Afridi's Secret Diary: Salary Cut

I'm going threw bad faze like nobody's business. I not knowing if you readed the news. The crickit board cut my salary because they think I'm unfit. They cut my salary as if it being salad! You not seeing how anger I am. I am more anger than Dhoni when he was refuged Biryani in a hotel.

They cut my salary, on a time when shampoo and hair conditioner price is increasing like Inzybhai's westline. I don't know how lengthy I can take care of my beautiful hair.

Idiots not knowing I take my fitness like nobody's business. Every day I excise with my chacha's son.He is my favourite cuisine in the middle of all cuisines. While other cousins come only to vacant my freeze, this cuisine comes to excise. Like me, he is also a racist. So we race every morning. Then in the afternoon, we go to the Jim and lift wait. And when there is no wait, we lift Nasir Jamshed. I used to lift Inzy bhai in the earlier past days but he did not liking it and growed beard so that I cannot identify him.

Board's logistic is if they cut my salary, I can by less food from shop. I by less food means I eat less food. And I eat less means I more fit.

Cowdung!

Truth is when I excise, I get tyred and sweets come all over my body. I am not like that dirty Munaf Patel. I have to bath again after that. And to bath two times, I need double amount soaps and double amount shampoo and hair conditioners. How I by them if you cut my salary? If you cut my salary, I stop excise because I can't bath behind that. And I stop excise means I become fat. Someone understand those idiots.

Five months in front of the World Cup, there doing whatever there wanting. This going to back on fire for us and we will have to import Burnols from India, I telling you. By for now.

Budget 2014: 10 Random Observations

1. Honourable Finance Minister spoke for two hours but it's actually a one-line budget. Sardar Patel Statuetory warning: Smoking is injurious to wealth.

2. Oil products to be cheaper. Afraid it would boost sycophancy.

3. Cigarettes to cost more. It's clearly a pro-rich budget. Only the rich can now afford those diseases that smoking causes.

4. How do I pay "indirect tax"? Instead of giving it directly to the guy at counter, I submit it via pantry boy?

5. Rather happy with "Krishi Darshan". Finally something to bring smile on the face of poor farmers like Robert Vadra and Amitabh Bachchan.

6. Cigarette to cost more, footwear to be cheaper. The underlying message is: kick the bad habit or smoke footwear.

7. Soap to be cheaper. Munaf Patel should have no excuse now.

8. Cigarette to be costlier (leitmotif of this piece). It means Bollywood will have to be more creative. Any bidi/cigarette chewer cannot be passed as a poor street urchin, however shabby the dress is.

9. Finance Minister sipped water while presenting budget. Was Hema Malini around to make sure it was Kent RO treated?

10. Cigarette costlier, footwear cheaper. Can you still crush cigarette butts under your footwear?

7 reasons why Dhoni has applied for a gun

1. Dhoni realises World Cup is a bagatelle, a mere trinket in comparison to Olympic medal. And by the time cricket returns to Olympics, Dhoni won’t be wielding willow but walking stick. Bindra (not IS, but Abhinav) has shown the way in Beijing and MSD wants to follow in his footsteps.

2. MSD knows how fickle lady love can be. A gun would pre-empt love triangle, quadrangle and similar headaches of different geometric proportions.

3. Let’s admit it, can't really trust Yuvi. Losing captaincy still hurts Yuv'nor and you never know when dormant ambition finds a violent manifestation.

4. To silent Krish Srikkanth. Selection meeting sucks and eardrum hurts. No more allowing Srikkanth to holler into his eardrum. Putting the gun on his mouth should do the trick. (It, however, doesn’t sound foolproof. Knowing Cheeka, he might chew and spit out the gun and then wax eloquent how ‘Habsolutely Tasty’ it was.)

5. To shoot the ‘leaking’ selector: Yashpal Sharma or Raja Venkat?

6. To shoot the messenger i.e. the reporter who got the ‘leak’.

7. To make Munaf Patel bat in the nets.

Ind vs Oz...Day 2

0920: Welcome to WNWSACWR (What Neo Won't Show and Cricinfo Won't Report). Munaf Patel and RP Singh in the middle -- in other words, play yet to start.

0948: Ganguly faced a couple of balls and suddenly went AWOL, leaving behind the clueless fielders and baffled umpires. I sniffed delaying tactics, a friend suggested nature's call. Before speculation took obnoxious turn, here he's back. Man, India would surely and sorely miss his nuisance value.

1047: Apparently, no one told Dhoni that he was playing a Test match, hence Mahi going run-a-ball. Also apparently, no one told him that Shane Watson is a pacer, for Mahi comes dancing down the track against the blond. Well, ignorance is bliss indeed.

1102: Cameron White has been non-existent in this comatose session. No wonder he's engaged in an engrossing chat with Asad Rauf at square leg, probably discussing kebab recipe.

1621: Blame the inordinate delay to ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat who spoke at length and made hardly any point in the press conference here. He is upset with empty stands greeting Tendulkar on his milestone. "Need to ensure Test cricket's primacy" he advocated, before going on to announce 2010 T20 World would take place in West Indies. England hosts it next year, which means we didn't know it has become an annual affair!

1626: Hussey edged Ishant and Harbhajan but Dhoni, on first occasion, didn't go for it at all and on the second, didn't stoop. Some are cursing him but to me, MSD looks a man of high self-esteem who refuses to bow for anything he perceives below his dignity.

1635: Clarke broke free and came dancing down the track to hit Bhajji for four. I suspect it was the bad breath/body odour of the close-in fielders hanging around his blade like a school of piranhas.

Live Irani Trophy Updates...Day 4

1033: Sehwag-Gone-Home episode has stirred the hornet's nest here. Some claim he was unhappy with poor accommodation, some claimed he was bitter after Munaf abused him. Talked to DDCA Sports Secretary Sunil Dev, who returned by the same flight y'day and he says Sehwag had a migraine and hence he gone back. Braveheart Gambhir menwhile wages a lone battle.

1431: Well, the match is over and Rest of India thumped Best of India, Ranji champions Delhi, by 187 runs. After the match was over, a new batsman appeared at teh IPCL ground -- pads, gloves and blinding baldness. Anil Kumble and Chetanya Nanda were bowling to him and he struggled to middle a single delivery. By the time he came out all sweats, Gary Kirsten looked very much a tortured soul.

1435: Buttonholed Paddy Upton for an interview and he goes on dwelling on anything and everything but you can't take note, for it's off-the-record. He's anxious to get the okay from BCCI to post articles on the website. So am I.

1437: I didn't abuse anyone but still being made to stand under a scorching sun. Waiting for Match Referee RR Jadeja to announce the verdict of the hearing into Gone-Home Sehwag's complaint against foulmouth Munaf Patel.

Live Irani Trophy Updates at Doosra...Day 2

(Those who want to follow the scores live, you've typed the wrong URL. Those who want things that Neo TV won't show and Cricinfo won't report, welcome aboard. Oops, forgot to say, Doosra reports live from Vadodara IPCL Stadium)

1110 hrs: R P Singh makes peace with sparse crowd. Half an hour back, he was shouting at someone 'Arre, sightscreen ke saamne kya kar raha hai? Hat ja". A few people were hurling some not-so-flattering words to the UP pacer, who finally folded his hands and gestured to the crowd. No love seems lost as those camping near the sightscreen greet him back. No mediator required.

1129: Munaf is emptying his reserve of aggression well before the Oz series. Rajat Bhatia patted back one to the Non-Resident Gujarati pacer who hurled it back hoping Bhatia to do Inzy. Bhatia apparently does not idolises Inzy.

1135: The official scorers in the press box keep calling the Delhi wicketkeeper Puneet BUST. Casting serious aspersion indeed. I bet he would have preferred BEAST. Come on Puneet, show them you are a MAN.

1147: Kumble delivers his second NO BALL, a borderline case. Not impressed, AK has a chat with umpire, probably asking which contact lense he uses.

1151: Officiating under a harsh sun with 11 people screaming into your eardrums and giving you pan-Indian assortment of choicest abuses and ugly stares is not an easy task. Both the umpires seem hungry and can't wait for lunch, checking the time every now and then. Or checking if the watch has stopped ticking.

1158: Y'day, Dravid played Chetanya Nanda as if he was Ajantha Mendis. Today, Puneet Bust...errr I mean Bisht and Raja Bhatia are playing Harbhajan Singh as if he is Jaspal Bhatti.

1310: Watching Munaf Patel chasing a skier ranks among the most hilarious sights you hope to see in cricket. Sangwan hit one off Harbhajan, Munaf reacted as if he had sighted a UFO, chased only to see it land near his ankle and he could not help kicking it, inadvertently of course. As the ball races to the rope, Munaf realises his folly, stoops and picks it but his momentum almost takes him to the other side of the boundary line. To avoid that, Munaf does a little Kangaroo jump and manages to stay inside. Quite an entertainment package in the end!

1322: Zaheer Khan just 'leaked' a ball and both Harbhajan and Pragyan Ojha came rushing to stop it from reaching the boundary line. Ojha is the second substitute for VVS Laxman after Ashok Dinda did the job in the morning. No word on Laxman, has he gone fishing?

1325: Even Ojha has rubbed his trousers red. Is it the clay or the color of the ball? Whatever, cricket should develop a better, and more decent, way of hiding growing cases of dermatosis among its practitioners. And no wonder, you have so many groin injuries to cricketers.

1444: I always felt that insomniacs need not lose hope. All they need is to sit and watch the entire post-lunch session of any domestic tie, preferably with Dravid and Jaffer inaction...I mean in action. Jokes apart, both Dravid and Jaffer have done what they are supposed to. They must be sipping their rich elaichi-flavoured tea with some satisfaction for not allowing Delhi make any inroads in their second essay.

1629: I suspect Ajantha Mendis has done some permanent damage to Dravid, who continues to struggle against Chetanya Nanda. He edged twice, though it didn't carry to the slip. Finally Dravid does a Misbah and scoops it to get some runs.

1846: My swansong update of the day. Talked to Vijay Dahiya, who was upset with Delhi batsmen's shot selection and hailed RoI's superb catching. Meanwhile, I'm fending swarm of hungry mosquitoes in the media box and posting. Got hold of Paddy Upton who informed Laxman is down with food poisoning, hence could not field. "Things are better this afternoon, he's spending less time in loo, you know." Quite a jovial guy.
See you all tomororw.