7 Reactions To Ricky Ponting's Retirement

1. Kapil Sibal: CAG trying to exaggerate the impact of his retirement. It’s completely insignificant. Zero loss to international cricket;

2. Prime Minister: I assure the nation, the culprits would be brought to book.

3. Meira Kumar: No standing ovation please. Please baith jaiyye, shaant ho jaiyye.

4. SM Krishna: Ricky Martin's retirement is a great loss to international cricket. Even Hina would agree with me.

5. Sushma Swaraj: Motamaal kamaya hoga. No need to get unnecessarily sentimental.

6. Shahid Afridi: As a veteran, I'd say occasional retirement is good for health but he shouldn't overdo it.

7. Manish Tiwari: A prolific batsman! Arrey woh aadmi to khud sar-se-pao tak run me duba hua hai!

The rascal is a romantic

Ricky Ponting tops a popularity chart only when it's hung upside down.

As far as modesty is concerned, Idi Amin looks more an agreeable chap, if not the seraph altogether.

Gracewise, well, call him WG Grace. Without a Grain of Grace in his spiritual make-up, if you know what I mean.

And you would be baffled by your own austerity when you call him a rascal.

But when you are told that the pocket-size devil doesn't part with his worn-out baggy green cap and would have it rather repaired than replaced, it makes you feel pretty silly.

Let's face it, the rascal is a proud romantic.

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Ind-Aus series in light of Evolution Theories!

Survival of the Fittest: Not sure if Darwin wanted us to barge into the nearest gym with vengeance. But when you realize that only 8 of Australia’s original 15-member squad survived the 7–ODI rigour, you know Darwin was not driveling;

Natural Selection: Darwin propounded some individuals survive more than their jealous peers for no particular reason. Cricket anthropologists classify Virat Kohli as the prime example.

Inheritance of Acquired Characters: Basically what Lamarck meant is that no amount of blood transfusion can help it. At the end of the day, a Casanova begets Casanova and a Gandhi, pre-abstinence that is, begets Gandhi.

So it was hardly a wonder that Shaun Marsh would follow in his father's footsteps and choose India for his maiden ODI ton.

Theory of Needs: At the outset, I would like to clarify that I take no responsibility for the following even though Lamarck does. Apparently, giraffes grew long necks because their forefathers were sick and tired of the staple grass-and-bush diet and craved for the leafy delicacies of the tall trees.

A bare batting cupboard and the same theory of needs forced Ricky Ponting to open the innings in Delhi.

Theory of Use and Disuse: Apparently, early snakes, unlike their present day descendants, were LBW candidates in a Mammals XI vs Reptiles XI tie because they had legs! That is what Lamarck said and once again I take him at face value. He knew them enough to claim that snakes lost legs because they didn't use them enough. Basically he wanted to mean that snakes put their feet up all the time till it eventually came off.

Harbhajan Singh may resent the simile but Chris Broad's presence has forced him to shelve his Doosra and we may not see him bowling that again.

REVEALED: Ponting was King Pyrrhus in previous birth!

Was he Al Capone, a gangster beneath his Canary Yellow who frequented speakeasies and patronized moonshining?

Or was he Idi Amin, the self-anointed CBE (Conqueror of the British Empire) even though he lost Ashes?

High possibilities though these maybe, allow me to let the cat out of the bag and tell you that Ricky Ponting was King Pyrrhus in his previous life!

A little explanation would render it less outrageous.

Well, when you are a second cousin of Alexander the Great, you can’t help winning wars. It just happens.

But then Pyrrhus was not Alexander but his cousin, and second one at that. He won the Battle of Asculum alright but it was such a cliffhanger that cost him irreparable damage.

The poor guy was left to mutter that one more such victory would completely undo him. And unscrupulous phrase-coiners minted money out of his predicament, terming it ‘Pyrrhic victory’.

Now sample this.

Ponting won Vadodara but lost Brett Lee.

He won Mohali too and Peter Siddle and Moises Henriques fell by the wayside.

Had you been a particular insect of the Diptera order on the wall of the Oz dressing room, you could have eavesdropped Punter grumbling to someone “One more such victory and mate, I’d be undone.”

(P.S. Staying with the reincarnation theme, read why Tendulkar is actually Einstein re-born).

Pix: Getty Images

You know Champions League was a dud when...

1. Billy Doctrove has to dance on-camera, in tunnel;

2. Delhi Daredevils discern they require Owais Shah more than David Warner;

3. Ian Chappell needs to borrow a Chunri before entering the commentary box;

4. Dhoni appears only in between overs and there too is outsmarted by fishermen's kids;

5. Nobody gives a customary damn about Indian culture and the attack it faces from the proximity of the neckline and hemline of the Mischief Gals;

6. Andrew Symonds slips into an ill-fitting Sherwani when a snug straitjacket would have met the case;

and finally

7. Even a Marcus Trescothick gets so bored that he springs a convenient alibi to return home and air his dog.

(P.S. Doosra never practised or preached chest-thumping, considering it's best left to the non-OBE Gorillas in general and a certain OBE Guy the Gorilla in particular. But the fact remains that Doosra has grown enough in stature to invite a fatwa in the past from an eminent Australian panel that had Shane Warne puffing in one corner!

Doosra's list of eminent readers doesn't end there. It gave me goose bumps to know that Ricky Ponting, the patron saint of Ind-Oz bonhomie, is not only an avid reader of the blog but also a sympathizer of my struggle while putting together the seven-pointers like the one above. I'm indebted to Ponting for saying seven is too many.

P.P.S News just filtered in that moved by the Doosra post Cricket Loses Masculinity, Cricket Australia is urging youngsters to grow moustaches!)

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

The privilege of being a cricket blogger

At times, you feel privileged to be a cricket blogger.

More so when you are flippant enough to ignore the rocket-science side of the game and laugh at cricket and its myriad characters.

You lambaste Lalit Modi, lash out at Ponting and lampoon ICC with impunity.

You revere Tendulkar, revile Ponting and ridicule Shoaib Akhtar's accent without remorse.

Thank god, I don't run a blog on Burma. Myanmar, the junta will right you.

Else I would bleed to write that Aung San Suu Kyi has been slapped with another 18 months of house arrest.

That after spending 13 years and 293 days of detainment at her lakeside home in Rangoon. Ok, Yangon.

I'd bleed to write that during this period, she could not be on the side of her dying husband and it's more than a decade that she last saw her sons, now in their 30s.

And this new punishment because a mad American, under the impression that she might be assassinated, swam the lake to reach her, something perceived as a breach of house arrest. Primarily on Suu Kyi's part, that is.

To give them their due, the Big Bros have done the lip service. Barrack Obama was so piqued that he reportedly rejected the omelet in breakfast. Gordon Brown turned pink and went to the extent of appearing in a press conference without his regular make-up routine. Unprecedented!

Not to be left behind, UN has issued a harshly-worded warning. If the Myanmar junta doesn't behave itself, UN would be, well, very annoyed.

Her piano is out of tune. She looks pale. The doctor doesn't visit and the garden resembles a jungle, inviting poisonous snakes.

But I have no remorse. Mind you, I'm a cricket blogger. A flippant one at that.

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7 Reasons Why England Can’t Win Ashes

1. The John Buchanan miasma. This should be the cinch;

2. By scheduling the opener in Cardiff, England essentially and inadvertently opted for an away match and lost the home advantage;

3. Keeping with his form book, Andrew Flintoff is destined to miss the bus to the ground on the most crucial day of the series;

4. By placing Matt Prior behind the stumps, England has made the prior announcement that they are taking Caught Behind and Stumping out of the equation. While this is very chivalrous of them, England’s bowling does not look good enough to get 20 Australian wickets sans these two crucial modes of dismissals,

5. Kevin Peter Pietersen, Order of the British Empire (OBE), would deliberately under-perform, fearing another Ashes triumph would invariably incur a similar mile-long obnoxious title which no 21st century man in his senses would fancy;

6. Cricket Australia’s threat of bringing back Buchanan, in case of an Ashes loss, ringing in ears, Ricky Ponting and his men would settle for nothing less than a win;

7. Leaving no stone unturned in their preparation, Australia had no less than F1 driver Mark Webber telling them how to run faster between wickets. Sadly, neither Lewis Hamilton nor Jenson Button displayed as much patriotism and bothered to turn up at the Poms practice.

Pix: Mike Egerton/EMPICS Sport

Of sledging, charity and nirvana

* Steve Waugh, Father of the Theory of Mental Disintegration, supports a house for kids of lepers;

* Glenn McGrath, Sheikh of Sledge, champions breast cancer awareness;

* Adam Gilchrist, leading Foulinguist of his era, bats for disabled kids;

...and now...hold your breath...

* Ricky Ponting, cricket's own sledge-hammer, bats for cancer kids.

Trust me, even in the darkest hour, I had never given up. I knew remorse will gnaw at their vitals for all the effing pleasantries these motormouths showered on their opponents. I clung on to the hope that good sense would eventually prevail and once self-realisation enlightens their soul, they would seek atonement.

And they did.

May it rinse, cleans and wash their sins away and help them attain perfect nirvana.

Amen.

Order of the Put Before Disorder

Australia is shrinking but environment activists need not disrobe or/and demonstrate. This is strictly about Australian representation at Indian Premier League II.

Epitome of larrikin patriotism Ricky Ponting put Country before IPL and summarily booked himself a Companion of the Order of Australia medallion. This was the precise the provocation behind putting together a list of seven other cricketers who put something before some other thing in recent past.

Sample what comes first for whom.

1. Mohd ‘Yo-Yo’ Yousuf: Put Christianity before Islam, Islam before Christianity, ICL before Pakistan, IPL before ICL, ICL before IPL, Pakistan before ICL…to be continued.

2. Brad ‘Machiavelli’ Haddin: Put gloves before stumps.

3. Michael ‘Love-struck’ Clarke: Pre-vice captaincy, put ailing father-in-law before team; post-vice captaincy, put team before marriage. Pup skipped IPL I to be with ailing Pop-in-Law and now cricket commitment puts his marriage with Lara Bingle on hold.

4. Allen ‘Fraud’ Stanford: Put himself before law. Now he comes first, followed by Vijay Singh, Michael Owen, Kevin Pietersen, ECB, WICB and FBI sleuthhounds.

5. Bryce ‘Sleepy’ McGain: Put a sound sleep before a cricket tour and missed the flight to South Africa. What else you expected from someone who knew Australia had sleepless nights ahead?

6. Andrew ‘Fredalo’ Flintoff: Uncannily, he too preferred a nap before a tour and almost missed England’s flight to the Windies. Doosra is told it was part of his preparation for the tour. The nocturnal booze cruise in the Caribbeans to be precise.

7. Mitchell ‘Cupid’ Johnson: Put girl friend before Queensland. ‘Midge’ dumped Queensland and moved to Western Australia to be with his lady love Jessica Bratich. Jessica being the national karate champion, it’s not known whether Midge did it under duress.

(P.S. Doosra takes a nine-day break, solely because it's my last chance to dissuade my parents from completely disowning their unworthy son. So friends, Roman and countrymen, make the most of my absence, enjoy every nano-second of it before I return and hit back with vengeance. See you all. Happy blogging)

7 lucky charms that can revive Oz fortune

I feared earth will come to a screeching halt on its axis, Paris Hilton will be either canonised or cannon-foddered and Harbhajan Singh would spend an entire season without slapping teammates/abusing opponents/ruffling BCCI lawyers.

But miracles do happen and somehow we all survived despite Australia no more being the numero uno ODI side.

More than anything else, Doosra tends to believe that Punter & Party have been done in by poor luck on more than one occasion and suggests, free of cost, seven lucky charms the Ozzies need to bring the stars back on their side:

1. Beckham’s Goldenbuns: A strange pre-derby ritual takes place at AC Milan these days where teammates squeeze David Beckham’s buns, for it guarantees win! Beckham meanwhile goes down in soccer history as the lone footballer whose legs were not his most valuable physical asset.

2. Shammi Kapoor: Cricket Australia need to make a music album for each tournament and get it released by Shammi Kapur. Come on, it doesn’t cost them a fortune for they already have a crooner in Brett Lee. This ritual has worked wonders for Aamir Khan over the years and no reason why Australia won’t benefit from it.

3. James Carville’s underwear: History remembers Carville – the spin doctor who masterminded Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign. -- didn’t change it for an extended period to ensure success. Ricky Ponting can surely borrow the talismanic piece of cloth from Carville and walk out for toss.

4. Roy Emerson’s shorts: If borrowing/exporting underwear, that too a used one, doesn’t exactly appeal them, there is a ‘shorts-cut’ way and they don’t need to travel all the way to USA either. Aussie tennis legend Roy Emerson used to wear a pair of lucky shorts to extend his winning streak. Why doesn’t Cricket Australia borrow it from ‘Emmo’ and make replicas and dole out?

5. Steve Waugh’s red hanky: The source of the legendary red rag obduracy. Chances are high 'Tugga' threw away the soiled piece of cloth and a neighbourhood Kangaroo chewed it up. Still what’s harm in making a query?

6. Red Shirt on Sundays: No need to get shirty at the suggestion. Ever cared to know secrets of Tiger Woods’ success?

7. Obama’s Trinkets: CA should use the diplomatic channel and ask PM Kevin Rudd to convince Barack Obama to part with his trinkets. (Statutory Warning: The trinkets include idol of a monkey god and hence all precautions should be taken before handing it over to Andrew Symonds.)

Pix: eclectech.co.uk

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

Of liver cancer, stupid cupid and Knight Riders

Sourav Ganguly can’t be faulted if he looks a sulking misanthrope. And as if the Kolkata Knight Riders didn’t have problem enough.

Already depleted by the exit of Ricky Ponting (so what if he forgot to put bat to ball) and Brendon McCullum (so what if he sizzled only to fizzle subsequently), Shahrukh Khan and Ganguly hurriedly roped in Brad Hodge for his well-documented Twenty20 prowess. But call it quirk of fate, the hitherto-out-of-favour Hodge also gets an SOS to forget IPL and join the Australian squad in West Indies as shadow for a cupid-struck Michael Clarke.

Reports say though Clarke’s father is fighting Hodgkin's disease, it’s the condition of his fiancée Lara Bingle’s father, who is battling a liver cancer, that prompted the Australian vice captain to stay back. Well, while that may fetch Clarke a nomination for the inaugural ICC Lover of the Year 2008 award, I doubt it does not win him a friend in Ganguly.

Tourism Australia had Lara as its face till the slew of scandals forced them to replace her with Croc-Hunter Steve Irwin’s daughter Bindi. Lara featured in the 2006 campaign “So where the bloody hell are you?”

Ganguly was last seen wielding his bat and searching for the stupid cupid, mouthing the line he borrowed from the campaign.

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Cultural difference and others craps

We would surely love to believe that the Sydney bad blood has been flushed out. Disturbing voices, however, still want us believe Ricky Ponting & Co played the game hard but fair.

“Cultural difference, silly!” Well, that’s pure crap. Hogg…I mean hogwash actually.

Let’s get it right that India lost the Sydney Test but Australia did not win either. If Cricket Australia cares a fig about intangible things like ethics and morality, the Sydney Test, at best, was a Pyrrhic victory. But neither Ponting nor James Sutherland is Pyrrhus and nor do they realize that victories like this would leave their reputation in tatters.

Unmistakably, the Australians are so seduced by success that they bring in a kind of ruthlessness that probably guarantees them silverwares but not admirers. Well, if they are happy with that, congratulations! If cricket is global politics, Australia is its America – the big, brash, bully that boasts of everything but admirers. Likewise, Australia’s cupboard maybe full of trophies but they have hardly won anything else.

Specially under Ponting, Australia has fallen from the grace. They have been disgraceful in triumphs and worse in defeats. Like America, they top the hate-list outside Down Under. Preparing a rap-chart, where India and Sourav Ganguly top the team and individual lists, is an exercise in futility.

For quite a while, Australia has been so unflinching in its single-minded persuasion of the one-point agenda of success that it sacrificed everything else – grace, niceties, sportsmanship – at its altar.

Reared up on a perverse notion that skill alone may not be enough to ensure success, the Australians have been schooled to be crook. Sledging is considered a necessity and grip over a filthy vocabulary has been made to look as important as gripping the ball.

Unfortunately for the game, Australia is the hideous face of cricket. It’s rather an irony that cricket has a team at the top that stands for everything that goes against the very spirit of the game.

Alas, Australia is not aware of the kind of cricket it has been practicing and preaching. Now if they decided to play it the way they wanted, I would have no business criticizing them. But what worries me is the fact that the disease if contagious. Frustrated at Australia’s America-like hegemony, countries like India are trying to blindly ape them, bringing a smug smile to Australia’s face. After all, imitation is the best form of compliment. Therein lies the danger for the game.

Image: Getty Images

Why Dravid Should Quit ODIs

Once Ricky Ponting and Co. leaves the country with the Futures Cup, someone from the BCCI needs to take Rahul Dravid to the corner, lay a hand around his shoulder, appreciate his contribution and convey to him that the ODI series against Pakistan would be his last. And also tell him that the Board has a grand farewell plan for him at the end of the series.

Tough to put it in words but truth is Dravid has exceeded his shelf-life as a one day cricketer. Our affection for the man and his craft should not be allowed to clutter our common sense. An avid reader, “The Wall” surely has not missed the writing on the wall.

Of India’s Holy Trinity, Sachin Tendulkar is more effort than effervescence and Sourav Ganguly continues to oscillate between sublime and farce. But, at least, they have proved that Team India is yet to find their replacement. Unfortunately, that has not been the case with Dravid.

Dravid’s position in the batting order, especially while chasing, has become an additional woe for his captain. Mahendra Singh Dhoni can’t really toy with his former captain, who till the other day used to pass on the instructions. The Nagpur ODI is a moot case. As if explaining a defeat was not bad enough, Dhoni had to defend the decision to promote Dravid at number four. And then Ponting too made fun of the move, questioning the logic behind it.

It’s unfair to pan Dhoni. He was just trying to accommodate Dravid. I mean once the chase had gone down to the wire, Dravid is not the kind of batsman you expect to guide the side to home with some late charge. Dhoni had no other way but to send him up. And that precisely sums up Dravid’s position in the order.

Dravid was never cut out exclusively for one day cricket and all its thrill and frill and it was because of his sheer grit and industry, give credit where it’s due, that he went on to play 333-plus ODIs, scoring 10,000-plus runs – a feat any cricketer would have been proud of.

But despite his record, the series against Australia left a message, loud and clear, that Dravid does not command a place. Of course he still can play the sheet anchor’s role to perfection but often in chase, the role itself has become redundant. In such scenario, having Dravid in the ranks is a luxury India can ill-afford.

Personally for him, Dravid does not stand to gain anything from ODIs. On the contrary, he might lose his aura, which he acquired largely due to his exploits in the longer version of the game. He’s indispensable in the Test squad and is still the most bankable of Indian batsmen. He has been an intelligent cricketer throughout and he should not find trouble seeing wisdom behind quitting one dayers.

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Spare the Dead, Please

Woody Allen insists he doesn’t dread death, but just doesn’t want to be there when it happens. My stance is more or less the same, fools never differ, after all.

And it’s even more grotesque when you drag the dead. The deceased should be allowed to rest in peace and nobody has any business to disturb that. Not even he’s Sunil Gavaskar.

When they are through with the game, retired cricketers earn their bread talking trash and thankfully, Gavaskar has been a glorious exception to that ever-increasing rule. And so it was even more unwarranted when he cited David Hookes’ death in front of a Melbourne bar to buttress his Ugly Australian Theory.

I don’t disagree with his UAT – again it’s great minds and fools, put me where you want – but to drag Hookes out of his grave left a bitter taste in mouth. Naturally, Ricky Ponting, Allan Border, Darren Lehmann, Glenn McGrath and Brad Hodge retorted with the kind of vengeance seen in them only during the Ashes.

Gavaskar finally came out with an apology and kudos to him for that. This was a complete unwanted mud-slinging and I think he can be forgiven after saying SORRY. Let Hookie rest in peace.

I simply abhor the idea of dragging the dead and the news that Woolmer’s autopsy was inconclusive and hence would require more tests pain me more. Post-mortem, autopsy, dissection, mortuary – these sickly words make me shrink. These are perhaps unavoidable in case of unnatural death but I detest body-tampering almost as much as ball-tampering. Even after the soul has left the world, rigor mortis has set in and stream of tears has started to trickle down on the surrounding cheeks, the body remains at the centre of a gruesome action.

At a time when science (or is it technology in that disguise?) is busy innovating flavoured condoms, Porridge Gun, Springy Boots, Techno Trousers, fruitless seed, I mean, seedless fruit, can’t they do something to save the deceased body from the disgrace? Or is it asking for too much?

When Team India Became An Airlines Threat!

“Minnows” must be the most dreaded word for Team India players. But once Sehwag and Co. realized that the Bermudians had neither the guile nor the firepower to trouble them, it just rained – and I’m not talking about the drizzle that interrupted play for a few minutes last night – fours and sixes.

Statistics often make boring readings but number has its own charm as well. Apart from 30 boundaries, Indian batsmen heaved as many as 18 sixes yesterday, equalling South Africa's feat against Dutch in the same World Cup on March 16.

Sehwag, Yuvraj and Sachin treated Bermuda bowlers as cannon-fodder and created security threat for low-flying Air Jamaica planes with those sixes.

Meanwhile, Sourav Ganguly continues to intrigue me. I mean his new-found approach to batting, good or bad, makes me wonder is it the same shirt-swirling, combative cricketer who felt left-arm spinners simply had no business in one day cricket?

He insists paternity mellowed him down and he’s more in control of his nerves. Post-comeback, he’s more into playing the sheet anchor and trying to pace his innings. Yesterday, he narrowly missed the opportunity to become the first cricket to post 5 World Cup centuries.

But two more sixes in the match against Bermuda helped the southpaw became the second batsman, after Ricky Ponting (25 in 29 innings), to have recorded 25 sixes in the World Cup.

Border, Lehmann Won't Let Sunny Off The 'Hookes'

This is spreading faster than a wild bushfire that Australia is so used to. Sunil Gavaskar’s blunt talk is likely to cost him his long-standing friendship with Allan Border. Gavaskar also apparently lost the admirer in a seething Darren Lehmann.

Sunny first stepped on a few Australian toes when he described the Aussies as the unpopular winners. Ricky “Punter the Huner” Ponting hit back soon at the big little man -- “Mr Perfect” in his words- and accusing him of being “high and mighty”.

Gavaskar stoked the fire again, saying the foul-mouth (he insisted he was not generalising) Aussies might get “whacked” in a bar if they behave like the way they do on-field. Here he cited the death of former cricketer David Hooke, who was punched to death by a bouncer outside a Melbourne bar three years ago.

This was probably least expected from a man of Sunny’s stature and you don’t need to have an Australian passport to admit that dragging the deceased doesn’t sound decent, especially when Hooke’s was a tragic end.

An upset Border says his 20-year friendship with Sunny is strained to a breaking point, while Lehmann says he has lost respect for the Indian legend.

Meanwhile, as it snowballs into a major distraction during World Cup, both Gavaskar and Border would do well to read the following joke:

Gavaskar was specially flew into Australia for premier of a movie called “GAVASKAR”. Sunny was conned into beliving that it was his bio-pic but he felt humiliated as the film ended without any trace of cricket, let alone Sunny. Left red in the face, he asked the authorities why they played the joke. “It was revenge Mr Gavaskar. You people too made a movie called BORDER and did they mention Allan for once?” pat came the reply.