What a match..What a Player...

In the last few days I have been one of the few skeptics of IPL who have felt that the viewers are exposed to an overdose of 20-20 cricket. Once the IPL is over then we have the 20-20 world cup in England. But seeing yesterday's match between Rajasthan Royals (RRs) and Kolkatta Knight Riders (KKRs)I don't think anybody will complain if we can get such terrific entertainment at least on a weekly basis.

Let me be frank with you. I am the biggest Shane Warne fan. Probably one of the few bowlers I can watch bowling over after over, day after day, match after match and series after series...(Others being Akram, Saqlain (provided he is landing his doosras right on the money), Flintoff, Ambrose etc..I am sure there will be others but I'll keep that for another day. The point is that even though I have seen his horrible debut against India (read Shastri and Tendulkar) and again the thrashing he has received in 1998-99 and other on "nightmarish" tours to India, he has still done enough (at least in my mind)to make him my favourite cricketer (ok..along with Sachin..today is his bday..thats my gift to him..:)). Who can forget his "ball of the century" to Gatting, the ball of this century to Strauss, the demolition of West Indies in 1996 semi final, heroics in 99 semi final where he got Australia out from a near death situation, and then crushing Pakistan's hopes in the final (please note that sub-continent teams are supposed to be adept against quality spin bowling). His heroics in Ashes and against South Africa where he made many bunnies apart from just Cullinan..:)

But his off the field antics have always got him in a lot of controversy. The only thing probably better than his "leg-break" is his skill in "sexting". The use of some banned substance before the 2003 world cup got him a ban for a year. All this infamous heroics costed him the captaincy of Australia. Seeing his intensity last night I cant imagine what Australia would have been under him. The score of 150 which they were defending was a below par score seeing the scarce bowling resources RRs have except Warne of course. But every ball bowled was sent with an intent. Every bowler (leave Munaf for the time being as I don't see him being part of the team for long..i think he is a robot Mcgrath or a zabardasti ka Mcgrath or whatever..)Warne's confidence in Kamran Khan was more than the young lad would have had in himself. I am sure yesterday could be the defining day in this fast bowler's career..His last over where he conceded just 7 runs was top draw...although KKR was trying all ways to commit harakiri. even in the super over he just conceded 15 runs which in that context was not bad. The important thing was that he didn't give Gayle any elevation to hit the ball out of the park. And then Yousuf came and smashed 16 runs in just 4 balls.

While Warne displayed that he was a captain who was constantly thinking on his feet Mcullum just went with Mendis because he had been good in his bowling spell earlier in the day. But Yousuf just murdered the poor bowler and the hopes of KKR and its fans vanished with those towering hits.

In all this we should not forget the contribution of Warne. He took the wicket of Gayle when he was going berserk and dealing in just 6's. Then in his last over tempted the young Yashpal singh with his flighted, outside the off stump, loopy, sexy, unplayable, the undoing of hundreds of batsmen, ripping leg break. (readers are invited to add more adjectives..:)) We might blame Yashpal for getting carried away but Warne has done this to everybody. He had done this in the previous match to Virat Kohli and Akhil. and he will do this to countless more batsmen who will face him till he decides to hang his boots..But he is already becoming a master in poker and i think even there he will easily bamboozle his rivals like he has been doing for the last 18-20 years.

Shane Warne .......Take a Bow

PS. I wanted to know who was the "fake player" and was watching the match intently. and suspiciously looking at every KKR player..As i write right now the anonymous blogger has still not posted anything new after yesterday's match/ I hope the poor guys is not caught...although the devil in me thinks that all this blogging is an innovative idea by KKR to get publicity..remember the old maxim.."Any publicity is good publicity" and Sharukh definitely has the sense of humour and the wit to carry off a self deprecating spoof..........Om Shanti Om..:)

1-2 or 10-20 or 300-500

Like most other Mumbaikars I have a long commute to office which includes a taxi ride, pushy train journey and then finally to round it off an auto on the bumpy malad/ goregaon roads. The train is definitely the longest stretch of this journey and definitely the toughest but the more interesting as well as you get to see so many stories unfold in front of your eyes everyday.

Yesterday there was this old woman in the train who was begging for 10-20 rupees. The amount she was begging for caught my attention as generally beggars ask for 1-2 rupees. She was apparently collecting money as she had just had an operation for some cancer. Initially I was a little hesitant to give her money as I though it was just using this reason to get sympathy but after seeing some people sitting next to me donate generously, even I decided to give her some money..(for a cancer patient it was very little money but for a beggar collecting this amount from 20-30 people a day will translate into 300-500 rupees a day..)..

In the last few months while talking to some people who work with various NGO's in the city I had realised that the easiest way in which we try to help someone is by parting with a very little amount of money and then feeling as if we had changed the world. I thought ill did deeper and see if she was really genuine probably collect some money from friends and family to help her..OK these were just thoughts only and I confess I have never done anything like this before in my life so I am not sure if this thing would have worked but nevertheless I thought it was worth a try...

So while she was walking past me I asked her how she would be able to manage with these 10s and 20s for her unstable medical condition.....And then her look completely changed...She replied sarcastically people give me 100,200, 500 and more...Further she said I am waiting a big amount of money and this arrangement is just for the interim...But the looks in her eyes had now changed completely..She was looking at me angrily as if I had done a big mistake by asking her this question..By that time other people had also got suspicious of that woman. Somebody said that she was in the same train 2-3 months back collecting money and faking some other ailment. She got down at the next station. Probably sensing that there would be a barrage of questions for which she was not prepared..

As she left I had mixed feelings. I felt bad that i probably was the reason she cold not collect enough money for whatever reason she wanted to collect. On the other hand I felt good that I stopped her from fleecing the unsuspecting passengers..I felt incidents like these will harm the really needy people. When next time a needy person will come to me I will probably think twice before helping him..

I am unable to conclude this article....Suggestions are welcome .....

The Gift of the Maggi

Maggi has been voted has India's most memorable brands. Well my association with Maggi is quite old. My earliest memories is of coming home after school and being rewarded with a maggi treat. But that's not the only memory I have in fact I learnt one of the biggest lessons in life indirectly through this iconic brand

In school we used to have the Maggi quiz. Me and my team mate Abhay were the runners up in class IV and had prepared really hard (but as we found out later not very smart) the following year. We had mugged up only countries, capitals and currencies but were quite a big zero in other things like world affairs. eg we did not know who was heading the Palestine Liberation Organisation..(for the uninitiated it was Yasser Araffat..)I think I had already announced to the world (my neighbours, colony friends, my mommy) that we are going to win and get gift hampers which would include school bags with maggi imprinted on them, watches and lots of ....guess what of course..... maggi..:)..So to cut a long story short we were quite overconfident that we will win the quiz.

Obviously we didn't win it. I think we came third and did not qualify for the next round. It was a long walk back home especially when you stay in one of the highest points in Simla. I did not know what to do. That evening I could not face anybody...

But I think I had learnt my lesson....

The Only---Right Arm Fast

This is something that happened about a year back. And I can claim royalty from Vodafone as they have made an advertisement out of that wow moment (the lift add in which the girl sees a movie star besides her)

Well in our case, I was with my team mates Kapil, Payal and Rahul and gone to Hilton to meet the newly set up MS team. It was a good meeting and we were very excited after meeting such senior people who had loads of investment banking experience. In our excitement we took the wrong lift and instead of going down we went up for a couple of floors. And then the DOOR opened...

First two huge bodyguards marched inside. We were curious to see who was behind them. Then after a split second we saw a familiar face come inside. All of us looked at him and felt we had seen him somewhere and after a split second realised who he was......It was yes the only tear away fast bowler of our time ( I am sure this will invite criticism/ debate..but will ensure some traffic and comments on my blog which are most welcome.

Anyways enough of marketing, coming back to the lift in which there are 4 of us,two giant bodyguard and Rawalpindi express. When the lift began its downward journey me and rahul had exchanged glances to confirm that it was indeed the man himself. It was a divine moment for us probably like when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu or Tulsidas had seen god himself ( I am sure again this might upset some BJP supporters as I am calling a Pakistani fast bowler as God...OK then put your comments)..

For the 1st 5 seconds we were smitten we could not utter a word. I think Shoaib sensed the silence or maybe he was at his charming best or maybe he got distracted by Payal...:). He broke the ice and asked us "aap log kahaan se hain". After telling him that we are from Bombay only (No i didnt give him gyaan about Shimla and the fact that I had come to bombay for my rozi roti). Again there was silence as the lift was going further down. There was this tension building up inside me as I wanted to say something to him. Suddenly out of the blue I said to him. Congratulations ( it was for the fact that he had got a huge sum of money to join the Calcutta team for IPL). He acknowledged that and said "shukriya". He said he was happy to join Shahrukh's team and then he said quite unassumingly.."Bombay kyaa kar raha thaa..App logo ne kya team banayee hai.. All of us had a big laugh on that.

While we were warming up and getting ready to hurl some more questions (I am sure we could have carried on for hours) the lift came to a halt. We knew it was time to say bye bye. Shoaib walked into the lobby of the hotel and disappeared slowly into the crowd of elite businessman, travellers, corporate honchos etc etc...And we kept looking at each other. The purpose for which we had gone there was for the time being kept in the background.

It was a time to sit back and savour the moment...