Monthly Archive for March, 2011

Agent Viru – Week 6

Published on March 27, 2011 in Latest. 16 Comments

Originally appeared in India Today magazine

(Written before the QF match against Australia)

“What’s wrong with the team?” I asked Agent Viru when I entered his room a day after India’s last group match. “Mentally tired,” he replied. The packed cricketing schedule had left them with just two weeks to complete all ad shoots before the world cup. “Travelling to locations, late nights, working in a hot environment, shaving your chest hair. It was like playing a mini-IPL,” he explained. “It was toughest for our captain,” he said shaking his head in sympathy.

Under intense media scrutiny, Viru says, the players have now started playacting. After a bad performance, the captain slams the door and others skip breakfast next morning to show their disappointment. “Only we know that this is just an excuse to sleep longer and order room service later on,” he winked. “Oh, is that why Gautam Gambhir looked so dejected when I saw him in the corridor just now?” I asked. “No, no. He is genuinely upset,” Viru said. “One insurance company hasn’t signed him despite them advertising about their coverage of all ‘gambhir bimariyaan’.”

The next time I met him, Viru was catching a few winks in the shade after a gruelling net session one day before the first quarter final match. He started giggling when I told him how several ex-cricketers feel that Australia will beat India but aren’t saying so for fear of a public backlash. Viru knew most experts’ semi-final line up was Pakistan, Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. “Even a monkey can look at ICC rankings and make a line up like this,” he said before making his own predictions.

West Indies would beat Pakistan, Viru said. Pakistan doesn’t win when they are expected to win. Plus, Kamran Akmal had had a good game, so he was due to drop five in the next one. And, once in the world cup, Gayle and Pollard had to strike together and this was their last chance. Viru gave two reasons for why South Africa would beat New Zealand. One, they play New Zealand. Two, they must be tired of choking in the quarters and semis and would look for a bigger stage to choke this time round. And it doesn’t get bigger than the finals. England would beat Sri Lanka because Viru feels they are on a mission. Although, nobody in England really cares how their team does in the world cup, they are carrying the future of ODIs on their shoulders. So, England would get into a winning position, then collapse, then recover, then falter again. And just when it looks like they are finally out, they will bounce back and win.

“What about India-Australia?” I asked. We always reach the semi finals in every alternate world cup, he explained. This is our turn again. Further, the Australians are in bad shape. First, their captain Ponting and captain-in-waiting Clarke aren’t on talking terms. Second, they have just one proper bowler (or baller, as Viru put it). Third, Haddin insists that he wasn’t paid by bookies to score 53 off 15 overs against Zimbabwe. So, if he’s not a fixer, then he’s really that bad. “Of course we’ll win,” Viru said. “And if we don’t, we’ll have a new captain.” Given that an Indian captain accumulates a set of sycophants over a period of time, Viru feels that a captain should be appointed for four years only. “Like the prime minister of Amreeka,” he added. “President, you mean?” I asked. “No, prime minister,” he corrected me.

Agent Viru – Week 5

Published on March 20, 2011 in Latest. 3 Comments

Originally appeared in India Today magazine

The day after the Nagpur disaster against South Africa, the Indian team was busy licking their wounds the way they know best –in the swimming pool, signing sponsors bats, and channelling their aggression on their favourite handheld devices like Xbox and PSPs. Agent Viru, though, was busy peeling off oranges.

During a 10 minute chat he told me that the match was all part of Dhoni’s grand masterplan. Apparently, India wanted to test if a total of 300 was defendable or not. “Now we know that, with these bowlers, anything short of 450 is a threat,” he said. Also, Kirsten’s careful analysis had revealed that South Africa had lost far more matches chasing ‘300 minus’ than chasing more than ‘400 plus’. “Remember 434?” he asked. “The best way to beat these chokers is to put them in a winning position,” he explained Dhoni’s theory. “But why Nehra for the last over?” I asked. “The good thing about Nehra bowling is that he isn’t fielding” Viru replied.

Viru confessed, though, that the team was under tremendous pressure. So much, in fact, that now they couldn’t even laugh at Kamran Akmal.

With Agent Viru partly compromised, it was time to revert to some good ol’ cloak and dagger stuff. The results, though not completely surprising, were shocking nonetheless.

Dhoni is battling with the selectors on what, some say, is pure ego. Dhoni didn’t want Sreesanth to replace Praveen Kumar. But the selectors forced him down Dhoni’s throat. The plan was to get him slaughtered in the warm up game against Australia. Unfortunately for Dhoni, that was one of three days in a calendar year when Sreesanth does get it right. Fortunately for Dhoni, the old Sreesanth resurfaced in the first match against Bangladesh and, because he is not Piyush Chawla, Sreesanth would spend the rest of the world cup handing out drinks.

R. Ashvin’s case is more layered. The captain wanted Piyush, presumably because he needed the confidence, and Srikanth wanted Ashvin because he had to answer to the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. But, listening to Srikanth for two hours is like two years in a gas chamber. When Kirsten started frantically searching for hair to pull out in frustration, Dhoni struck a compromise and both were included at the expense of Parthiv Patel.

But, there’s more to Ashvin’s exclusion than Dhoni’s battle with Srikanth. It goes back months when Ashvin became a star after his performances in the IPL. A certain non-spinner, who spins the ball only when sponsored by a soft drink brand, got insecure. At Chennai airport, just before boarding the flight to Colombo for India’s tour of Sri Lanka last year, Ashvin received a call from the non-spinner, who was being rested for that series. “How old are you?” the non-spinner asked. “24,” Ashvin replied. “OK. You have a lot of time to play. Don’t get impatient,” he said before hanging up. Ashvin didn’t get a game in that series. The non-spinner is said to be particularly close to the captain. And, if friends don’t protect one another, who will.

One day before the West Indies game, Viru confirmed that Ashvin will finally get a game at his home ground. Also, the team was revved up after Sachin’s pep talk asking them to bring out every ounce of their energy. “The way everybody else is playing, sadly, it looks like only Sachin wants to win the cup for Sachin,” he said as he walked off.

Dhoni & Co desperately need a laugh

Published on March 18, 2011 in Latest. 5 Comments

Originally published in the Mirror – Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad Click here

The Indian team’s on-field performance may have fluctuated from the sublime to the ridiculous, but their collective body language is cause for more worry. The captain’s calm exterior can’t hide the troubles inside. Instinctive decisions of the past are now replaced by muddles of a confused mind. The team, probably, feels his pressure. A wicket or a catch used to lead to joyous celebrations. Now, players regularly mark a wicket through colourful epithets of sisterly love. Media hyping them as favourites, expectations of unforgiving supporters, reputations built on puffs of dust, and fatigue from a packed schedule and advertising commitments have all created a pressure cooker like situation with no outlet.

History suggests that an unburdened team is most likely to win the world cup. The Indian team needs an immediate injection of humour. And where to find those daily laughs? Well, they need to look no further than where their supporters have turned to for relief.

1. Ashish Nehra
The ball heads straight to Nehra. He clumsily dives, lets it pass through his armpits, chases it with his limbs flailing in all directions but, contrary to the laws of physics, still managing to move forward, ending it with another clumsy sliding dive after the ball has crossed the line. He retrieves the ball with the look of a mathematician in deep thought saying, ‘Man! That never happened to me before’. If we can derive so much pleasure out of limited sightings of Nehra, imagine what it could do if the team trained less and watched him more at practice sessions.

2. Ashish Nehra’s facebook fan page
Before the last over against South Africa, Nehra’s fan page had 300 members. After the last over, it has 1600. Shocked? Don’t be. The sudden explosion in his fan base is because one needs to become a fan to post a comment on his page, which all the new 1300 have done liberally. A quick read of these comments could immediately lighten up tense team meetings. One of the printable few being “Ashish Nehraa, mat dikha apna chehraa.”

3. Sanjay Manjrekar
David Lloyd is genuinely funny, Sidhu is anything but funny, and Manjrekar is unintentionally funny. The Indian team should collectively watch the last game against South Africa only to hear his words of wisdom. In the middle of the Sachin-Sehwag carnage Dr. Manjrekar says, “What would scare the opposition captain the most is the single they took. It shows they are aware.” His Eureka moment was when he discovered Sachin’s weakness. “Tendulkar gets out in the PowerPlay after scoring a century,” he said.

4. Boom Boom World Cup
If all else fails, the Indian team could turn to a video on youtube of a Pakistani bloke who looks suspiciously like Mohd Asif, wears clothes from the 80s, and sings a song that goes “Boom Boom of thee cup, kirket cup, world cup”. The singer thinks Kamran Akmal is the ‘baast keeper of thee cup’ and that’s not the most ludicrous part of the song. The set looks like a deserted marriage venue, the extras look like jail fugitives and the singer describes the world cup amongst other things as “a big cup”. In the end, he thanks public, media, ICC and God for thee cup. The video has had 170,000 views and the comments are to die for. CIA, Mossad, and RAW are also being accused of having created this video to malign Pakistan. Although, Pakistan has rarely needed any help to achieve that.

Agent Viru – Week 4

Published on March 13, 2011 in Latest. 5 Comments

Originally published in India Today Magazine

The Indian team’s departure from Bangalore to Delhi meant that my interactions with Agent Viru would be temporarily disrupted. I grabbed the one opportunity I had before the team got cordoned off by the national capital’s paranoid security. As Agent Viru boarded the flight with the rest of the team, he saw me greeting him, working undercover as the flight attendant. He evaded any further eye contact and went straight to a seat in the Economy Class where I was serving.

The players dropped their guards as soon as the flight took off. Piyush Chawla was on his PSP, beating the crap out of the machine, which must have been an unusual experience for him. Virat Kohli emerged from the toilet with his hair freshly spiked, designed to cause serious bodily harm to any fly that may sit on it. Fortunately for the flies, Munaf’s gaping mouth as he slept was far more attractive. Sreesanth was flirting with the airhostesses, for some odd reason, with his ipod plugged into his ears disturbing communication signals with the Air Traffic Control. Over the next two and a half hours, I caught up with Agent Viru for five quick chats and overheard some other conversations. A synopsis of which forms this week’s report.

Anyone asked what Piyush Chawla is doing in the team? Apparently, it’s more than just ‘C’ being close to ‘D’, as Viru had told me earlier. With Nehra injured, the other bowling option makes one senior bowler very insecure. “The Masala Dosa in our team is better than Butter Chicken. And Butter Chicken knows it. He and his close buddy Captain Cook won’t let Masala Dosa in, unless Nehra remains injured and our situation becomes desperate,” Agent Viru told me cryptically.

There’s a feeling that Doug Bollinger’s “injury”, once M/s Lee, Tait and Johnson struck form, making way for Michael Hussey to bolster the middle order seems too convenient to be true. Also, most believe that the pretence of being civilised, a recently acquired façade, has also been thrown out of the window going by the way the Aussies ruffled up Dilshan. “Thank God. Now I can recognise Ponting,” Viru told me on his way to the toilet.

Kevin Pietersen’s injury is beyond suspicion, although, probably not caused on the field. “Don’t lift any watermelons,” KP said to a confused Ian Bell who was, incidentally, seeking dinner suggestions. Bell figured it only when he saw a soft drink commercial with KP jumping around with watermelons. “I took those watermelons home after the shoot,” Viru told me. “They were juicy but also heavy,” he added with raised eyebrows.

There were laughs galore on the Bangladeshi fans who pelted stones on the West Indies team bus. “Their fans are like their bowlers – always off target,” Yuvi said generating more laughs than Kamran Akmal’s face does. Kamran was also briefly discussed with Bhajji saying that Kamran should try catching the ball with his mouth. “Who needs hands when you have a mouth like that,” he added.

Munaf was the butt of most jokes. He was watching Saat Khoon Maaf with his wife when Kevin O’Briann started blasting the English bowlers. Munaf was called back midway through the film to watch him bat. “Abey, couldn’t you have seen the highlights?” Agent Viru asked him jokingly. Privately, though, he chuckled mischievously as he told me, “When you look like Munaf and perform like Munaf, it’s not wise to take your wife for Saat Khoon Maaf. Why give her ideas?”

Caught Kamran, Bowled Chawla?

Published on March 11, 2011 in Latest. 9 Comments

Originally appeared in Mirror – Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad Click here

The World Cup is turning out to be yet another slugfest between India and Pakistan, each trying to outdo the other to make this more entertaining than all previous World Cups put together. The comedy of errors from these two teams is of a class that would have made Charlie Chaplin proud.

As the co-host, the onus lay with India to make the World Cup worthwhile for viewers. And, true to his style, Captain MS Dhoni stepped up to take complete responsibility. His first move was to pluck Piyush Chawla out of England, where he was terrorising tailenders in County matches, and force him into the World Cup squad. If you, like most others, thought that Piyush’s neck jiggle and hip-swaying, short-stepped trot would provide comic relief only when he walks out with drinks for the players, you don’t know MSD. He ensured that we get to watch Piyush through the entire 50 overs for what, in MSD-land, is called paisa vasool. And just when the endless laugh riot was causing severe abdominal pain in a section of the population, MSD almost killed us by pulling out a statement that made Sidhu seem sane in comparison, a feat long considered as impossible as time travel.

“Ashvin is mentally strong, he can play in the knockout matches. Piyush needs confidence,” Dhoni said justifying the selection. By the same logic, Ravindra Jadeja should play the league games instead of Sachin Tendulkar. So confidence-inspiring is this statement that confidence-lacking people everywhere are making phone calls to Dhoni asking for a spot in the team. Notable callers include Harman Baveja, Suresh Kalmadi and Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa.

Not to be outdone, Pakistan has come up with a fitting reply. “If you have Piyush, we have Kamran,” PCB Chief Ijaz Butt texted his Indian counterpart N. Srinivasan. But, an ugly rumour doing the rounds is that Kamran Akmal is in the side due to financial considerations. “There can be no other reason,” Lalit Modi tweeted adding fuel to the fire. Apparently, sponsors love the sight of Kamran in a pair of gloves because he double-handedly converts Pakistan’s matches into slickly edited episodes of World’s Funniest Videos. Latest ratings suggest that TRPs for the Pakistan-New Zealand match were as high as the IPL auctions. “We will think about a replacement for Kamran after the World Cup,” said Waqar Younis. The collective sigh of sponsors and viewers was felt at a NASA shuttle in outer space.

Kamran Akmal, though, refuted allegations that he can’t catch anything. He’s prepared a list of his recent catches, including all flights caught over the last two years, a cold he caught six weeks ago, and a flying kiss he caught at Lord’s last year despite it coming from a male admirer.

Finally, leaving you with a puzzle for the weekend. If you solve it, you could actually solve the Piyush-Ashvin-Harbhajan conundrum.

Dot 1: Dhoni and Piyush are close friends.

Dot 2: Ashvin is the only player in the squad from the Chairman of Selector’s home State. For the second spinner slot, the skipper may have wanted one while the Chairman pushed for the other. Finally, both got in at the expense of a backup wicket-keeper.

Dot 3: Today, Ashvin has more variations up his sleeve than Harbhajan. With them bowling in tandem, on current form, the difference between the two off-spinners could stand out in full public glare.

Dot 4: Harbhajan is close to most senior players including Dhoni.

Take a break from your crossword today and try joining these dots instead. This could be more entertaining.

Rest assured. Pakistan will win the World Cup

Published on March 7, 2011 in Latest. 8 Comments

Originally appeared in the Mirror – Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad

From completely out of the blue, Pakistan has emerged as the strongest contender for the World Cup. Here are four reasons why Pakistan will win the World Cup.

1. The Kamran Akmal Factor
He drops sitters, fumbles stumpings, runs his partners out before blowing himself out. But, make no mistake, he is one of the pillars on which Pakistan’s World Cup campaign is built on. Don’t judge him by how he looks because his value to the team cannot be understood unless you’re a bowler at the top of your run-up looking at his 64-tooth grimace behind the wickets. With him responsible for collecting edges, a bowler has no option but to bowl straight at the stumps. Kamran Akmal is the man behind Umar Gul’s yorkers, Afridi’s in-dippers, and Shoiab Akhtar’s in-cutters and is the reason for 58% of their combined wickets in the last two years being bowled or LBW.

2. The Afridi Factor
World Cup campaigns are like wars and wars are won by Generals who are respected, revered and, most of all, feared. Like Imran in ’92, Ranatunga in ’96, and Waugh in ’99. Name one Captain in this World Cup who evokes that kind of fear in his players other than Afridi. And it all began with that ball biting episode in Australia. What looked like a stupid act was actually an act of genius with an eye on the World Cup. Since that day, ‘Be Afraid of Afridi’ is the word doing the rounds in Pakistan cricket. When Umar Akmal doesn’t sleep at night, his mother tells him ‘Beta so jaa, varna Afridi kaat lega’. Ignorant commentators berate Afridi for talking to his bowlers before every ball. Little do they know that Afridi is simply reminding them of the biting consequences of bowling wides or half-trackers. And, going by the results so far, he’s been quite effective.

3. The Shock Factor
Pakistan’s top order believes in ugly heaves. They run between the wickets like ping pong balls bouncing against four walls. Two aging middle order batsmen with aching bones painfully play themselves in. And, as soon as the opposition is lulled into sleepwalking, in come the likes of Akmal Jr, Afridi and Razzak to blow the living day lights off the bowlers. And, while bowling, Shoaib Akhtar runs in from the boundary line to bowl off-breaks while Afridi runs three paces to beat batsmen for pace. As far as shocks go, playing them is a bit like seeing a quietly purring cat creep up to you only to loudly bark at your face.

4. The Bowling Factor
Pakistan lost their two best bowlers to spot-fixing just before the World Cup. And, what do they do? They put together their fearsome attack from the 90s – Shoiab Akhtar, Abdur Razzak, Shahid Afridi. For a taste of the toe crushing era, Umar Gul gets his yorkers going. That’s not all. You look at the dressing room, there’s Waqar and Aaquib. You turn to the commentary box, there’s a grinning Wasim. Exactly like in the 90s, when Pakistan plays, whichever direction you look, there’s a deadly bowler sharpening his fangs. That’s enough to scare any batting line-up in the world.

With Pakistan finally vacating the ‘brainless cricket spot’ they’d occupied for years, other teams have made a brave dash for it. It’s certain that Pakistan’s worthy successor would emerge by the end of the World Cup. And, going by their recent performances, England has shown all signs of becoming the new Pakistan.

Agent Viru – Week Three

Published on March 7, 2011 in Latest. 9 Comments

Appeared in India Today magazine – March 7 issue

Tuesday, March 1
An optional practice day for the team. But the coach showed select players some highlights from the match against England. Bhajji was shown his dropped catch, followed by how he growled at others for their misfields. Piyush was shown how he got tonked for two sixes and then reacted to a wicket like he had taken a hat-trick. And Munaf was shown his performance with the bat again and again till it could pierce through his head. “All you had to do was run, you idiot,” Kirsten Kaku was overheard screaming.
“But, it’s good to have him in the side,” Agent Viru said to me later. “Now I am not the only bull head in the team.”

Kaku has sought Sunil Gavaskar’s help to teach Munaf how to put the bat behind the crease. An obvious choice as teacher given his fascination with ‘sliding the bat in’, as we have painfully heard a million times in his long career as commentator. But Munaf is quietly confident he will make Gavaskar forget it himself. Amazingly, most of India is wishing the same.

Wednesday, March 2
PCB Chief Ijaz Butt held a press conference after Pakistan’s win over Sri Lanka. Other than the victory, he spoke of how it was now clear that the Sydney Test Match, famous for Kamran Akmal’s 123 missed chances, wasn’t fixed after all. “It’s clear now that Kamran really can’t keep wickets. We should stop accusing him of dropping catches intentionally,” Butt said.

Kamran, in turn, has turned to Piyush Chawla for help with a text that reads, “Please teach me how not to look stupid while doing stupid things on the field.”

Viru tells me that PC has promised to teach Kamran as soon as he finishes teaching Sreesanth.

Thursday, March 3
Suresh Raina is getting desperate to break into the playing eleven. While the rest of the team trained at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Raina headed to a leading cosmetic surgeon to explore ways of getting dimples on his cheeks. “Look like PC and you can get in,” Viru had suggested to Raina a few days earlier. All for a good cause, after all, Raina can definitely bat better and couldn’t bowl any worse.

Raina even called up Praveen Kumar to confirm the pecking order. Raina was under the impression that his name came after PK’s in the UP quota. “Even I know this much English yaar,” PK replied. “P comes before S.”
“And C is closer to D,” Viru added with a wry smile as he narrated the story to me.

Friday, March 4
I met Agent Viru at his house in Delhi where he had returned to get his rib injury scanned. He updated me on a few mysterious incidents. Apparently, Ashish Nehra’s After Shave bottle was found filled with a warm fluid of similar colour but very dissimilar odour. Unfortunately for Nehra, he discovered it much after he had liberally applied it all over his face. Bhajji’s shoes were found filled with sand. And Ashwin, another bowler vying for a spot, couldn’t sleep the whole night as he felt his room was haunted. “A pattern seems to emerge if you combine these two incidents with how Sreesanth bowled a beamer at Yuvi and then smashed the bowling coach’s knees,” Agent Viru explained the conspiracy theory.

When I asked about his rib injury, he explained, “Ribs were always fine yaar. I was tired of the bisibele bhath in Bangalore. I had to have my Mom’s Aloo Parathas. Now, I am all set for the next match.”