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?

Hayden’s maiden speech at his academy circa 2012

Mate, lend me your ears or get thick ears. Ding dong and you head for billabong.

No argy-bargy, fine?

Mate, get it abso-bloody-lutely clear in your head. We are here for the serious business of batting and not tiddlywinks.

Bowlers are meant to be bagged. Bagged till no kid dreams of becoming a bowler again.

That is how ICC also wants it.

As a batsman, you would treat a bowler exactly with the same respect that a pariah dog has for the nearby lamppost.

From a socio-political point, bowlers are our class enemy, if you know your Marx well.

Karl Marx, you nitwit, not Groucho.

Remember, every maiden over is nothing but a public announcement that you have Kangaroos loose in the top paddock

Finally, a word of caution.

Beware mate. Offies from a certain northern Indian state can be quite an obnoxious weed.

And you may well come across pacers from a certain southern state, particularly with a dance back ground, with this tendency to get on your nerve.

But when going gets tough like this, don’t go troppo. Rather, ask yourself "What would Christ do?"

That’s all I had to say. Now join the chorus as we sing 'Waltzing Matilda'.

Hayden, from Oz opener to academy opener

Australian cricketers, once done and dusted, have displayed this inexplicable vulnerability to an irresistible urge of doing something in and for India.

I assume it's a desire that spreads like one of those typical Australian bushfire.

Like rashes in summer. Or blogging in Bollywood. Or Twittering among celebrities.

Cricket's history, especially its recent chapters, is littered with such instances.

Steve Waugh has been a father figure to orphans in Kolkata while Adam Gilchrist has extended avuncular warmth towards disabled kids.

And now Matthew Hayden wants to open a cricket academy in Chennai.

He can't open batting anymore, at least for Australia, so why not open an academy?

Once an opener, always an opener.

Duty unto death, if you know what I mean.

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Had Harry Potter been a cricketer...

Considering the bloodbath they are going through, the industrialists are just not in a position to lend.

I would still go ahead and borrow the expression that Ratan Tata used when Mamata Banerjee straight-drove Nano out of West Bengal.

Someone put a gun to my head -- figuratively speaking, just like Tata – and sought my view on what Harry Potter would have been had he been a cricketer.

Well, find my rambling here.

A friend in need can be a spouse indeed!

There are certain things in life which defy logic but are inevitable. Baffling, yet unavoidable, if you know what I mean.

Like unsuspectingly stepping on the lone banana skin on the pavement as if a matter of destiny.

Like the penchant among taps to run dry, a phenomenon preceded by a humiliating gurgling sound, just after you have worked up an admirably rich lather all over your face.

Like the irresistible urge in certain quarters to taste Hari Mirch Pakoda – a palatable weapon of mass destruction -- despite knowing that the nearest available drop of H20 is some 5 kms away.

Like a malfunctioning MUTE button on your cell when the all-important meeting is well into its first quarter.

Like running into a rare traffic police at the signal you have jumped with impunity more often than Sergei Bubka has jumped in his entire career.

Like I said earlier, logic-defying yet unavoidable.

Like Himesh Reshammiya, if you know.

To cut it short, Mohammad Asif is the latest victim of the fatal attraction that draws a moth to the fire and a cricketer towards an actress.

Veena Malik, the actress, apparently stood by Asif in his seconds, minutes and hours of crises, bearing expenses of all his legal battles.

A friend in need can be a spouse indeed!

The curious case of Mitchell Johnson

Hindi films are littered with such instances.

When it comes to choosing between devil and deep sea, fire and frying pan, hemlock and hanging, an average -- in other words docile, domesticated - Indian lad is more prone to siding with his mom, leaving his lady love high and dry.

But son's devotion towards the maternal tribe in Australia is apparently as endangered as wallabies there. Much to the dismay of Oz motherhood, their imbecile sons more or less turn turtle, figuratively speaking, whenever they come 5 KMs within a PYT.

In other words, head over heels to the point of doubting their very genesis and starting to believe that they probably were jettisoned on mother earth by some passerby aliens.

No sense of gratitude at all. Rather, preferring to putting the arm around a tender shoulder and giving the Mom a cold shoulder.

But Motherhood does not sit idle and sob in the corner. She exacts revenge.

She stands at the door of the fool's paradise i. e her son's life. There she dopes a starved bull, twists its tail from behind and then flashes the red rag in front before vanishing.

Mitchell Johnson probably didn't know. You can escape the wrath of, say a Robin Hood but not Motherhood. Not even if the girl you dumped your mother for is a karateka.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust. If Qualm Doesn't get You, Hurt Motherhood Must.

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Flintoff on a pedalo again!

This is not an ODI World Cup year. Nor has he a vice captaincy to shed.

More importantly, he looks sober and alone.

Freddie Flintoff still gets on a pedalo and it’s not even a sequel to the Pedalogate I.

Believing that the Australians are not capable of doing anything else, the mastermind of this deodorant advertisement shows two Aussies nicking Flintoff’s car and leaving a pedalo instead. Mind you, one of them looked like Michael Clarke’s cousin.

But Freddie the Flintstone could not care less as he gets on the pedalo, reviving memories of his booze cruise in the Caribbeans, and wades through a canal to reach destination.

The pedalo is up for grabs and the money will go to Flintoff's foundation.