Let me tell you I’m not the only one to indulge in IPL fantasy. Evidences suggest it’s a systematic disorder which is spreading like a rash among those smitten by the T20 format of the game.

Those who goes by my track record and steadfastly refuses to believe me, sample Fantasy Cricket (FC). And no, it is in no way linked to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Fortunately at FC, you don’t need to be either a liquor baron, or a Forbes-rated magnate, or a Bollywood actor or at least her boyfriend to own a team. Just create a profile, get a budget, pick a squad and pit your brain against fellow T20 lunatics.

If winning weekly IPL team jerseys doesn’t appeal to you, the grand prize of ticket for two to the ICC T20 World Cup might. And the guys running the league apparently won’t object if your partner is Geoff Boycott’s mother, Ian Botham’s mother-in-law, the girl friend of your best friend, daughter of your landlord or even your maid servant!

And those who consider T20 as a disgrace to humanity and would rather spend the time reading about Andrew Symonds’ fishing, Kevin Pietersen’s wife or Suzie Bates’ diet, can anyway home in on Cricket News here.

Order of the Put Before Disorder

Australia is shrinking but environment activists need not disrobe or/and demonstrate. This is strictly about Australian representation at Indian Premier League II.

Epitome of larrikin patriotism Ricky Ponting put Country before IPL and summarily booked himself a Companion of the Order of Australia medallion. This was the precise the provocation behind putting together a list of seven other cricketers who put something before some other thing in recent past.

Sample what comes first for whom.

1. Mohd ‘Yo-Yo’ Yousuf: Put Christianity before Islam, Islam before Christianity, ICL before Pakistan, IPL before ICL, ICL before IPL, Pakistan before ICL…to be continued.

2. Brad ‘Machiavelli’ Haddin: Put gloves before stumps.

3. Michael ‘Love-struck’ Clarke: Pre-vice captaincy, put ailing father-in-law before team; post-vice captaincy, put team before marriage. Pup skipped IPL I to be with ailing Pop-in-Law and now cricket commitment puts his marriage with Lara Bingle on hold.

4. Allen ‘Fraud’ Stanford: Put himself before law. Now he comes first, followed by Vijay Singh, Michael Owen, Kevin Pietersen, ECB, WICB and FBI sleuthhounds.

5. Bryce ‘Sleepy’ McGain: Put a sound sleep before a cricket tour and missed the flight to South Africa. What else you expected from someone who knew Australia had sleepless nights ahead?

6. Andrew ‘Fredalo’ Flintoff: Uncannily, he too preferred a nap before a tour and almost missed England’s flight to the Windies. Doosra is told it was part of his preparation for the tour. The nocturnal booze cruise in the Caribbeans to be precise.

7. Mitchell ‘Cupid’ Johnson: Put girl friend before Queensland. ‘Midge’ dumped Queensland and moved to Western Australia to be with his lady love Jessica Bratich. Jessica being the national karate champion, it’s not known whether Midge did it under duress.

(P.S. Doosra takes a nine-day break, solely because it's my last chance to dissuade my parents from completely disowning their unworthy son. So friends, Roman and countrymen, make the most of my absence, enjoy every nano-second of it before I return and hit back with vengeance. See you all. Happy blogging)

Since my last post...

1. Brad Haddin has discovered the 11th way a batsman can get out;
2. Daniel Vettori's SMS to Haddin created frictions, sending sparks flying all over Australia. Doosra understands once the Victorian bushfire is under control, Vettori will be chargesheeted for arson.
3. It took a president, a shaman and a coiffeur to make Lasith Malinga's return from wilderness possible;
4. Rajasthan Royals ensured the support of Indian truckers, Richard Gere and subsequently HH Dalai Lama in this year's IPL by selling stakes to Shilpa Shetty;
5. Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata Knight Riders helped Bangladesh double its Gross National Income by buying Mashrafe Mortaza.
6. West Indies unleashed an Australia-bred White West Indian, Brendan Nash, and a 6’7” high-extension tower in Suleiman Benn, whose deliveries, Poms claim, come like oracles from heaven;
7. Kevin Pietersen convulsed with laughter after he: i) topscored for Poms in the Sabina Park massacre; ii) derived sadistic pleasure as Strauss’ captaincy honeymoon got over before it started; and iii) found Vijay Mallya has emptied his pocket to engage his service.

Dyscalculia hits cricket!

ICC surely can't afford to bury its head into the Dubai desert. An unprecedented outbreak of Dyscalculia has already hit Australia and England and unless drastic steps are taken, it might reach Matthew Hayden's Third World as well!

For the uninitiated, Dyscalculia implies mathematical reasoning difficulties as well as troubles with arithmetic operations.

If I always felt cricket is the last resort of the mathematically retarded, I simply have no reason to believe otherwise.

Sample these:

1. Doug Bollinger (Aus): "If I happen to play I'll put in 150,000 percent."

# Observation: Acute case of Dyscalculia, beyond treatment.

2. Andrew Strauss (Eng): "I have no doubt that he (Pietersen) will go to the West Indies and get millions of runs."

# Observation: Considering that the Poms will play 4 Tests and 5 ODIs in the West Indies, medics believe though it has reached alarming stage in Strauss' case, all hopes are not lost yet. Sustained therapy might help him come out of it. Frankly speaking, England captaincy has done worse to others.

3. Graeme Swann: "I'm convinced he's (Pietersen) going to score thousands (of runs) on this (West Indies) trip."

# Observation: Early symptoms, fair chance of recovery. Treatment should start at once. One more thing. Swann clearly does not hold KP in as high esteem as Strauss does. Note how millions became thousands.

P.S. Talking about Dyscalculia, this one from Yogi Berra is my all-time favourite: "Baseball is 90 percent mental, the other half is physical." Alas, cricket is yet to get its Yogi Berra. And for God’s sake, Sidhuism is no match to Yogiism. Once asked why he no longer visited a popular restaurant, the Yankees legend said "Nobody goes there no more; it's too crowded!" But then the same guy told us "It isn’t over till it’s over."

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Mohali Test...Day 2

0901: Since landing, returning and landing again in India, England has won only hearts and nothing else. See how string of defeats derange English mind. It's so foggy out there -- in fact the Test is yet to see sun -- but Pietersen still has his shades with him! Not covering his eyes of course but doubling up as hair band. Considering how closely cropped his hair is, it's a shade unnecessary.

0947: He does not roll his eyes, chew tobacco, crack whip or inquire about Holi. The entire English team has been a huge let down and I found Amjad Khan is no different either. But then what you expect from a Copenhagen-born Danish bowler with Pakistani roots and a British passport?

0958: Gambhir stright drove Broad for a lovely boundary. TV camera caught a couple of PYTs clapping. "Shot of the day", said a colleague, "by the cameraman, of course." Boys will be boys, of course until they 'go to Denmark'.

1236: The door that seemed ajar has been slammed shut now. So Dravid plays cricket and Badrinath sudoku. Pen replaces bat and Badri is caught on camera engrossed in another game. After all, any engagement is better than just twiddling thumb.

1352: Flintoff just demonstrated why Martti Ahtisaari should consider himself lucky, having pipped Freddie to the Nobel peace award. Butter-finger Alastair Cook-ed Flintoff's goose (read Yuvraj) and still Freddie retained his smile! Now you know that you don't always need a number of them. At times, just one Cook, especially with eyeliner eyes, is enough to spoil the broth.

1617: A relaxed Dravid listens to music, so far he was only facing it. He was not really on song today, but his return to form would still be some sort of music to his fans' ears.

5 wonders that await Asif on his release

As Mohammad Asif packs his bag, hugs his new-found friends at the Dubai detention centre and heads for Pakistan, you cannot really rule out a Rip Van Winkle syndrome.

Cricket is no more the game it was when Asif was nabbed in Dubai and here are the five wonders that are bound to make him as hallucinated as he was at the time of his interception.

1. Kevin Pietersen switching on and off;
2. Brett Lee’s alternate profession as owner-cum-model for downmarket underwear;
3. Collingwood brandishing Trion-Z magic bracelets to counter Vettori’s smart-pant voodoo;
4. Appellate Tribunal decreeing that Shoaib Akhtar would be legally entitled to crack his bat on Asif's thigh in September 2009 and not in a distant 2013;
5. Sreesanth finally settling into a life without Harbhajan Singh and picking up a fight with hotel staff in Bangalore.

Image: AP

Tabloids Face Mother’s Fury For Ridiculing Heavyweight Bermudian

Enough is enough. Allison Leverock lambasted a hostile press which derived much mirth from his son’s girth. Mother of giant Bermudan spinner Dwayne Leverock doesn’t understand why the press, especially the British tabloids, is after her son, calling her names -- 'Bermuda Pie-angle', 'Lard Before Wicket' and 'Owzfat'.

Allison was livid after someone made a reference to Eddie Murphy’s “Nutty Professor”. After all, her “Sluggo” had claimed the wickets of Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood in the warm-up match to prove he may weigh in at 255 pounds but he is every ounce worth it!

And the press would do well to remember that Dwayne is a Police Constable by profession and drives a prison van when he doesn’t play cricket!