Sweetest form of carnage

Dear Men in Blue,

Congratulations on the series win. Also? This time might actually be one of the few times I've thoroughly enjoyed being proved wrong. Although the Men in White might prove to be a different proposition, so. you know.

And, God help me, I'm getting used to the new colour.

Yours in confused congratulation,
M.

Dear Peter McGlashan,

Forget the Pathans and the Husseys and the McCullums, you and your sister are the coolest pair of siblings in international cricket. 'Nuff said.

Yours in enthusiasm,
M.

Dear Indian bowlers,

Please to be getting your backs into it. At least, you know, in the Tests - where you know, batting's not always going to be around to save the day.

And also, Ishant? Please to be watching where you land that front foot of yours.

Munaf? The pitch is 22 yards. Not 25.

Yours in some concern,
M.

Dear Dhoni,

You know that thing aside from captaincy and batting that you are pencilled into the team for? Yeah, that one. The one that's been steadily deteriorating over the past six months.

Please to be regaining the pretty skills with the gloves. The team can't afford you not to.

Yours in rare admonishment,
M.

Dear Daniel Vettori,

You may be the coolest New Zealander I know (and I know a surprising number of New Zealanders), but the Indian batsmen are now riding a whole new different level of Cool. It might be a whole new world of Cool. A different parallel universe of Cool. An astral plane of...

Now I forgot what I really wanted to say.

Yours in supposed sympathy,
M.

Dear Sehwag,

Please to be continuing with your awesomeness. Anything else I can say only cheapens the joy of watching you tear the opposition attack to pieces, chew them, spit them on the sidewalk and then grind them into the cement with steel-tipped boots for good measure.

Yours in speechless awe,
M.

Dear VirunGauti,

You are not an opening pair anymore, you are a phenomenon. Please to be occuring more often.

Yours in exhilarating anticipation,
M.

Dear Mithali Raj,

To have scored 75* in a team total of 137/7 in a World Cup game - which the team went on to win by 35 runs, by the way - makes you about seven and a half different kinds of awesome. Please to be continuing lifting the India Women's batting.

Yours in deep appreciation,
M.

Dear Person who's managed to read this far,

Thank you for bearing with this drivel.

Yours in deep, deep gratitude,
M.

Here's to an ODI whitewash and a Test series win in Downer Under!

Don't sit on them, South Africa

'Cos, those laurels? Are pretty damn fragile. You know, all the leaves and whatever.

Just heard that Australia defeated South Africa to take an unassailable lead in the Test series. In South Africa. This, people, be a comeback of monumental proportions. Just two months ago, having suffered abject humiliation at the hands of the Saffers in their own backyard, a slew of retirements, losses, Boneheaded selection and equally Boneheaded captaincy, the Aussies looked to be in ultimate Decline. Hell, they even struggled to defeat New Zealand at home a month ago.

Now, though?

Now?

This Hughes dude is scoring two Test centuries in only his second Test, Mitchell Johnson is making the South African batsman quake in their boots, and the entire Australian team with its much-maligned captain, 'out-of-form' stars, posse of greenhorned debutants, is making the so-much-more fancied South Africans pay.

This be Epic, people. While I have never actually thought that Aussies couldn't bounce back to a semblance of their old selves, I never even imagined that it would be this soon, and against South Africa, the very team that not so long ago was responsible for brutally stripping away the Aussie Aura of Invincibility that the Indians had already started to peel away. Poetic justice, even.

Congratulations, Ricky Ponting, to you and your mates. I would so place that laurel on your head right now, but it seems to be have been crushed by quite a few South African rears. Oh well, I'm sure you'll be just as happy with the shiny mace that the ICC wants to give you.

I've not wanted to be a lot of things in my life, and right now, a South African cricket fan is one of them.

Happy Birthday, Parthiv!

... So I have a confession to make.

Back in 2003, as a hormonal 13 year old fledgling, I'd just begun to take to cricket. For some reason, right from the beginning, even before I was fully aware of what a wicketkeeper did, my favourite player in any team would be the wicketkeeper (all English keepers were and are exceptions). Always.

So there was this dude who was keeping for the Indian team, right? The little one, all of 17, who looked remarkably like he could be my classmate, and as I grew a few years older, he could be my little brother's classmate? Well, I fell for him, chubby cheeks, Wide Eyed Innocent Stare of Doom, adorably diminutive stature and all.

Parthiv Patel was my first celebrity crush.

And this happens to be the first time I'm admitting that publicly, by the way.

I remember being furious when he was dropped after a patch where his wicketkeeping deteriorated into atrocious levels, to be replaced by the likes of Dinesh Kaarthick and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Nobody could replace Parthiv, I fumed. These replacements will be no good.

Of course, exactly six months later, my affections were firmly centered around a certain long-haired stocky wicketkeeper, but hey. It was bound to happen, right? And I was fourteen.

I still follow Parthiv's exploits now, though; like a big sister I know how to be I feel proud of his achievements, pray for his continued success. Come on. Just look at that face. You can practically feel those parental/older-sibling instincts shooting up.

You can imagine how insanely delighted I was when I learnt that both Dhoni and Parthiv would be playing for Chennai Super Kings. I honestly would never consider atheism again, as obviously there is Somebody up there listening to my secret, coveted desires.

Why this confession? Well today, the little dude turns 24. Tomorrow, he celebrates his first wedding anniversary.

Happy birthday and best wishes for your continued success, Parthu!

This is PATHETIC.

NZ 156/0 after 20 overs in their chase of 393.

Two easy chances dropped.

Ryder and McCullum batting like they're playing against Bermuda 'A's reserves' 2nd XI.

Misfields galore.

Poor bowling.

Pathetic.

This team doesn't deserve its line-up of surreally good batsmen.

Good Lord

Sachin Tendulkar.

Now I truly get why so many adore you. Not really before.

Please to be batting forever.

Couldn't even imagine

... that it would come to this.

Following the Lahore attack, there is now a distinct possibility that the IPL might not happen this year, with several foreign players and officials expressing their discomfort at the security situation in the subcontinent. It's not just about Lahore either, apparently. The unease existed right from the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

Now even the 2011 World Cup, scheduled to be held in the subcontinent, is under doubt.

I want to be cynical of the players expressing their doubts, I want to assert that something like Lahore can never happen in India, I want to sneer and laugh and pray. But yesterday's incident proved that cricket is far from immune to terrorism, and I still get the chills everytime I involuntarily imagine the Indian team in the Sri Lankans' position. Could this sort of thing happen in India? Maybe maybe yeah. Well.

Hell yeah.

Already there was talk of an IPL postponement before all of this, with the Home Minister suggesting the IPL clashing with the general elections might be a bad thing. While methinks he may have a point, I merely laughed and laughed when I first heard of it, because hello? Postponement of IPL might as well be translated into cancellation of the season, and that? Was so not going to happen.

Except now it actually might.

The players' attitudes (outside of India, particularly outside the subcontinent) regarding the IPL have always baffled, amused and mostly irritated me (because, hello, gleefully signing up for large amounts of money on one hand, and then taking some sort of perverse pleasure in extolling the Evils of Indian Money in Cricket on the other? So not on), and with this thrown into the mix, things have gotten a whole lot more complicated.

I can only somehow naively hope for restoration of some normalcy, because, dammit I want to see some IPL action this summer. I don't want to see cricket as a whole suffering from this, because the subcontinent? A pretty large chunk of land providing a pretty large chunk of cricket watching and playing population.

I don't even know anymore, and damn if I'm not getting overly melodramatic.

Not for the first time, I follow and love this game way more than I should be.

But... damn.

And so it happens

We won today. Dhoni top-scored, man of the match, NZ steam-rollered. I should be ecstatic, but I'm not.

Why?

LAHORE, Pakistan, March 3 (Reuters) - Six members of the Sri Lankan cricket squad were wounded when around a dozen gunmen attacked their bus as it drove under police escort on Tuesday to a stadium in the Pakistani city of Lahore, witnesses and officials said.

Lahore Police chief Habib-ur-Rehman said five people were killed in the attack by the unidentified gunmen, who fired AK 47s and rockets and hurled grenades as the team bus drove to the 60,000-seater Gaddafi stadium in the eastern city.

Sri Lanka's sports minister said five players and an assistant coach were wounded, two of whom were being treated in hospital.

Horrible. The Sri Lankan team went to Pakistan when nobody else was willing to, as a gesture of peace, to prove to the rest of the world that Pakistan was indeed a safe place to play cricket. And this is what they get. Sick.

Thankfully none of the players were seriously wounded, but six policemen died, taking the brunt of the attack.

Nobody's going to think of setting foot in Pakistan for cricket for some time now.

Just, just. So sad. And so sick.

My prayers are with those affected.