David Warner is what folks in Delhi call a kulhaadi player. That roughly translates as "axe" but a better translation to capture the flavor of that word would be "chopper" or "hacker". "Bludgeon" would be an even better description of Warner. I'm not sure that Warner will ever, ever, make it into the Australian test or ODI team, but his place with the Daredevils seemed assured, especially if he continues to make it easy for folks to apply local lingo to him.
I have never seen a pitch as green as the one on display in today's Delhi Daredevils v. Kings XI game - in Delhi. Harsha Bhogle is right; someone should have taken a photo of this for posterity. Why can't we see this in a test?
As the third season of the IPL approaches, I've become increasingly convinced that the only way I could get interested in it was if the following conditions were met:
I should be the owner of a nice, large-screen television, preferably HD with a quality broadcast to boot
I should be back in India
I should watch the games in the company of a few like-minded friends
My cricket-watching environment, solitary, often with headphones on, sitting at my desk, looking at a computer screen, is only conducive to pursuing well-established passions like test matches. One-day internationals struggle in this setting, and it is only major tournaments that manage to retain my interest (in this regard T20 does well for I watched the World Cup last year with keen interest).
So the IPL will come and go, and while I will tune in for some of the games, I'm not optimistic that it will evoke any significant reactions in me. I almost wish IPL had started off as a purely domestic endeavor; I think I would have been quite pumped up about cheering for Delhi then (after all, there'd be the chance that we could stick it to Mumbai, and who wouldn't want that?).
Which leads to me another thought. What if the IPL, instead of starting off as a grand international league, had simply started off as an Indian domestic competition, on a smaller scale with a little less money (but just enough to make it worthwhile for the Indian international stars to play)? Perhaps the league might not have attracted the glamor, the big bucks, the attendant hoopla. Perhaps. But would the interest have been so minimal that it wouldn't have flourished? I don't think so. Given that, I suspect it would have eased into the world's calendar a little more smoothly. And perhaps in the second or third seasons, IPL owners/organizers could have announced that teams were allowed to retain one or two international players, who might have been attracted because of the decent money available for a few weeks work. Perhaps the IPL would have made a different sort of impact on the cricketing world's consciousness then?
What would the world's attitude to the IPL, to Modi, to Indian cricket, to the BCCI, have been then? What would the average Indian fan's reaction been? I'm not sure what the answers are, and I invite your thoughts and reactions.
Right. I know this is a cricket blog. But today, I'm going to hijack this space and talk about that other Indian sport. You know, the one in which we've won tons of Olympic gold medals: hockey?
I've never talked about hockey on this blog because, well, like I said, it's a cricket blog. But I love hockey. I've only played for one school team in my life and that was hockey in my 12th year. I played all the positions on the right flank: full-back, half, forward. I used a Karachi Blues stick, a loan for the season from my coach. It was a heavy monster but it helped getting those speedy passes up or across the line. I never quite mastered extensive dribbling, but I ran pretty quickly and moved the ball reasonably well. All in all, playing hockey was a true passion that last school year and had it not been for an idiotic coach, I would have enjoyed it even more.
Before coming to the US, it was no exaggeration to say that I was a devoted hockey fan, with fairly nerdy take on the game. I followed the Indian team's fortunes with a great deal of interest and went through all the roller-coaster emotions that Indian hockey fans had to deal with in the 1980s, in tournaments like the Champions Trophy and the Olympics (it hasn't really changed in recent years). And yes, I do remember that Pargat Singh goal against Germany. (I even had a domestic favorite: Indian Airlines, which at one time, featured the entire Indian forward line!).
Sadly, I've hardly been able to get any coverage of the game since moving here. I've only caught up with hockey news belatedly and have not managed to watch a single game live. But, while living in Sydney, I did go to see one game at the Olympics: India's disastrous game against Poland, a late equalizer in which knocked India out of the semis. It rained hard that night; I was soaked, and my misery was complete.
Well, the World Cup is on now. And India beat Pakistan 4-1 in the opening game (yup, the rivalry is as intense as the cricketing one, so the score is a big deal; indeed, the television ratings for this game kicked some ODIs' arses). As you can see,
Sehwag thinks we should all go for the games and cheer on the lads. I wish I could. It's in my old home-town, at a stadium I know well. So, let me know if you know how I could watch the game on the net, and if you're in Delhi, go cheer on the boys. India play Australia today.
