Over a last month or so, we all have been witness
to something that is called as mental disintegration and annihilation of a
breed of human beings known as bowlers, or as some people like to call it -
The IPL. This season, just as its predecessors, gave plenty of reasons for any bowler
to blame his parents as to why they didn’t enroll him in some career counseling
session or hand him an H.C Verma or an S.Chand at the right time so that today, he could have
atleast pretended to have some self-esteem, respect and adulation in the
society.
This season,just as in every other season of IPL, batsmen scored at strike-rates that resembled more like the over-all collections of a typical Himesh Rreshamiya movie. 200-300-400....(figures being in INR). But their were two matches in particular, that left me typing OMG, WTF and BHENCHO to a lot of my friends on watsapp.
The first one, was the match between
Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals, which was eventually decided based on the
net run rate. This match is soon going to be included as a case study by Harvard Business
Review for all those who are pursuing Ph.D in statistics.This match put more brains to Maths in 5
minutes than 10th and 12th board exams put in an entire
year. Meanwhile, BJP has decided to appoint an SIT that is going to explain the
Maths involved behind this game to Smriti Irani.
The net run-rate saga is just one
of them, but Cricket has always had rules which have amazed me .For instance,
the dumbfuck Duckworth-Lewis rule. Now of all games, in cricket, where the
value of a duck is zero, the rule that is so central to its functioning is
Duckworth!
What
this game also saw, was a certain Aditya Tare pulling of his shirt and doing a
bit of Sourav Ganguly at the end of the match and showing off his mildly hairy
chest to the world. And if reports are to be believed, Sourav Ganguly, on
being asked about it had this to say-
“I saw him remove his shirt on
television and was struck by his technique, so I asked my wife to come look at
him. Now I never saw myself remove my shirt out of sheer embarrassment, but I
felt that this player is removing it with a style similar to mine, and she
looked at him on television and said yes, there is a similarity between the
two...his torso, his nipples, his hair ... it all seemed to gel!-“
Whilst there was jubilation in
Dada’s family, it was an atmosphere of despair in that of Anil Kapoor’s. Seeing
a mildly hairy chested Aditya Tare, broke
Anil Kapoor’s heart. This stark disparity in the chest hair made him realize
that he is finally getting old and how instead of "acting" in movies like Mission Impossible, it's better if he actually takes up a mission impossible, which is of course to teach his daughter how to act.
A tear rolled down his eyes, onto his cheeks, through his neck and onto his chest, after which…well...it just got lost. A few Malyasian Slumdog millionaire fans, expressed their grief for Anil Kapoor’s lost tear which according to them pulled off an MH-370.
The second match, which left me out of breath was the virtual semi-final between CSK and Punjab. This match was reminiscent of the good old days; it took us back in time and replayed something that we were all so used to- the barbaric smashing and thwarting of Ashish Nehra. And just like in old days, after every 4 or a 6 that was hit of him; he followed it up with a frown that reeked desperation. So much so that he could have easily qualified to be a poster boy for any of the “mai pareshaan tha” Telebrands product. Ya, something like this
What this game also gave us, was a rollback in time into the
land of Nawab of Nafafgarh. An old, bespectacled Sehwag in all his pomp and
glory. You see once, the Indian team had a Nawab who played with one eye, today we have one
who plays with 4. Cricket is growing, India is growing.
Generally an old bespectacled man dictating terms over
Chennai seems like a job cut out of Mr. Karunanidhi, but that day, it was Sehwag.
On being asked what was it that infused such spark and energy in his innings,
Sehwag said- that his son said to him something a few days ago which made
Sehwag go nuts on the day of the match. His son said to him, –
“dad, my friends make fun of me because you don’t score runs.” Interestingly,
these were the exact words said by Shrdha Kapoor to her father, minus the last
word ‘runs’.
Dads should not listen to their kids. They are stupid
anyways. And why can’t Sehwag and Shakti
Kapoor behave like normal middle-class Indian dads?
Son- “Dad, why
don’t you buy me a bike?”
Middle class Indian Dad-“Bike?
You want a bike? When I was your age I walked on foot to my college. I used to
have 10 Rs. In my pocket and I made a living out of it. We ain’t like your rich
friends; we are middle-class, now go to your room.”
Son- “Umm…..dad we
are middle class, I don’t have my own room.” #PitajiBurn
If Sehwag’s blitz wasn’t enough, Suresh Raina followed suit
with an innings that looked like EA Sports Cricket 2007 being played on easy
mode with the bouncer option disabled. Since we are on Raina, here’s a joke
which you can add to your walks into a
bar collection
Q) Raina walks into a bar. Oh wait, he can’t. Why?
A) Can’t face
bouncers :(
But eventually, it was the best
team that was crowned the champion. I was whole heartedly rooting for a Punjab
win. After all, it was the first time in 7 years that Punjab players had a
chance to make their owner believe that perhaps quitting Bollywood was not the
worst decision of her life. Let’s just say Priety Zinta got Kal-ho-na-ho’ed yet
again. She came so close to getting what she so badly wanted and then, just as
in the movie, Shahrukh gave her a Bamboo
Say what you may but despite all it's flaws, IPL has it's charm and it does bring out some great cricketing talent and a lot of you would agree. After all, didn’t KKR deserve to
win? To pull off 9 wins in a row is no mean feat. To go
berserk for 9 nights back to back, is true champion stuff. Oh but I’m
forgetting. It was Kolkata, and going bananas for 9 nights in a row at-least
once in a year is a proprietary right of every Kolkatan, isn’t it?
