IPL Limerick : Sir Ravindra Jadeja

Sir Ravindra Jadeja is no cipher
He's Superman or Batman can't decipher
He got his knighthood
Back in his childhood
When he walked into Buckingham in diaper.

Of KKR’s breach of trust and Centurion vignette

Let's face it. It's virtually like finding your girl friend in your best friend's arms.

How else you describe Kolkata Knight Riders' triumph over Chennai Super Kings?

It was nothing less than a breach of trust, deviation from norms and infringment of acceptable practices.

They don't probably realise the magnitude of the outcome but with this one win against Chennai, KKR shook the trust of its followers, who could not believe they have been sold down the river by the outfit they used to swear by and now swear at.

After all, consistency was not an issue with them, unlike others! It takes a painstaking effort to put together such an amazing string and one such callous win was enough to mar the effort.

Meanwhile, a similar breach of trust takes place at Doosra. I had decided not to post during my stay in South Africa but then like KKR, I guess I’m also entitled to my occasional moment of indiscretion.

So, here I put together a 7-point vignette from the KKR vs CSK match at Centurion.

1. LaxmanSivaRamaKrishnanGodKnowsHowManyMoreGods does the rope reporting from the boundary line. Black troussers, black jacket and well-oiled pitch black mop. He flashes his illuminating smile at someone and it simply takes me to another place. To be exact, I feel I'm inside a mine in Kimberley, struggling to believe my serendipity of discovering an entire string of diamonds embedded on the wall!

2. KKR co-owner Jai Mehta sips his tea in the hospitality area. You tend to sympathise with him. After all, the team didn't give him any champagne moment. One more thing. The poor fish seems to have taken the defeats to heart and is ageing fast. At this rate, and considering KKR’s determination to maintain the standard, or rather lack of it, he would look like Juhi Chawla's father by IPL III.

3. Some of the purists squirm in their grave while those alive go to fly a kite as Dhoni plays a cross-batted straight drive that nearly decapitates Suresh Raina at the non-striker's end. Moral of the story, pushing your skipper to run an extra run poses serious threats to your life and limb.

4. Czarina of foofaraw Mandira Bedi interviews motormouth Srikkanth. Stop giggling, for I find their conversation rather enlightening. I check the net and there is no scientific evidence to suggest that our tongue is anyhow connected to our brain.

5. Just not at his best, Ajantha Mendis bowls in a trance. A sergeant with Sri Lanka army, his mind probably is back home where his colleagues are busy decimating LTTE guerrillas. The other Sri Lankan spinner, however, does well. Prabhakaran is dead and Muralitharan is deadly, realises Ganguly.

6. KKR CEO Joy Bhattacharya and Jai Mehta roam around in the hospitality area. The thoght that gnaws at my vitals is why still the team didn't have much of either joy or jai in IPL II?

7. Dhoni argues with umpire over a free-hit. You realise it’s Chennai’s do-or-die match. Murli Kartik refuses twice to catch Dhoni. You realise it’s KKR’s do-and-die tie.

Triumph of the Underdog

Nothing pleases me more than the triumph of the Underdog. Since David slew Goliath and Kapil’s Devils did something similar in the 1983 World Cup, the sadist in me has invariably derived some sort of pleasure whenever the unheralded thumbed their nose at their obscenely mighty antagonists.

Deccan Chargers’ victory over Chennai Super Kings may not be a watershed in the history of the game, but it once again elicits the Archie Griffin chestnut – it’s not about the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

Consider this. A meek, bottom-placed bunch, sans their helmsman, entered the lair of an outfit that was table-topper till the other day. They stood not a semblance of chance, it seemed, and still Adam Gilchrist’s comrades-in-arms managed to conjure up something extraordinary to pull the rug from under the feet of their fancied rivals. Stuff of a run-of-the-mill Bollywood potboiler? No, it’s IPL.

Forget it’s just a game of cricket, just a duel between a piece of wood and a hunk of leather. Consider this as a way of life and you see hopes all around. The odds maybe unflattering, the adversary unnerving. But in the end, every dog has its day, more so when it’s an Underdog.

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