So I spent my Pongal vacation and then some in a blissfully TV and Internet-free journey deep South, making a round of the Thanjavur temples and reconnecting with my roots (although I did include the fortunes of the Indian team in my prayers... >.> What can I say? You can take the cricket away from the fangirl, but...). I came back, eager and curious to know (among other things) the latest tamasha goings-on in cricket. Luckily, cricinfo and the cricket blogosphere obliged!
And as a tribute to my Anatomy Professor's incessant demands for a "concise presentation with bullet points", I will do so here, sans the long rambling paragraphs! (even if I can't guarantee the absence of Random Capitalisation and the even Randomer Rambling in Parantheses of Doom)
- Mumbai won the Ranji Trophy. Uh, ok. I'm still not entirely sure of my reaction to this one (except, Mumbai again??) but hey, good for them. I could possibly insert some meta about how great this is post 26/11, but that's too pretentious, even for me, and I'm not even a Mumbaikar. Plus, I still haven't got over my disappointment at Tamil Nadu not making the final despite having a great team and being presented the opportunity to do so on a golden platter (and yeah, I still hate you, Dinesh Kaarthick).
- Talking of the Tamil Nadu team, apparently I missed an episode of Coffee with Anu (a local rip-off of Koffee with Karan, which could be a rip-off of some random American show, I don't know) which featured Badrinath, Balaji and Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan! (oh Fate, why must you be so cruel?) Based on second-hand accounts of the show, apparently Kumble watches/used to watch Tamil megaserials, Muralitharan loves Rajnikanth and Matthew Hayden had some pretty entertaining nicknames in the CSK dressing room! So. Much. Joy.
- Oh, and of course, Matthew Hayden's retirement! My first reaction was a giggle and a muttered "about time!" but hey. I never really disliked the guy, and enjoyed watching him bat in full flow. Plus, this means he is available to CSK for the whole of the next IPL season. Which is excellent. \o/
- I also caught up with the whole furore over the ICC ranking of the All-Time Cricketing greats (or you know, whatever). Oh noes! Tendulkar at 26! Akram at 59! Who really cares?! (Except for papers like The New Indian Express to go about with huge headlines saying "10dulkar not in Top Ten" or some other shit like that with a blown up picture of a serious Tendulkar ducking a bouncer or whatever; come on, NIE!) I'm probably going to sound like a hypocrite, but why the insecurity? Anybody with half a brain would place Tendulkar above the likes of Hayden on any all-time list, we know that. (Which, huh, doesn't say much about the "ICC committee" that made up this completely unnecessary list, does it).
- Bangladesh giving Sri Lanka a deserved ass-whupping the ODI tri-series in Bangladesh! Despite everything, however, SL mananged to scrape through a victory in the final, and even that took once-or-twice in a lifetime batting heroics from Muralitharan! I'm loving it. And Shakib-al Hasan? You've found yourself a new fangirl.
- So we're off to play a five match ODI series in SL later this month and extra Test against New Zealand, apparently. Hm, all good, all good! Looking forward to seeing the Boys in Blue back in action. Will be crossing my fingers for a Balaji-selection, though that's not likely to happen. Hopefully Badrinath and Rohit will get opportunities too and capitalise on them.
I guess that's about it (for now), then. Funny that a lot of stuff that I mentioned actually had nothing to do with cricket played on-field. But hey. Business as usual, right?
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