Diary of a World Cup fan – Page 2

While Akmal dropped advertising contracts, Amla was not one to miss out

Mar 8 – It is International Woman’s day today. And it just wasn’t Kamran Akmal’s day in their match against New Zealand. Goes to show that Akmal is not an international woman. QED.

Mar 9 – India opted to persist with Chawla in their game against Netherlands. I’m convinced Ashwin is not in Dhoni’s fantasy team. Sehwag had said at the start of the tournament that he wanted to bat for 50 overs. He lied – there is just one way he wants to bat. India huffed and puffed before finally winning. I think they believe in the motto – “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re occupying too much space”.

Mar 10 – I miss Ravindra Jadeja in the team. With so many Akmal jokes doing the round, India definitely missed a trick here.

Mar 11 – Bangladesh upset England. Were the Bangladeshis happy or what – especially after this victory came in the wake of their embarrassment against the West Indies a week ago. What scenes of joy – if at that moment you would have told their cricketers and fans that A Raja was going to be made the telecom minister of Bangladesh, they wouldn’t have bothered.

Sonia Shenoy explaining the economics of how Dhoni plays for the country

Mar 12 – “South Africa prevail in a battle of nerves” is how a headline in Cricinfo went. Well, this is something as rare as a Vivek Oberoi hit. Now hindsight is a wonderful weapon, providing fodder to detractors since eternity. Having said that, I think Dhoni should have given the last over to Bhajji. Today, Dhoni asked his team mates to play for the country and not for the crowd. True patriot this Dhoni is – played in the cash-rich IPL and sought rest in the international assignment in Zimbabwe immediately afterwards – only so that he could earn more money increasing the GDP of the nation, and pay more taxes thus reducing the fiscal deficit.

Mar 13 –Deepika Padukone thinks India can still stage a fight back. Phew, thank God. Billions of fans need not worry now.

Mar 14 – An article on Sachin (a good one at that) doing the rounds of the internet. To warrant more hits, it falsely claimed it was written by Harsha Bhogle. These people surely know what sells. This gives me a great idea – irrespective of what happens in this tournament, all news editors should collectively decide to only print/broadcast stories of India winning this World Cup. It would meet more purposes than one. If that actually happens, remember you read it first here.

Mar 17 – Shoaib Akhtar ‘fixes’ his retirement. The World Cup will be the last time people will see him in Pakistani colours. Come to think of it, Akhtar could actually don English colours given the unpredictable brand of cricket they’ve endorsed in this series. England took the perfect revenge from the Bangladeshis in their match against the West Indies today – it was like giving them an address to a room supposedly housing Penelope Cruz; and when their hopes were at its peak, having Dolly Bindra open the door.

The Cup that counts… and multiplies

Mar 19 – This tournament trolls on. The minnows will be disallowed from the next edition, but for now ICC can at least ban Sanjay Manjrekar from commentary if they are to maintain spectator interest. Meanwhile, Australia’s non-losing World Cup streak was ended by Pakistan today. The Super Moon had something in store for us, after all.

Mar 20 – Ok I have a confession to make – when I first saw the Ujala commercial where a boy walks despite being given not out by the umpire, and later goes on to become Sachin Tendulkar, I smirked to myself. There are thousands of things for which I am a Sachin fan (devotee?), but walking was not one of them – until today (there is of course one school of thought that says a batsman is right in not walking – I won’t get into that debate). But today I felt a sense of pride seeing him walk. Sachin Tujhe Salaam. India completed a victory against the West Indies. Even though we have only lost one match in the league stages, and that too in the last over, we have lots of things to iron out. Buck up team India, after all this is the Cup that counts.

Mar 20/21 midnight – So after one month and 42 matches, we know that the teams who have qualified for the quarter finals are West Indies, Pakistan, India, Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, England and South Africa. Wow, who would have thought that would happen! Looking back, the only time Sehwag really came good was in the match against Bangladesh when the revenge card was played. Can someone please remind him that India did not win the 2003 World Cup only because of the defeat to Australia?

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