Akshay Kumar who?

Moving away from matters involving cricket, I happened to see this online today.

If Bollywood ever requires a villain who plays cricket, I think we know the man.

Ha, he can even put Akshay to shame.

I LOVE VEERU

Haha, I had to post this as soon as I saw it.

Sehwag refused to give his bat to ground the pitch because some English guy kicked it.

I was finding it hilarious.

Until Sachin got bowled first ball after the break.

The comic value is still there with Veeru.

Quote-a-minute to Slap-a-minute

I don't know about everyone else, but one of Cricinfo's pages I most commonly frequent is the Quotes section.

They have a good collection up there, and are generally a good laugh.

It seems Harbhajan Paaji has also taken a liking to it. He seems to wind up on it every other day. I used to think only Ganguly in his prime was capable of the feat.

But now with India having won the series against Australia, and Harbhajan having come off for the better against them again (sort of), he's got the license to hit that Quotes section with glee.

I genuinely thought his previous one was funny with the Australians being too busy writing books.

And his latest salvo shows how much he loves Ricky:

"I can get Ponting out any time. I think I can get him even after I come post a six-month lay-off ... [he] had a lot to say about our players and about the way we play our cricket. In fact, it is Ponting who first needs to go and learn to bat against spin bowling."

A bit over the top, but don't we love it. Ponting better be careful, he might get slapped the rate at which Harbhajan is going. Just ask Sree.





And watch that space for more Harbhajan classics.

It's been a while.

Yes it has.

And what better time to start again (hopefully it won't be a quick-ditch start like last time) than after beating Australia 2-0.

Quick comment, Cricinfo just told me that Ganguly and Flintoff have hit exactly the same number of sixes(20) against England and India respectively. Touch of irony? Considering that they matched each other for the shirt-waving as well?

Oh well, quite a few people have warmed up to J-Rod's fantasy league for the odi series starting today.

Q, a lot of people are after your crown.

Best of luck.

Why?

Why was Shoaib Malik given that last over?

So what if Sehwag got smashed for a lot of runs in his previous over, he's a way better death bowler than Shoaib Malik. And he handles pressure better, for sure.

It couldn't have been a loss of confidence in himself. There's no way Sehwag ever loses confidence in himself. I could almost picture Gony swatting Malik for six, as soon as he was given the ball. That man is a monster, by the way.

And finally Chennai did something right by dropping the ICEMAN, who I think is the world's worst and luckiest all rounder. And they got Laxmipathy 'I've hit Akthar for six' Balaji into the team.

Delhi lost a match they really should have won. Complacency from the bowlers, I guess. For thinking the target was more than enough. Asif's been expensive, but I still think he's a great bowler, and will come very good as the tournament goes on.

In other matches, Kolkata beat Bangalore in another thriller of sorts. Ganguly bowled like he was in Toronto, and Boucher for some reason refused to give Praveen Kumar the strike. Has he forgotten Praveen's clean hits just a few matches back?

Shaping up nicely

The IPL's shaping up nicely. Every team except Delhi and Kolkata have now played 7 matches each.

Delhi and Punjab are doing well, so I'm happy. And Mumbai's finally begun to turn around a disastrous start. Delhi should win today, and I'm guessing Bangalore might end up trumping Kolkata. Sourav will need to get his act together if he wants his Knights to reach the semis. I don't see that happening.

In other news from the top of my head, Mallya seems to be getting upset with his team. He could have used his brains a bit more. Things wouldn't have been so bad for Bangalore then.

And Preity's happy :D.

And Bravo giving (or trying to give) Pollock the chest-to-chest was the coolest thing. I doubt Pollock's going to be willing to celebrate a wicket with Bravo again.

From what I hear, the match from the DY Patil stadium has been brilliant. For the crowd and the team. They shouldn't have changed it.

And the Facebook revolution seems to have taken over all the blogs. Congrats to Well Pitched and Cricket with Balls. Facebook seems to cover everything now.

Shoaib has joined the Knight Riders, finally. Umar Gul, Shoaib, and Ishant should make a bowling attack to make the best jump around, assuming Shoaib doesn't do what Shoaib generally does. Take Brad Hodge out, he keeps getting run out from what I remember.

And I was wrong about Rajasthan. My apologies to Shane. Apart from that, the other three teams I said (Delhi, Punjab, Mumbai) seem to be on the road to the semi-finals.

Virender Sehwag has to be the coolest cricketer walking around, along with Chris Gayle of course. More on Gayle later. Sehwag's frank and does away with all the pretensions that most cricketers seem to adhere to. When asked during one of the Delhi matches whether he regretted losing the toss, he replied, ever so casually, "In India, it doesn't matter whether you bat first or second."

Oh, I got myself a Delhi Daredevils jersey. Full on support from my side for the Daredevils.

And did anyone catch SRK teaching Chris Gayle how to say something on the lines of "hum jeetenge"? Cracked me up.

All I can say for now. I have exams every second day here, and it's tough to find time to sit and write, forget even read up the blogs. Mind you, exams or not, I have seen every IPL match that has happened till now. Yes, I have used up all my Saturday nights as well with pints of beer watching whatever the IPL throws up.

Cheers to everyone.

We bow to you Sir

The Master turned 35 today. Damn. 34 felt ok.

35 feels completely different.

I dread the day he announces his retirement. Which I hope will never happen.

I hope he recovers from his groin injury fast. The Mumbai Indians need him, India needs him, the IPL needs him, the entire cricketing world needs him, hell, I need him to be back from the next match.

Quoting Cricinfo when they were commenting on how the Chennai crowd was becoming like a home crowd, and then Sachin was shown on TV:

God, after all, transcends parochial boundaries.

Some are just exceptional, and exceptions have to be made out for them.

Cheers to you, Sachin. I hope you have a great one.