Zip, Zap, Zoom

... and other such onomatopoeic expressions of 'where the hell did all that time go."

'Cause, really? I could've sworn that the Ill-Fated ODI series against Australia finished just now, and already we're in the final Test of a series against Sri Lanka, Dhoni scored his first Test century since the Stone Age (and it is a little scary when I mean that literally), everybody else is helping themselves to centuries apiece, Sreesanth, frickin' Sreesanth, back in the team and producing match-winning performances (not that, of course, I have anything against him or nothin'), India won its 100th ever Test win, and really, what?

Whatever happened to the deliciously slow build-up to Test matches, all that speculation, all that gathering of momentum. Conidering how much resources and how many brain cells are expended on each Test, you'd want to make each of them actually count, yeah?

Honestly? I can't blame Gambhir putting attending his sister's marriage before playing the third Test. After all, your sister gets married only once (hopefully).

Also, it means Murali Vijay gets to open, which, yay! I'd just spent a lot of time arguing with a friend a couple of days ago about how it was certain that Wasim Jaffer would make it ahead of Vijay -- experience, home ground, whatever -- but I'm super-happy he's gotten another chance at wearing the Test cap for India. Hopefully this time he'll get more than a couple of gritty forties and a Run-Out of Awesome.

Also? R Ashwin and Ashoke Dinda in the Twenty20 and ODI squads, leaving out Ishant Sharma. I heartily approve.

I was going to give some -- ostensibly -- deep insight about the first day of play at Mumbai, but then I came across this:



My first reaction was, "Holy hell, that's unhygienic!"

And then it all sunk in and a small part of me died inside.