The real IPL action is taking place on twitter

Published on May 20, 2011 in Latest. 22 Comments

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

On Wednesday night as I returned home after doing commentary for yet another mind numbingly boring IPL match, fighting hard to keep my eyes open, I switched on my computer for a last scan of emails and tweets for the day. And wham!!! Like a stroke of lightning I was jerked out of my stupor. Lalit Modi had just gone berserk on twitter. Without an iota of exaggeration, this was the most exciting one hour of IPL. Re-tweets from Lalit Modi were filling up my timeline at the rate of knots, as Ravi Shastri would put it.

Twitter is a simple webpage where you can put your thoughts in 140 characters which all your followers can read. It’s a bit like sending group texts. Re-tweet is simply when somebody forwards your tweet to all his own followers. In this case it becomes exciting because a tweet from you to Lalit Modi, which would be read by about 100 followers you’d have as a regular person, is suddenly read by more than 300,000 followers that Lalit Modi has, if he decides to re-tweet your original tweet.

The trigger for Lalit Modi’s shooting spree was a news article where he had been quoted saying things which he had merely re-tweeted from other people. “Don’t they understand the difference between tweets and re-tweets?” Modi tweeted in anger. “They should be taught twitter lessons. We should call it Twitter 101,” he suggested. And then, to point out the difference, he started re-tweeting like Chris Gayle gone mad. And, hoping for a brush with fame, people started tweeting him words of praise that Modi promptly relayed to the rest of the world. I tweeted him “87% of listeners on our online radio commentary think IPL without you is like a movie without an item girl”. And bang came the re-tweet. To test him, I tweeted, “Sir, have you lost it?” Putting all doubts to rest, he re-tweeted that too. Then, I asked him an open-ended question. “Do you think there’s life in outer space?” He replied, “I always thought there was life in outer space…but…” leaving the rest to our imagination. After an hour and more than 100 re-tweets, he finally signed off with a “Goodnight”. Promptly someone replied to him, “Goodnight. Don’t forget to use condom.” Our regular listener Subash Jayaram summed it up in his tweet, “Lalit Modi’s twitter was on a dangerous combo of angel dust, meth, coke and Redbull IV.”

A few days ago, Lalit Modi and RCA president Sanjay Dixit squabbled on twitter, each desperately trying to stoop lower than the other. Modi tweeted, “Sanjay Dixit gets enough publicity messing with legends”. Dixit replied calling him a “Bloody fugitive”. Modi retorted with a few words of his own. Dixit sent a scan of Modi’s indictment in a drugs charge in the US in 1985. The contest on twitter was far more dramatic than the cricket being played at the same time.

Chris Gayle ranted about the 50 flies in his hotel room in Dharamsala. Then, at 4.30 am, he tweeted about the construction noise outside his room. A few hours later, he complained of the cold water in the shower. The next day he was out for a duck. And, to those ribbing him on twitter after the loss to KXIP, Vijay Mallya tweeted calling them a name that starts with ‘c’ and rhymes with ‘punts’.

You’re lucky if you haven’t followed IPL this season. But you’re truly blessed if you’ve followed it on twitter.

Ending this column with great news from the cricket field. Kochi Tuskers played on Wednesday night. It was their last match. We won’t have to see them for another year.

You can hear my alternate cricket commentary on www.pitch-invasion.in

Finally, IPL gets its piece of meat

Published on May 13, 2011 in Latest. 21 Comments

Originally appeared in the Mirror Click here

So, IPL has finally got the controversy it was looking for to become relevant again. A tweeting bird has been packed off home for telling the world what everyone already knew about IPL. Was anyone surprised at reading what she wrote about the goings on in the VIP rooms? I suppose not. The one refreshing bit was to get a woman’s perspective at how she feels at being treated like a “piece of meat”. The players, and all men in general, should probably read those blog posts to understand how not to behave. But then, that’s asking for too much, isn’t it?

The crux of this matter is not about what the cheerleader wrote. The real story is in the conduct of those involved with IPL. A macho player with a penchant for hitting fours and sixes runs crying to the school principal to report on a girl. Couldn’t he have had a quiet word with her asking her to respect individuals’ privacy? Probably not. He is, after all, a cry baby who loves to ‘cuddle’. What we now want to know is if he also carries a teddy bear on tour. I bet he does.

The school principal takes immediate action and asks her to be expelled. The team management sends her back without an explanation. And, in the process, saves the money due to her to make up for the millions lost on Kieron Pollard.

This is just a small example of the kind of ‘members only self-serving club’ that IPL is. It’s an eco system of people who have conspired to build a façade intended to blind an entire nation. During the Lalit Modi era, people were just taken in by the grandeur of it all. Post Lalit Modi, the façade’s started to peel off and the muck within is obvious to all. Until recently, Lalit Modi’s successor had one great deed to his credit. Telling us how he had saved $100 Million by scrapping IPL parties. But the next one, ousting a blogging cheerleader, is by far his greatest conquest. This alone puts him amongst the pantheons to have defended the honour of the nation. “Hail Chirayu Amin!” we should all stand up and say.

The hypocrisy that rules IPL shows up in different forms. Last season, a perfectly choreographed and rhythmically swaying Nita Ambani in a sea of children was enough to make you throw up. This season, it’s gone to a different level. After treating him like garbage, SRK dedicates a win to Dada. Mallya runs an airline company, flies his private jet all over the world, and then dresses his team up in green for environment. And if they think that the public will still be taken in by it all, they are mistaken.

No matter what data they throw at us, people aren’t bothered about IPL this season. If it wasn’t for the curious case of the blogging cheerleader, IPL would have come and gone like the Mumbai winter without anyone even noticing it. If Lalit Modi was still around, he’d have probably handed a special bonus to Gabrielle for doing IPL such a big favour.

About Gabrielle and her noble endeavour, she should have been careful about two things. One, she shouldn’t have shared this with anyone. Because there will always be the itch to tell at least one more person. And once two people know, it’s out of your control. Two, she shouldn’t have taken any real names. These are the two things that had kept my anonymity for as long as I wanted to.

Pitch Invasion: Estd. IPL 4

Published on May 6, 2011 in Latest. 13 Comments

Pitch Invasion – Voice of the people

Sometime in the middle of the 2011 world cup, quite accidentally, I re-discovered the joys of community cricket watching. No, I didn’t suddenly start watching matches in pubs or inviting groups of friends over. I just re-activated my twitter handle @_fakeiplplayer and started tweeting through the games. And Twitter completely changed my cricket viewing experience. It acted as a vent, gave me room for creativity and humour, and provided instant response from others. I soon realised that the ‘cricket+twitter’ combo was almost as good an experience as watching cricket in the hostel during my university days.

If 140 characters of text could do so much, imagine what magic could be created if we could add voice to it too. This thought, in a nutshell, was the trigger for Pitch Invasion.

The concept

Pitch Invasion is an online radio station that streams live commentary during IPL matches. I use the word commentary for the lack of a better word because it isn’t really ball-by-ball commentary that we do. The show is actually about 3 guys jamming on cricket – watching the match, talking about it and everything else related to it. It could be about the game on at the moment, or the players in view, or their WAGs cheering them, or trivia about past matches, some banter and cheeky comments; but keeping it all in the context of the game. We’ve tried to give the listener a feel of eavesdropping into our conversation.

But that’s just half the fun. The killer app in the show is the built-in audience interactivity through twitter. Listeners continuously tweet in their thoughts which we read, comment on, and discuss further. For the listener, it’s a great way of getting himself heard and then broadcasted to a broader audience. It’s the kind of instant interactivity that everyone craves for but no other medium currently provides. Several listeners have said that they feel they are back in college and watching cricket with their friends. Despite the one-ball lag that the show has, many of our listeners prefer to listen to us while watching the match on Mute. Others listen to us while watching the match on the internet stream or following it on the Cricinfo timeline.

Early milestones

In the two weeks that we have been live, we have built a bit of a cult listener base who tune in everyday during match hours – sometimes from home, sometimes from office and even on their phones while driving. We have an average of around 1900 listeners a day who listen for an average of 2 hours and 17 minutes per match. Yesterday, our twitter handle @pitchinv started trending and was ranked second in India, ahead of Sachin Tendulkar’s and Amitabh Bachchan’s twitter handles.

Last week, Pitch Invasion also signed an exclusive contract with Sprite for this IPL season. For Sprite, we are promoting a unique contest on twitter called #CRICKWIT where people need to send witty cricket-related tweets adding the #CRICKWIT. The #CRICKWIT started trending on twitter within 12 hours of the launch of the contest. And within 3 days of launching, we received more than 2000 tweets with the #CRICKWIT.

The elements
As for the station jocks, it’s a bit of a motley crew. Other than me, there’s a PhD. in Astronomy, a writer/photographer, a failed cricketer, a filmmaker, a musician, an ex-advertising man, and a gaming expert. Each brings his own character and individuality to the show. Our statistician lives in Shanghai, goes by the name Jagga Ji and feeds us all the stats over Gtalk while we are on air. And there are hilarious specials like Venue Ka Menu – a comical eye on each city, Kurukshetra – a Mahabharat style intro of matches, spoof ads and spoof songs.

The plan
As far as I am concerned, the proof of concept is done. The product has been accepted and it can only get better from here. I am confident that Pitch Invasion as a concept has what it takes to go the distance. In the immediate future, it can have a combination of live stream, audio and video podcasts, and text. I’d like to let it grow organically into any form as long as it retains its irreverent character and speaks the voice of the people.

Confessions of a first time IPLer

Published on May 6, 2011 in Latest. 9 Comments

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

A few days ago I spent an hour with someone who’s travelling on the IPL bandwagon for the first time. We’ll call him Mr. Blue for now. Over a couple of beers, Mr. Blue shared some of his IPL experiences with me. Here’s the gist of it.

Waiting
From the time he took to serious cricket, Mr. Blue thought ‘waiting’ is just what you say to your batting partner when asking him to watch before running. He never realised that the word had a completely different connotation in IPL. Mr. Blue tells me that IPL is just a series of waiting periods. He reckons that 70% of his waking time in the last 4 weeks have been spent waiting for something or the other. You wait at the hotel lobby for your teammates to arrive. Then you wait for your bags to be loaded in the bus. At training, you wait for your turn at the nets. After that, you wait for everyone to finish. You wait at airports. You wait for the owner at events. You wait for your chance to get into the team. And once you’re in, you wait for others to get out so you could go out and bat. And just when you give up and start thinking about your fielding, two batsmen get out off successive balls and you have to go in to face the last ball of the inning. “I might as well have booked myself into the waiting room of a railway station,” he says with exasperation.

Sachin at Wankhede
Mr. Blue thinks that the atmosphere at Wankhede when Sachin is batting is indescribable. The chant of ‘SA-CHIN SA-CHIN’ is continuous, synchronous and way loud than one can imagine. For Mr. Blue, it was as close to an out-of-body experience as he would ever have. “Being there is like being transported to a different universe that revolves around one man,” he says. The way he described it, it appeared like you don’t feel like you really exist there but are somehow getting a view of that universe through a fishbowl.

Cheerleaders
In every respect, the cheerleaders at IPL have met Mr. Blue’s expectations. Except that he had no idea that every group of cheerleaders had a coordinator who kept a very close eye on their activities. And, sharp at 3 am, the coordinator would call for each of them, do a headcount, and ferry them back to the hotel. And, they don’t stay at the same hotel as the players do.

SRK
At Eden Gardens, people at the stands that are around the one where Shahrukh Khan is don’t watch cricket. They watch Shahrukh Khan. For the entire three and a half hours, their heads are turned towards Shahrukh Khan’s gallery and they would punctually go delirious every 10 minutes when Shahrukh Khan waves at them. At nightclubs, the security would cordon off an area for Shahrukh Khan and his entourage. Almost anyone important enough will then virtually queue up to have their two minutes with the emperor. “SRK jahan khada ho jaata hai, line vahin se shuru hoti hai,” Mr. Blue quotes a famous Bollywood line.

Match fixing
Mr. Blue says that, with constant surveillance and monitoring, it’s extremely difficult to engage in either match fixing or spot fixing. Further, with new sets of players in each team this year, cliques and coteries aren’t formed yet. “But, one cannot say with 100% guarantee that it doesn’t exist,” he adds belatedly.

Don’t judge a team by its Sreesanth

Published on April 29, 2011 in Latest. 17 Comments

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

Sreesanth is no longer the name of a cricket player. He is now a category by itself and IPL-4 will go down in history as when this phenomenon started. In time, captains would introduce their team with a special mention of one player as ‘our Sreesanth’.

The points table in IPL-4 shows that this edition has so far been the closest fought. Two factors have caused this trend. One, the erstwhile KKR players have been evenly distributed across all teams creating a level playing field. Two, every team has at least one Sreesanth. But, this sports science experiment has thrown up the most unexpected result. Just the way one can’t judge a movie by its trailer, one can’t really judge a team by its Sreesanth. Here’s why.

Delhi Daredevils
The Sreesanth of Delhi Daredevils is none other than Ajit Agarkar. Some would argue that he is the original. But Sir Aggie, as he is fondly referred to, hardly ever evoked the kind of emotions that Sreesanth does. With Aggie, it was just disappointment and frustration. Just like his bowling, his delivery on cricketing promise was also often short and wide. Add to that Ravi Shastri saying ‘Agarkar is no muck with the bat’ seconds before he loses his stumps. Till last season, Aggie was with the KKR which was described as a Ram banaye jodi. He wasn’t picked by the Daredevils for the initial few matches. This bad karma set the Daredevils off onto a losing spree. Until, they included Aggie in the playing XI. His first four balls in IPL-4 were hit for fours. But, he eventually got a wicket or two. And Delhi won the match. Moral of the story: Don’t judge Delhi Daredevils by their Sreesanth.

King’s XI Punjab
It’s common knowledge that Piyush Chawla is the new Sreesanth. Unlike Aggie, though, King’s XI Punjab can’t keep him out of the playing XI even if they want to. After all, he is India’s second preferred spinner ahead of Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha and Irfan Pathan. Piyush has made it a habit of picking up wickets off long hops and full tosses that deserve to be hit for six. Plus, he is lucky to be in the same team as Valthaty and, hence, is part of a winning team. Moral of the story: Don’t judge King’s XI Punjab by their Sreesanth.

Mumbai Indians
If Piyush has Valthaty, Munaf has SRT. Going by his efforts on the field which are generally of the token variety and his obstinacy not to mend his ways, Munaf Patel is clearly the Sreesanth of the Indians. But, unlike the original, Munaf plays every game and usually delivers on his job description. Munaf is also less likely to increase your blood pressure but more likely cause stomach ache as you clutch your tummy with uncontrollable laughter. However, Mumbai Indians have so far been the best team in the league. Moral of the story: Don’t judge Mumbai Indians by their Sreesanth.

Kochi Tuskers Kerala
The team possesses the original as well as the imitation. Spare a thought for Romesh Powar, though. Having to share space with the original Sreesanth, he must feel a bit like Harman Baweja in a movie with Hrithik Roshan. Yet, Powar has held his own in this battle of the Sreesanths. The two common factors in all of KTK’s wins have been Sreesanth’s absence and Powar’s presence. Moral of the story: Don’t judge Kochi Tuskers by their Sreesanth.

Cosmic co-incidence: Sreesanth, Piyush and Powar were all with the King’s XI Punjab last year. And guess which team was the most laughed at in season 3?

Bobbling Powar central to KTK

Published on April 23, 2011 in Latest. 12 Comments

Originally appeared in the Mirror – Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad on April 21

There’s certainly more method in the Kochi Tuskers Kerala’s (KTK) madness than they have so far been given credit for. Three successive wins against giants like Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata reflect the kind of preparation that other teams would do well to emulate.

News emerging from the camp revealed that the most important cog in the KTK wheel is not the captain or the coach or their rock star player Sreesanth. The man around whom the team has been built is Romesh Powar. The team believes that any batting line up can collapse with laughter at the mere sight of Powar. Even the jersey colours were selected to accentuate all different shades of Powar’s wide personality. An orange and violet Powar in an orange helmet is a sight hard to describe although not too difficult to make a mental picture of. Add his orange shades to that and the Indian version of David Beckham is almost complete. In the field, Powar isn’t expected to stop the ball. He just has to make token gestures like running in the direction of the ball. Powar in motion, somehow dragging the rest of his bobbling body with him, transfixes batsmen in the middle of the pitch leading to possible run out situations. And the dazzle of hallucinatory colours the batsman sees when facing Powar provide unexpected breakthroughs. Brilliant!

Like how the UPA government realised about the Left Front, KTK have also realised that Sreesanth is most useful when supporting from outside. From outside the ground, Sreesanth can give TV interviews before, in the middle and after the match, which is why he took to cricket in the first place. And they have also brought in Riya Sen to keep him amused. Although, a couple of pictures of Riya Sen and Wayne Parnell that were shared by them on twitter seemed to suggest that Ms Sen may go beyond her job description which could lead to a potential Bhajji-Symmo situation in the KTK dressing room.

Speaking of Bhajji and Symmo, the two have featured in the team only once in the first five matches. At first, Symonds was ruled out due to an injured shoulder. Junior Ambani’s personal fitness trainer’s barber has confirmed that Symonds fell off a barstool the night he arrived in India. And just as he recovered, Bhajji tried to injure him again. When Symonds entered his room late night, Bhajji, perched atop the room’s ceiling fan, pounced on him like a hungry leopard dealing a severe body blow – to himself. The dented ribcage caused by the impact with Symonds’ body ruled Bhajji out for at least a couple of matches.

Shane Warne took time off from promoting his range of tee-shirts and underwear to tweet to the world that he hadn’t got any cosmetic surgery done. He explained that generous use of moisturisers had turned him from Mr. Warne to Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame. Last seen, Shilpa Shetty was applying moisturiser on Raj Kundra. And half of the Kochi team owners, incidentally larger than the team itself, were squabbling outside the local chemist shop over fast dwindling stocks of moisturisers.

Finally, Lalit Modi is not in London anymore. He is now in Colombo masterminding Sri Lankan Cricket’s encounter with the BCCI. First, they asked their players to return on May 5 to prepare for English conditions by training in Sri Lanka. Next, they insisted that Malinga, who’s not even part of the team, to return. Such unreasonable and illogical demands can come from nobody in the cricketing world other than Lord Modi himself.

Game Theory and Cricket

Published on April 15, 2011 in Latest. 8 Comments

Originally published in Mirror – Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad Click Here

After a three-year balancing act, the applecart has finally been upset. The delicate equilibrium between the BCCI, other cricket boards, and players has been disturbed by the Sri Lankan sports ministry’s directive to its players to return from the IPL on May 5. This marks the end of the Nash Equilibrium masterminded by Lalit Modi when he had gotten all cricket boards to buy-in to the IPL.

As per Modi’s formula, it was in every party’s interest to make the best decision taking into account the others’ decision. Hence, boards allowed their players to play in the IPL while enjoying the financial benefits of the Champion’s League. But, a player could play in the IPL only if his board approved, thereby allowing the board to retain control. But, like in any Nash Equilibrium, it didn’t mean that each party stood to maximise from the agreement. In fact, the payoff could be significantly more for a player if he could somehow chart his own course. Some players like Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Andrew Symonds tried to do so, but with limited success because it was still in the BCCI’s interest to maintain status quo. The Sri Lankan situation is, however, very different.

Sri Lankan Shocker

The events in Sri Lanka following their world cup final loss came as a shock to everyone. The captain and vice-captain resigned and so did the selectors. The coach talked about distractions for the players. And the former captain hinted at political interference in team selection. Apparently, the team management had fought a bitter battle with the sports ministry over the exclusion of Sanath Jayasuriya and Chaminda Vaas. In the meantime, the Sri Lankan president felt humiliated at not having been treated like Julius Caesar on the day of the finals. He wanted to hit back at India. The ministry wanted to hit back at its senior players. And IPL became a soft target. It may turn out to be not such a soft target after all.

Prisoner’s Dilemma

How are the players likely to react? Cartelisation is said to be the best way to break Nash Equilibrium. Sangakarra, Jayawardene, Dilshan, Angelo Mathews, Suraj Randiv, Malinga, and Kulasekara form the core of the Sri Lankan national team. Still, the only way they can win this battle is by coming together. But, the cartel will be broken if even one of them defects. It’s a case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma and one can imagine a whole lot of discussions going on between these players.

The franchise owners won’t be happy about this. The aggrieved owners include a man of significant clout like Vijay Mallya and BCCI boss N Srinivasan. They are likely to support the players’ cartel.

The Sri Lankan ministry would like to form their own cartel with anti-BCCI boards like PCB and ECB. And, they would like to identify the weak link in the players’ cartel and lure him to defect. National captaincy could be a significant incentive and Dilshan could be their target. But, given that the ministry has acted on ego rather than financial considerations, they may be entering the battle with little preparation.

The next few weeks will see a lot of political drama. If Lalit Modi was still around, all this would have been played on twitter. Unfortunately, he is still doing it for Sachin and Anna Hazare from London. Most of this battle is now likely to be fought behind the scenes and we would only know of the eventual victor. My guess is that the BCCI will win again.

Who will be this year’s KKR?

Published on April 8, 2011 in Latest. 11 Comments

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

If you’ve managed to catch your breath after the world cup, you’d know that IPL starts today. Here’s what we can expect from some of the teams.

Kochi Tuskers Kerala
The most controversial new entrant to the IPL family is also the safest bet to be crowned this year’s KKR. The city name starting with K isn’t mere coincidence because other similarities make one believe that the universe has conspired to bring us a new KKR. The owners have no link with the city and the squad comprises of test specialists like VVS Laxman and proven match losers like Ravindra Jadeja and Brad Hodge. Plus, they have Brendon McCullum. The confusion in the camp started with the name. Indie Commandos made way for Kochi Tuskers when some players protested against going Commando. And they added Kerala, lest someone think there is a city in Italy called Kochi that produces someone who looks like Sreesanth.

Why they won’t be this year’s KKR? Because they don’t have Shahrukh Khan without whom the cameramen won’t know whom to focus on when the team starts losing.

Pune Warriors
Most likely to emerge as this year’s RCB. Subroto Roy can throw parties just like Vijay Mallaya. Plus, they have Jesse Ryder who seems to have solved his drinking problem by staying drunk so no one can tell the difference. They have a formidable line up in Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Murali Kartik, Graeme Smith and Nathan McCullum. And the reformed Yuvraj has sage-like qualities reminiscent of Kumble. However, just like RCB, they are unlikely to win because we still don’t know if Yuvi wants to do for Subroto what he did for Sachin.

Why they won’t be this year’s RCB? Because Subroto Roy is not Vijay Mallya. And his son isn’t dating Deepika Padukone.

Kolkata Knight Riders
Most likely to be this year’s DC. Like the Chargers who were forced to make home in Nagpur and Navi Mumbai, without Dada or Dinda in the team, KKR’s home matches may turn out to be more away than any other away match they play. But, in Gambhir, Yusuf Pathan, Eoin Morgan, Doeschate, Lee and Kallis, they have the firepower that makes them serious semi-final contenders. Shahrukh Khan has maintained a safe distance from the team. But, Laxmipathy Balaji is expected to fill the glamour gap created by his absence.

Why they won’t be this year’s DC? Because they won’t win.

Mumbai Indians
Most likely to be this year’s champions. Sachin, Bhajji, Rohit Sharma, Rayudu, Pollard, Malinga, Symonds form a team worthy enough to be a champion. Plus, after the Modi-backed Rajasthan Royals during the Lalit Modi era and the Srinivasan-owned Chennai Super Kings in the Srinivasan era, this clearly is Ambani-owned Mumbai Indians’ turn to win the IPL.

Why they won’t be this year’s champion? We still don’t know how the Symonds-Bhajji love affair will pan out. And if a WWE does break out and some players do intervene to defend Bhajji, Mumbai could end up with less than 11 fit players to choose from. Aila!

Chennai Super Kings
Most likely to be this year’s CSK. With that jersey and that anthem, it’s hard to be any other team than CSK. And MS Dhoni behind the stumps to Joginder Sharma bowling the last over is as core to CSK’s branding as Sivamani’s drum beating. Plus, Albie Morkel, Raina, Murali Vijay, Michael Hussey make this team a sure shot semi final contender.

Why they won’t be this year’s CSK? Because it’s Mumbai’s turn to win.

Nehra did it for Poonam

Published on April 3, 2011 in Latest. 11 Comments

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

The most important cricket match in a long time was threatening to go horribly wrong for India. Ashwin had just been replaced with Ashish Nehra. Experts were going ballistic, fans had started collecting stones, and Ashish Nehra was facing the scary prospect of becoming Piyush Chawla and Ashish Nehra rolled into one. But the man with the physics-defying motor action proved everyone wrong with two wickets, an economy rate of 3.3 and a fielding effort that had everyone rubbing their eyes in disbelief. How did he do it? A thorough investigation reveals the secrets.

1. Sreesanth’s tweet
On the eve of the match, Sreesanth tweeted ‘You have to believe in yourself when no one else does’. Now, if one can get past Sreesanth’s exterior, one may discover the Aristotle within him. Nehra is one of the few who has managed to do that. Sreesanth’s tweets have always had a profound impact on Nehra and, suddenly, he forgot all the jokes on him doing the rounds and was reinvigorated with new-found confidence. It was just the kind of confidence he needed to perform in front of Prime Ministers, the Gandhi family, a billion people, and Viveik Oberoi.

2. Astrology and Mandira Bedi
Bjorn Borg had once said that he handled pressure by sleeping, preferably not alone. Imran Khan advises sleeping pills before an important match. Nehra needed neither company nor pills to sleep. On the night before, Nehra had just switched on the TV where he saw a Hindi news channel declare India’s victory. “Dhoni ki kundali kar degi kamaal. Pakistan ko le doobega shani,” they declared vociferously. On another channel he watched Mandira Bedi tell Javed Miandad that India was going to win the next day. Surely, the stars and Mandira Bedi both couldn’t be wrong, he reckoned. He slept peaceful in the knowledge that all will be good the next day.

3. Breakfast
The next morning Nehra followed a breakfast routine that many believe to be a foolproof way to succeed. At breakfast, his eyes followed Sachin Tendulkar the way Shane Warne’s follows a pretty young thing. Sachin picked out a banana, so did Nehra. Sachin poured cold milk over his cornflakes, Nehra followed suit. Sachin crushed a walnut and bit into it. Nehra did the same, with scant regard for the most famous set of teeth in the cricketing world after Kamran Akmal’s. For Nehra, nothing would come between him and success in this match.

4. Dressing room argument
As India lost wickets, Nehra knew his batting would be called upon to take India to a defendable total. But, there was one problem. Munaf wanted to go in before him. Given that this decision could have a major impact on the match, tempers flared. Eventually, when Zaheer got out, Nehra rushed out into the ground before Munaf could react. In the end, Munaf too got his chance to go into the middle. “Chalo sabki batting aayi,” Nehra said offering an olive branch. But the argument pumped up both the speedsters. And it showed.

5. Cheerleader No. 1
“Do it for Poonam,” a spectator screamed at Nehra while he fielded at 3rd man. It was just the war cry he needed. Nehra remembered that the country wanted to win the cup, not just for Sachin but also for Poonam Pandey who’s promised to bare it all if India wins the cup. Nehra certainly didn’t want to be the one to deny the country such a momentous occasion in its history. And, the rest is history.

Agent Viru Week 7

Published on April 3, 2011 in Latest. 7 Comments

Written before the India Pakistan semi final for India Today magazine

A day before the grandaunt of all clashes at Mohali, Agent Viru and I discussed a matter of great national importance. With two hostile nations watching this was too important a day to mess around with. So, in accordance with the National Security Act, we decided not to divulge any inside information and rather focus on enemy camp. And, given that I had helped Viru during an especially painful period in his career when he found himself in the middle seat of an airplane with Ashish Nehra and Amit Mishra on either side, he put me in touch with Double Agent Akhtar, codenamed Double A. And, within an hour, I found myself peacefully walking through the security cordon and into the Pakistan team hotel.

I exited from the elevator on the 4th floor and walked down the corridor when I passed by a room with the door, probably accidentally, open. Inside, Misbah-ul-haq was leaning over a copy of National Geographic magazine. My heart went out to the man, clearly the most cerebral player in the Pakistan team who, if fate had dealt a better hand, could so easily have been the Rahul Dravid of Pakistan cricket. Here he was, like our own Jammy, keeping his mind constructively occupied, I thought. A closer inspection, though, made me quickly change my opinion because what appeared to be Einstein Misbah reading about African tribes was actually just Misbah sketching underwear on natives’ pictures. Sorry, Rahul.

I continued towards Room no. 420 where I was greeted by Double A, an 86 kg man-beast of pure muscle. Once I got over his imposing presence and the Manchester-meets-Rawalpindi twang, I realised that he was ranting about being overlooked after being the man solely responsible for getting Pakistan into the semi-finals. Double A claims that the kick he gave up Kamran Akmal’s backside at a team huddle had altered the wicket-keeper’s bio-mechanics, changing his style from that of a clapping toy monkey with drum cymbals for hands to that of a football goalkeeper. To Double A, this was as important to Pakistan’s world cup campaign as the emergence of homo erectus to the evolution of humankind. “And what do they do? Fine me $2000 for this service,” he said disconsolately. “Look at India and look at us. We have no team spirit,” Double A screamed. “I have announced my retirement and so far not one player has said that he wants to win the world cup for me.”

Shahid Afridi had banned his players from watching Indian news channels for what he thought was negative coverage. In fact, he was conducting surprise raids on players’ rooms to check what channels they were watching. During one of the raids, he caught a bunch of misty-eyed players glued to a Hindi news channel. Shockingly, Afridi too was hypnotically drawn to the programme on air titled ‘Jung ke jalwe mein ek maa ke do bete – Hindustan aur Pakistan’.

Double A told me that from the time they have landed in India, the team has been sending SOS signals to Shoiab Malik. Several players, Afridi included, had been calling him daily, sometimes multiple times a day. While Double A had no clue, I guessed it must be because Malik was captain when Pakistan had beaten India in Mohali in 2007. Late at night I shared this piece of inside information with Agent Viru. “Isn’t Shoiab Malik married to Sania Mirza?” he asked. “Saaley sudhrenge nahin. They must be asking for tips on how to land Indian girls.”