Live from Chennai : SA v Zimbabwe warm-up match!

1645: Zimbabwer 127/6 after 36 overs. S Africa skipper Graeme Smith has employed 8 bowlers so far. No South African seems safe anymore. By this rate, the ailing Nelson Mandela will be bowling the 49th over. Mind it, Mandela wished them luck before they started for India.

1647: South Africa unleashed their Pakistan-born spinner Imran Tahir in this match. He's an uncapped player. With such richly streaked hair, anyone would prefer to remain without a cap. Those who came late, Tahir settled in S Africa to marry a girl he had been stumped by in 1998 when he was a member of the visiting Pakistan U-19 team. True love took him to S Africa. I suspect, it could be the ISD bill.

1700: Tatenda Taibu fell for a golden duck. In yesterday's media session, Taibu said he was Shah Rukh Khan's son's favourite cricketer in KKR days. Let us forgive such childish immaturity.

1708: Tahir reminds us only change is constant. He changes end, from Pattabhiraman End to Pavilion End and back to Pattabhiraman End. You sort of feel for him. Cricket fields sure can have more than two ends.

1719: Zimbabwe all out for 152 in 42nd over. They looked in a greater hurry to leave the field than Mubarak would be to leave Cairo.
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1725: Five TNCA groundsmen roll the pitch at innings break. A recurring theme in Doosra, Ramesh Powar would have rendered the roller redundant.

1728: Nearly one thousand crowd turned up for the match. Either most of has have no purpose in life or we can't resist watching brothers fighting each other. As of now, Big Brother S Africa has pinned down continental brother Zimbabwe.

1731: S Africa open with Hashim Amla. Bowler Chris Mpofu can lodge a legitimate complain that he can't see 'keeper Taibu's face because of Amla's flowing beard that stands in the way.

1737: An obese South African support staff walks past sightscreen with great difficulty. If you know how to do it and have a nice knife, you can carve out two support staff out of him.

1901: Hashim Amla falls, Kallis walks in. Zimbabweans not sure if removing Amla was a good idea. Doosra seconds demand to call Amla the W.G. Grace of his generation (only the beard is black) and Kallis the modern-age Sobers.

1907: Salim Malik...err...Salim Ali would know the birds currently hovering over MA Chinnaswamy Stadium. Doosra can vouch it's not Dickie Bird. Circling like vultures would but Tsotsobe was only injured and got up after two minutes of his impersonation of a corpse.

1911: Kallis loses his boot while running, which is any day better than getting the footwear. Voucher will Bouch...err...Boucher will vouch for that.

1919: Kallis hits Cremer for two sixes and Smith whacks Lamb for one. In the same area where the crowd number has swollen to 10K! They are playing to the galleries now.

0105: Match ended some 5 hours before. In the post-match press conference, Graeme Smith said the track was under-prepared. Maybe but as long as lives are not lost and the same track is offered to both sides, don't really know why he cribs. Team manager says there is still some life in Lonwabo Tsotsobe, who will be assessed in the morning. Will be back in Chennai for Kenya v NZ...quite a murky tie...err...make it marquee.

P.S. Soul? Forget it. At best, I'm the master of my sole and my posts would be erratic and sporadic throughout the World Cup. Readers have been kinder to Doosra than Manmohan Singh has been to A Raja and hope you bear with me.

Asking for the moon, Ban Ki-moon

The first Boer War was fought over Transvaal.

The second Boer War was fought over the gold deposits of Orange Free State.

And after a 108-year lemon break, the Poms and the Proteas are at it again.

The Third Boer War is being thrust on us and it is being fought over Craig Kieswetter!

And once again, that arthritis-stricken, dozing UN is blissfully unaware of the impending gore and death.

Craig who?

Well, painstaking research revealed that this Kieswetter chap is a Jo'burg-born blighter, who represented South Africa in U-19 World Cup before deciding to infest Somerset.

If you have followed England, you know any crap with a 'Made in South Africa' tag finds easy currency in Pomland.

Already the Poms have stuffed their XI with four Protea imports. And they believe they can inch closer to their dream of turning this fledgling South Africa B team into a full-fledged South Africa B team by drafting in this Kieswetter blister.

Graeme Smith, however, can't help being the fly in the ointment.

More so in this case because Craig happens to be his middle name and you of course don't want your middle name to settle abroad.

So there you hear the rumble. But I guess a war may still be averted. If the edentate UN forgets its dodgy knee and spring into action that is.

Call it naiveté. Or call it asking for the moon. Ban Ki-moon.

Just not cricket!

Gilchrist flays Tendulkar in his autobiography.

Graeme Smith lashes out at his ex-boss Norman Arendse in his diary.

Hadlee rips into Stephen Fleming in his memoir.

Buchanan bashes Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Ganguly’s cocky cocker spaniel in his book.

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Now where have all those players gone?

As you took guard, revenge would gleam in the bowler's eyes. Merely the wicket won't do. They wanted to see blood on turf.

They were veritable demons who would snarl, bark and holler inside your eardrum at the end of their follow through. Giving you glare and a piece of their mind till you start trembling in your boots and show signs of shrinking.

From the slip cordon will emanate a barrage of ceaseless unflattering allusions to certain members of your family till you blush and cringe enough to miss the line.

But at the end of the day, hostilities would stay behind when they walked off the field to share a banter and beer, hands around each other's shoulders.

More importantly, they bore no grudge. If they had to settle a score, they did it head-on, not hiding behind the jacket of a book.

They did not take mental note of each and every innuendo and returned to the hotel room to dip their nib in poison and then rush to the publisher to market the malice.

Let's admit, they were not peddler of the poison.

Where have all those players gone?

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

Heroes need not necessarily come with a cape and undies on the outside. Some come in borrowed shirt and hamburger-stained pullover. Had Graeme Smith done a Ganguly, only then you could know whether his vest had an S sign on it.

Mickey Arthur yesterday said he would need a chain to hold Smith back. He naturally didn’t find one.

Steyn is gone and match is in bag. At least Australia thought so before Smith emerged from the blurred sea of heads, clutching the bat and walking down as every soul and every blade of the grass at SCG bowed their head.

Ponting’s men could not believe it. Neither could those present in SCG or the ones glued to their TV sets far away in Durban and Delhi, Cape Town and Kolkata, Pretoria and Patna.

Poor Hayden. He was still in a trance when the Ntini edged slipped through his butter-fingers.

Smith survived ball after ball and his aura grew big with every delivery. An exasperated Ian Chappell screamed “I can’t believe they haven’t tried a bouncer at him…Sentiments count for a little”. You could feel he was really aghast.

But not all Australians are potential cold-blooded murderers. Surprisingly, most don’t have horns on head and a tail somewhere tucked inside! They rather come across as completely normal, even emotional, human being with a striking ability to appreciate things which are good!

I’m sorry but by and large, pretentious cricketers have been poor ambassadors of the country.

On their feet clapping for Smith, the Australian WAGs too seemed to have a rather decent understanding of the game. Way better than their English counterparts with no qualms about bouncing on the knees of a tacky Texan billionaire.

Otherwise the Grandpa of Grandiosity, Nevil Cardus’ rare moment of understatement is - scoreboard is an ass. I’m convinced, it’s an outright liar too.

Pix: PA Sports

EXLCUSIVE! Roy Speaks to Doosra!

Those who thought the Dragon has gulped me down with generous dose of authentic Chinese tea, I must say it was a premature celebration. The following Andrew Symonds exclusive interview explains my prolonged absence from blogosphere. My childhood angling experience taught me it’s never easy to catch fish, and even tougher to catch people catching fish. But anyway, my hard work finally bore fruit and here you have Symonds speaking his mind out.

Doosra: Mate, first of all, I must sympathise with you, considering what’s going through your troubled mind.

Symonds: X%@$%*!

Doosra: err…well…I mean…ok, let’s get on with the interview. Roy so what lies ahead?

Symonds: Grrrr…lies! You mean I’m lying? You X%@$%*!

Doosra: Oooops, calm down Roy, I just meant so what’s next for you?

Symonds: Sounds better and you better avoid double-meaning.

Well, now that I’m no more supposed to attend any compulsory meeting, I think finally I can go fishing, without bothering about consequences. Those equipments cost me a lot you know.

Doosra: But why did you skip the compulsory team meeting and went fishy..err I mean fishing?

Symonds: No double-meaning, told you. Anyway, I skipped the meeting because there they made players read ‘Art of War’ in Braille. Only Buchanan has left, not his madness you know.

Doosra: Roy, what is the lesson you learnt from the entire episode?

Symonds: Lesson? What lesson? I’ll teach those %$#*& a lesson, special Clarke. I’ll give you a scoop. You know what? Pup is not straight. He’s the guy behind Binga’s broken marriage.

Now I realize, Australia never really embraced me. They never really knew what to do with this England-born of Afro-Caribbean parentage. I’m thinking of migrating to India.

Doosra: India! But people there booed you!

Symonds: Not really. Now I believe I misunderstood them, cultural difference you know? Didn’t you hear about people who spit on each other’s face to greet? Likewise, Indians have weird ways of greeting you.

I guess I misunderstood Bhajji as well. He swore he never called me monkey, rather inquired about my mom’s health. So nice of him.

You know what? I have a sneaking suspicion that it was actually Matty Hayden who called me monkey, he’s a master ventriloquist you know.

Doosra: Well, what happens if they don’t welcome you in India?

Symonds: Well, in that case I can return to London and make my England A debut.

Doosra: England A!

Symonds: Why not? I could have played for the Poms in 1995 but I turned it down. Now I realise it was a mistake to prefer Australia. But it’s never too late. Besides, they need me.

Doosra: Well, I can’t be as optimistic, what if they too don’t welcome you?

Symonds: That would leave me with no other option but to return to my roots.

Doosra: You mean West Indies?

Symonds: Nope, South Africa. I like Graeme Smith more than Warnie and the Proteas need me to come out of the apartheid era.

Doosra: But that era is already over!

Symonds: Who says? They just became untouchables after Poms, of all people, beat them and that too in ODIs! Can you believe it!

Doosra: Well, it seems you don’t have dearth of options. Count fishing as well. Anyway, it’s reassuring to know that we have not seen the last of Symo. Willow or fishing rod, bat or boat, bowling line or fishing line. All the best Roy.

Warne, take a bow!

Another Shane Warne folk lore! Einstein won’t mind if I borrow a line and say cricket generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.

I’m dying to know what Warne had told Rajasthan Royal teammates in his first address before the IPL started. It must be cricket’s equivalent of Winston Churchill’s “Blood, toil, tears, and sweat” speech.

Though I’m not privy to that address, I reckon it went something like this:

Guys,

Get a few things right. Firstly, I know it can get heady to see someone like Graeme Smith descend from dreams to dressing room. But awe is awful, keep that aside. Believe me, prima donnas are brittle as bone china. Guys you have set on pedestals have feet of clay. Come and topple them.

Remember, every dog has its day and more so when you are the underdog. You have nothing to lose and a whole new world to gain, pardon me if I sound like Karl Marx or Groucho.

Everyone has a role to play and it exceeds far beyond the boundary of a cricket field. It’s a way of life. A movie is not only about the hero alone. You need the director, producer, script-writer, composer, lyricist, actors…right down to spot boys. The oddjobber may not look glamorous but he is indispensable! It’s called team work, silly.

Look mate, I'm not interested in your past but in your future, which is in your hands. Let's keep it simple. See the ball and the bat, not the reputation behind. Hit the ball and beat the bat, it's as simple as that. Don't listen to what laptop-totting morons like Buchanan say. They would make it look like rocket science. Hell with him and his laptop. We made him great, and it's not other way round. I've always maintained that at this level, the only coach you need is that vehicle that takes you from hotel to ground and ground to hotel.

Cricket matches are not won on laptop, but on greentop and shirtfronts and everything in between. Had laptops guaranteed success, Bill Gates would have been the most successful coach around. I still believe coaches should wear concrete boots and be chucked into Sydney Harbour, provided it's deep enough

Allow obscurity be your strength. Let them underestimate you before you hit like a bolt from the blue. Many a complacent Goliath has been slain by the unsuspecting David and cricket is full of such lores. You have 44 days to pen your own rags-to-riches story. Make a name and win a fortune, else hobble into oblivion. The choice is yours.

Image © 2008 IPL

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.

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…and you say this is not match-fixing?

It’s getting really difficult to perceive the Indian Premier League (IPL) as anything but a hundred-headed-hydra that has spread its poisonous tentacles to every nook of the cricketing globe to get the best for its Twenty20 extravaganza, whatever be the cost.

Sample this. IPL had the audacity to offer money to two South African teams to play the semifinals and final of the Standard Bank Pro20 tournament without their key players, who would otherwise miss the first week’s action in IPL!

Subsequently, one of the teams turned down the offer, while the other named a compromised squad even though it’s the business end of the tournament.

The South African players in question were asked to go home back right after the Kanpur Test to play in the Standard Bank Pro20 tournament, the final of which is scheduled on April 25. It meant IPL, which kicks off on April 18, would be without the Proteas for full one week.

Realising it may take some sheen off the event, IPL offered USD 100,000 to Cape Cobras and the Titans, asking them to spare the players for the Indian league, even though that meant playing the semifinals and final without their key players!

Titans (Albie Morkel, AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn belong to this franchisee), however, refused to fall for the lure and turned down the offer. But intriguingly, Cobras have excluded Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Ashwell Prince from their team – paving way for their IPL participation right from the start – even though they included Graeme Smith and JP Duminy in the squad for the domestic Twenty20 tourney.

Offering teams money not to field their key players should be reason enough to nab someone on charges of match-fixing and I’m afraid ICC’s connivance with IPL means the governing body itself, rather inadvertently, became the perpetrator of the crime it claims to be fighting against.

Image: Michael Philip Erb

Sting in the tail

Exasperated must be a gross understatement when you describe a captain, who watches helplessly as his bowlers, after blowing away the rival top order, are thwarted by a gritty lower order.

Traditionally, each and every Indian captain has often gone through this despair. For a change, it was Graeme Smith who wanted to bang his head against a brick wall when the Ishant-Sreesanth duo cobbled together 46 runs for the last wicket in Kanpur.

It once again underlined the importance of the bowlers’ ability to wield the willow to some effect. For an Ishant, just drawing the first blood with the cherry is not enough. He isn’t expected to champion the copybook but you can’t afford to be dud with the bat either.

While pushing the tally, every run scored by a rabbit and ferret does the other important task of draining the opposition of motivation and creating a sense of despair among their bowlers. A streaky 25 scored by a number nine batsman causes more damage and desperation than a brutal fifty by a frontline willower and Smith will vouch for that.

For long, the Indian bowlers, especially the pacers, have not taken their batting seriously. Few really bothered to hone it in the nets. Even the coaches didn’t see them beyond mere leather-flingers and hardly anyone expected them to contribute with their batting mite.

On the contrary, they are brought up in an environment where bowlers, when they swap the ball for bat, are expected to walk out only to clown about and make a hilarious spectacle. Theirs is supposed to the buffoon’s role in the entire act.

Gary Kirsten has an opportunity to bring about a change in the bowlers’ attitude towards batting. Once they are through with bowling practice, he should ask Ishants and Sreesanths to pad up and finetune their batting. They should be told that they have it in them to survive a few overs and make handy contribution with the bat as well. Give them confidence, place some faith and I reckon India would have more sting in its tail.

Image: Getty Images

RP Singh: The Forgotten Hero

In the phalanx of India’s wobbly dobbers, he is the least visible. But think efficiency and you wonder at RP Singh’s amazing ability to escape attention.

He’s not the pin-up boy that Irfan Pathan is; the simpleton doesn’t break into a jig ala S(howman) Sreesanth. But as evident from India’s UK tour and the ongoing Twenty20 World Cup, RP does not lag when it comes to taking wicket, supposedly the primary responsibility of a bowler. The slogathon called Twenty20 World Cup has seen many a bowlers’ blood on the floor but RP not only escaped unscathed but also came through with flying colours.

Indeed, Rohit Sharma may have stolen the thunder – and the Man of the Match award – with his maiden (unbeaten) fifty in the do-or-die match against South Africa, but it’s actually RP to whom MS Dhoni owes a drink.

Defending a so-so total of 153, few gave India a chance but RP clearly had other ideas. He trapped Herschelle Gibbs and removed Graeme Smith in his first over to trigger a collapse which the hosts could not recover from. The left-arm seamer then crashed one through Shaun Pollock’s gate and then removed Albie Morkel, the joint topscorer, to tilt the match and writing was clear on the wall by then for Smith.

You can’t take anything away from Rohit Sharma’s knock but you don’t need to be a pundit either to realize that it was RP’s 4-0-13-0 figure that won the match. But then, cricket has always been a step mother to the bowlers’ tribe and Rohit bagged the MoM award.

There was enough evidence that RP has mastered the art of creating difficult angles that poses all sort of uncomfortable questions to the batsmen. He has this natural flair for swinging the ball both ways and right-handers often found themselves at sea against the one which he brings into them.

RP benefited from his apprenticeship under Zaheer Khan whose prodigious swing had the English batting order in serious nervous disorder in the Test series. as a result, RP arrived a much improved bowler in South Africa and the results are before us to see.

In the Indian pace attack, RP stands out because of his reticent approach to cricket. It’s not that he is low on adrenalin or tends to cower behind the sandbags. But the soft-spoken UP lad prefers to let his ball do the talking. He prefers swing to swears, yorkers to yelling and slower to sledge, which is just perfect with the spirit of the game.

With Irfan Pathan doing little to warrant a comeback and an erratic Sreesanth hardly looking bankable, RP has emerged as a vital cog in the Indian pace attack. And provided the focus is there, RP is definitely here to stay.

Image: AFP

Sub-continent owes you a bow Mr Sonn

Whenever I think of ICC, I think of pin-stripe suits, dark ties, glossy shoes, claustrophobe faces and well-rehearsed tautology. But for once, it was not sophistry, rather lack of it, that had me stumped during an ICC Press Conference and for all his entertainment values, I thought ‘thank god, it’s Percy Sonn’.

The only time I met him was in Colombo last year and it was the rain-ruined Unitech Cup, which was supposed to be a tri-series involving India, South Africa and the hosts.

The day I landed in the Lankan capital, Colombo welcomed me with not with a traditional gun salute but a full-fledged blast. Though my official compulsion meant I could not even think of returning home, Graeme Smith & Co were shuddering behind their incredibly misleading exterior.

Finally, their media officer Templeton Gordon Templeton, a harried soul, confirmed that the Proteas were packing their bags.

On his arrival in Colombo, Sonn squeezed his bulky frame in the choc-a-bloc tiny room of Cinnamon Grand and adjusted his tie before greeting all with an infectious smile. To be honest, he did not impress me much and to my eyes, he seemed more of an unscrupulous foodie than a hard-core cricket administrator.

South African team management had been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the media, which was clueless about whether they would play or not. Sick of the daily will-they-won’t-they drama, the hostile press let loose its pent-up frustration on Sonn and the first salvo was “How come that the city is safe enough for the ICC President’s visit and stay but not for the South African cricketers?”

Sonn’s ready wit, however, doused the fire. ''I'm from Cape Town, we are different people altogether,'' he quipped.

Deep inside, Sonn was miffed with the chicken-hearted Proteas, especially because he believed that the sub-continent was a special place for the game and the show must go an, irrespective of such distractions.

''I was deeply disappointed to hear the news (of South Africa’s withdrawal) because this is a region where people play cricket under the worst situation.

The world we are living in is an imperfect world. In fact nothing is perfect in this world. ICC wants cricket to be played in the spirit of the game and even at the cost of your personal interest, you should play,” Sonn said.

I still remember as he spoke from the heart, his eyes glowing behind his glass. For me, that remains Sonn’s lasting image. So what if he “literally fell out of his pants" during the 2003 World Cup and supported the racial quota system as the President of the Protea cricket board?

Are Proteas getting death threats?

For those who though cricket madness is essentially a sub-continental trait, time they get rid of their prejudice. Chances are that the Proteas are getting death threats after returning home from the World Cup.

Skipper Graeme Smith did a flip-flop by first claiming that the team, after their World Cup semifinal exit, was getting death threats. Realising he had dropped a bombshell, Smith claimed his version was misconstrued and he was actually referring to India’s hostile reception on their return from the West Indies.

This was what Smith said to a radio talk show;

“We are still recovering from our semi-final defeat to Australia and the threats are hard to deal with.”

Later his statement read: "I was referring to the reception India got when they returned home from the tournament and reports of incidence of violence that occurred in that country.”

Slinga Malinga: the pacer who has his head on fire

After Muttiah Muralitharan, another maverick from the Sri Lankan stable. Amidst the gloom of Bob Woolmer’s murder, cricket finally hit the headlines for the right reason, as Lasith Malinga scalped four wickets in as many deliveries against South Africa in Guyana.

To be honest, I dislike his action as much as his hairstyle, or the other way round. I happened to see him first in Sri Lanka late last year during a rain-ruined tournament and I still believe he is the game’s second most outrageous hair ever spotted near a cricket ground. For those who came in late, Darrel, the Oz Man in White remains the first in my list.

From a distance, it is seems his head is on fire but somehow the flames are not flickering enough. No wonder, Mahela Jayawardene insists Malinga adds firepower to his pace attack, especially with Chaminda Vaas walking into the sunset of his career.

Malinga’s round-arm action has given sleepless nights to many a batsman. Graeme Smith is not known for his candour but still the Protea southpaw admitted “Malinga was incredible. He made me age a bit."

Back in 2005, Malinga’s low-slung action prompted Stephen Fleming to approach the umpire and request him to change his trousers, for the ball seemed lost in the black backdrop and the Kiwi bat could not spot the ball.

Thankfully, no such requests have been received so far this time. And one thing is sure. This World Cup has seen more distractions and less of cricket and Malinga, despite his weird hairdo, deserves a pat in the back for setting it right.