She is why Kiwis lost Champions Trophy

Daniel Vettori: pulled hamstring.

Jacob Oram: ditto.

Jesse Ryder: messed up groin.

Daryl Tuffey: broke hand.

Grant Elliot: hurt thumb.

Ian Butler: developed intestinal infection.

Saw the rush to get injured? Like moths drawn to fire?

No offence to Kate Stalker but just shows having a female physio can easily be one of the 101 Ways A Cricket Team Can Shoot Itself In the Foot.

Kate Stalker Pix: Associated Press

Allergy cost Pakistan Champions Trophy!

Harbhajan's is not the only hand that itches, especially when a Sreesanth is in the vicinity.

Last month, hundreds of women in the eastern Indian states had a similar sensation after they developed Mehendi allergy.

Not that allergy is essentially a proletariat phenomenon.

For instance, Kimberly Williams is allergic to cats and dogs. So much so that she sneezes her inside out at the prospect of raining cats and dogs!

Take the case of Bill Clinton. He may not be allergic to plump White House interns but cats give him a wheeze.

Beyonce is reportedly allergic to perfume. If still you don't see reasons to sympathise with her co-performers, X-rays would confirm that God had mistakenly slipped a boulder where He was supposed to put a heart.

Janet Jackson's is a more baffling case. Having twice tied the knots -- quite loose ones you may say since she wriggled out of both -- her self-diagnosis is she is probably allergic to marriage!

And until they reached the Champions Trophy semifinal, you could not put a finger on what Pakistan is allergic to.

As long as pundits ignored them, Younus & Co were pleased as punch and cruised as a launch.

But suddenly they heard an oracle: "From now on, you will be cursed and damned as favourites."

Knees trembled, spine curled, blood curdled...Let's face it, Pakistan is allergic to favourite's tag.

7 Reasons why India lost Champions Trophy

1. Two overs and a wicket. Let's face it, MS Dhoni underbowled himself;

2. The tackiness of the trophy didn't tinkle Dhoni's sense of aesthetics;

3. Lalit Modi had warned Dhoni & Co of dire consequences if they overdid things in Champions Trophy and picked up injuries that would jeopardise their Champions League participation;

4. The sight of IPL teammates in rival camps left Dhoni's men with the same dilemma that had crippled Arjuna in Kurukshetra. Alas, there was no Krishna to talk the Indians out of their predicament;

5. Virat Kohli's batting isn't as formidable as his visa office contacts which make him an obvious substitute whenever a teammate twists ankle or hurts groin;

6. Continuing with the Kohli factor, he replaced Gautam Gambhir (now vice captain) in Sri Lanka and Yuvraj Singh (original vice captain) in South Africa. At this rate, he would replace Dhoni against Australia and this very threat perception explains Dhoni's dud bat in South Africa;

7. Finally, Gary Kirsten may believe otherwise but compulsory reading of abridged Kama Sutra is not among the 100 Ways To Win A Cricket Tournament.

Atlas shrugs

With a mean Zeus menacingly cracking the whip, you have to admit that poor Atlas basically had no choice but to fall in line and hold heavens on his shoulder.

In my case, however, running a blog is a matter of choice and not compulsion.

Between me and Atlas, there is a mutual appreciation of the sweats we sweat and the blood we bleed.

Gentlemen-thinking-along-the-same-line stuff, you know.

And we both agree, there comes a time when you ache for break

So Atlas shrugs – he confided to me that Ayn Rand once caught him in the act – and I take a sabbatical.

And if WADA is interested, here are my whereabouts.

I'm off to the sunnier climes of Cooch Behar for the rest of the month, recharging batteries before I return and hit back with vengeance.

7 Predicaments of being Sachin Tendulkar

1. Uninvited Ashes flops, of Australian variety and twittering tendency, pop up for free lunch and free tuition;

2. You have to listen to your garrulous bats;

3. You are asked to recall the Hypocritic...err...Hippocratic Oath and check the pulse of Test and ODI, lying on deathbed side-by-side, before suggesting remedies;

4. You have to reveal something as intimate as your DNA profile for a foul 30 kg coffee table book;

5. You have a fight to fight with no less than AK Anthony and his defence ministry over a Mussoorie bungalow;

6. You have a duty to inspire not only budding cricketers but also actors of cricket movies. e.g. Shreyas Talpade;

7. Vinod Kambli has quit international cricket only, not reality shows.

Become official Royal Challengers Bangalore blogger!

At Doosra, we don't do charity. It's better left to a politician's spouse, retired bureaucrats and shrewd corporates.

But you have to make exception at times when the issue concerns the entire blogosphere. And this is surely the first of its kind, at least in this part of the globe.

To get to the nub, Royal Challengers Bangalore is hiring Chief Blogger -- apart from Chief Photographer and Chief Motivator -- for Champions League.

So if you consider yourself a wordsmith and fancy travelling with the team, just have a go at it.

Who knows maybe you'd be dining with Anil Kumble, sharing a (health) drink with Rahul Dravid and even hobnobbing with Katrina Kaif!

The last obviously at your own risk. RCB has made it clear they won't be responsible for any loss of limb or life for any act of indiscretion on your part.

Details are at the RCB website www.royalchallengers.com.

Remember, your deadline is Saturday, midnight September 20th.

Fake IPL Player is passe. Become real IPL blogger.

Tendulkar equals Rip Van Winkle!

"It (two decades of international cricket) has been a dream for me."

Sachin Tendulkar could not have been more forthright.

Alas, the abysmally chump mainstream media simply failed to grasp it.

I'm a traditionalist who insists reading the lines is the safest way to get the picture than admiring the white space in between them. But apparently, it's in vogue in the Fourth Estate these days to read only between the lines.

Well, let the chumps rot and understand what Tendulkar meant.

For a perfectly normal, average human being who doesn't consider metaphors something like O2 that he or she can't breathe without, for whom the bare stats and mere words are of the essence, beneath that innocuous-sounding sentence lurks a breaking news!

Here is a Doosra scoop.

A little bit of arithmetic and you know that Tendulkar has eclipsed Urmila, if you know your Ramayana well, and just equalled Rip Van Winkle in the Hypersomnia Hall of Fame!