Showing posts with label Andrew Strauss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andrew Strauss. Show all posts

Friday, 28 August 2009

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

Friday, 23 January 2009

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."

Pix