Virender Sehwag quits cricket to concentrate on his personal life

First Jatman threatened to quit Delhi for Haryana.

Then he quit the team India vice captaincy and declared he had no captaincy aspirations.

Then they made him captain Rest of India for the Irani trophy.

So, what does he do, he quits the Delhi Daredevils captaincy to concentrate on his batting.

Beware BCCI, before you mess with this man again.

The feeling.

I grab at the virgin white vest, that should do nicely for Bored Cricket Crazy Indians’ first Bored Day.

It’s weird, but it does feel like a person’s birthday. It could even be mine. I think it is mine. It’s tough to compare the exact feeling, for it’s been 10 months since my birthday. It’s been one year since Bored was born.

Last night I thought Bored came to be at 12.05 AM. That gave me 7 more minutes to repost the first post.

It was a little post, but I think that was, and is what Bored Cricket Crazy Indians is to me.

It asks, what is cricket to you? And if cricket is to you what it is to you, and you say it, and know it, and love it with enough honesty, there can be some crazy fucking beauty to it.

It can be one of the last scenes from American Beauty, where you are Kevin Spacey, and you’re shot dead, but you die with a smile. You die knowing you loved cricket, and you’re alright.

Only here it’s an Indian beauty. And that is why I've always said, the only grammar at BCC! is Cricket. Teri Maa Ki!

And that gets better, when you have Q from Pakistan, and Damith from Sri Lanka. And you realise, this is the subcontinent, this is our cricket. Cricket with a tadka.

But then you can get greedy, and you want the whole world to write here. To wake up not knowing who's written what about where and when.

Maybe you will too. I want your thoughts, your words.

And that Bored Anthem keeps ringing in my head, most of the time.

And then I’m logging in, and what do I write, Bored Day…instead of Bored Cricket…

It’s a rush. Man, it’s our Happy Bored Day.



Click here to get into our Bored Day Party!

What on earth did WADA have to say to BCCI

Hi Bored Friends,

WADA (World Anti Doping Agency) spoke up to us at BCC! (Bored Cricket Crazy Indians). Basically they liked what we stood for.

You can call it a first, exclusive, and all that filthy hard sell stuff the media hurls at us.

Here you go, WADA's Director of Communications, Julie Masse gives BCC!s Bored Member, RajaB the dope on testing.

yawns,
naked cricket,
(bored member)

PS: Pls spread this dope around

WADA: what indian cricketers were like as kids

More WADA humour here

Why the Indian cricketers don't want to sign WADA's whereabouts clause:

"they can't"

Everything you wanted to know about WADA but didn't know whom to ask - here you go.

Plus different WADA POVs, and even some humour

What's your cricket story?

What’s your cricket story?
Are you Labour or are you Tory?
What’s your cricket story?
Are you John Major or are you minor?
Are you winner or you whiner?
What’s your cricket story?
Are you a highflyer or are you coalminer?
Are you a thumbprint or extravagant signer?
What’s your cricket story?
Are you a snacker or are you diner?
Are you lipstick or are you eyeliner?
What’s your cricket story?

It doesn’t matter who, why, when or what you are
Whether you’re rich or don’t drive a car
Whether you’re pretty or like Seal have a big scar
Whether you live in the open or love life in a jar

What’s your cricket story?
Is it lost or part of the glory?
What’s your cricket story?
Is it musical like Jethro Tull’s Bouree?
What’s your cricket story?
Was it conjured around a fire on Lodi?
What’s your cricket story?

You bored without cricket baby?
What’s your cricket story?
You bored with cricket baby?
What’s your cricket story?

What's your Cricket Story for BoredCricketCrazyIndians to bcciwrites@gmail.com

The Greg Chappell Foundation Cricket Match

I smelt my way to this game. There was a smell of burning dead rubber.

The sun was going down, as was any sense of fair play.

The pitch was longer than I recalled. It was muddier, not even a blade of 7 o’ clock grass. The fielders were murky, far off, on either long on or long off.

I was still at a second slip, not that I was fielding.

Then this guy jogs in a few paces to bowl. Why, I will never know.

So, he jogs in, and then underarms the ball.

Somewhere else, Sehwag bites away at Greg Chappell. Why, I will never know.

Maybe he is naïve. Maybe he is meant to say stuff. Will he be gagged, I doubt it.

Sehwag, every now and then, when you least expect, shoots his mouth. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. Or was this BCCI’s ventriloquist act?

Back to the game: That underarm ball.

The batsman, before delivery was already half way down the pitch.

It doesn’t matter. That flat-liner of a ball is a dead loss.

To make good contact, get elevation, he’ll need to hit it out of the bowler’s hand.

I’m asking the huddle around the tree wicket, is this a surrah (under-arm ball) match? It is. Three overs each. Wait until dark. And play the Greg Chappell Foundation match.

Before that, it’s Ricky’s number – they play for money. Ten bucks a guy.

The game gets over. I playact like some cricket hobo, starved for strike.

Make him bowl round arm. One more, boy! C’mon, one more, boy.

And they’re about to start the GC-Ricky match now – underarm money.

I produce a camera. They produce a spectacle. Straight out of Lord of the flies.

Abusing each other’s mothers, sisters and grabbing at each other for some camera space.

I look forward to play with these guys tomorrow.

Will head out with ten bucks. But leave my manners behind.




Bored? Check out the new Bored Guests at BoredCricketCrazyIndians.com (BCC!)

Two pints

Round at the old pub
With a lone light
Sits a lone man
With two pints
One for him
One for you

He’s been waiting so long
But you never did come along
He’s been waiting so long
But you wanted to go on strong
But you were weak

How do you know
Your time has come
The umpire knows
Your time has come
He gives you out more than in
And then you know
Your luck’s running thin
You’re out of time
You’re out of lives
You’re waiting for one lucky break
But this is one bad run you cannot shake
You’re waiting

Just like
Round at the old pub
With a lone light
Sits a lone man
With two pints
One for him
One for you

He's waiting.

Haydos, go have that drink with JL.


Why Bored Cricket Crazy Indians.com (BCC!) is still offline

Forty five minutes that shook the cricket world

Bored Cricket Crazy Indians (BCC!) have been offline for 45 mts.

The last time BCC! was offline this long was before it was online.

It's a strange feeling.

After the Satyam fiasco, you may feel that the blog books were cooked up.

And there really weren't any blogs there.

Assure you that is not true.

They were real. Just as Mendis, Shakib, Warner are unreal.

As for the timing, it couldn't have been worse.

Smack in the middle of a Bangla-Zim-Lanka tri-series.

And a Ranji final. But fuck, Sachin made a duck.

Did that prompt us to go off? You'll never know.

Hopefully we should be back for Agarkar's innings.

This time he hasn't made a duck so he can't get a pair.

Of course there's a T20 game on Tuesday.

We've spoken to friends in high and low places to influence the game's timing.

The Delhi Daredevils are in touch with David Warner.

Everything should be resolved soon.

And if it isn’t just remember it’s only been 45 minutes.

Patience dear.

Dance Cricket

Blindfold me
Blindfold you
Shut your eyes
Shut my eyes
Shut your world
Shut my world
Open your world
Open my world

Even if you can’t open your eyes, baby

Explode!

This is not cricket
This is dance
This is dance cricket
Dance cricket, dance

Hold the stumps steady
Can’t see you, can sense you
Calling out: ‘Batsman ready!?’
Bowling underarm!
SURAAAH!

Dance cricket, dance

A thousand drums bowled in a ball
Almost like a bowler’s mating call
I can hear you, I can hear you
Wide of leg stump
Going wider of leg stump

I’m in stance
I’m in trance
Ready to sweep
SWEEP
Swept
Away
Scooting down very fine leg
Gone for four

Everybody’s in the team
14 guys out to play
All will have his say
All will clap
One by one
All will bat
All will bowl
Good old numbering format
Put a number behind my back

B1, B2, B3
Grades of see
Grades of not see
Runner run for me
Keeper keep for me
I’m in style
I cannot see
I just like to be
Play my game
In the mind
Where it’s won
All by gut

That’s a hit
It’s coming at me
I’m at short midwicket
Sliding like nobody I’ve ever seen
Sliding like nobody you’ve ever seen

A thousand drums rolled in a ball
Almost like a batsman’s mating call
I can hear you, I can hear you
I’ll stop you, sure I will
Somewhere in my body’s skill

Govind on 49*
Hit one down the wrong line
Coach and leg umpire rolled into one
Asked him not to whine
It’s always a good sign to get out on 49.

Dance Cricket, dance




Match Experience Report and more pictures at Bored Cricket Crazy Indians (BCC!)

C'mon

C'mon Aussie C'mon - would you believe an Indian saying that? At BCC!

What the

If you’re bored like I’m bored
Got nothing happening but for the cricket
Why don’t you come on over
Come on over to me

Bring me your childhood memories
From those Kanpur tanneries
Bring me your adolescent meanderings
Through those tea gardens of Darjeeling
Bring me your sepia toned games
From places that had, had different names

How you played through the stench
How you pulled out the ball from a Tiger in Pench
How you ran into the Indian Ocean
for a catch, throwing caution
to the wind
How you bowled through a hurricane
How you batted with one helluva migraine

You got it
I want it

‘Cause you’re bored like I’m bored
Got nothing happening but for the cricket
‘Cause we’re bored, so fucking bored
Bored Cricket Crazy Indians

So
Take me to your sepia toned games
From places that had, had different names
Take me to
Bezwada, Benaras and Bombay
Take me to
Calicut, Cochin and Calcutta
Take me to
Trivandrum, Trichur and Madras

Take me to
Your childhood memories
From those Kanpur tanneries
How you played through the stench
How you pulled out the ball from a Tiger in Pench
You got it
I want it

Cause we’re bored, so fucking bored
Bored Cricket Crazy Indians

(to be performed by Sir Mick Jagger, ideally.)

Wanted: Animation in one-day cricket.

Before & Beyond India’s one-day win versus Australia in Melbourne (9th - 12th February, 2008)

Test cricket appears healthy albeit in a sick sort of way. Twenty20 appears sick but will guarantee the future health of cricket. One-day cricket is caught in the middle, running out of tricks.

It comes down to that oft-repeated question: and chances are, when marooned on a desert island, fewer respondents should choose one-day cricket as the ideal companion compared to test cricket or Twenty20.

And why won’t they? Test cricket, once the learned father of all forms cricket, is now arguably the big daddy of cricket. If this was ever in doubt, the India-Australia test series has squashed it. Years from now, the reverberations of Sydney and Perth will still be heard – and 2007-08 will be the year that some divine force threw test cricket the life jacket, though not without that eye-opening near death experience when one’s entire cricketing life flashes past. Oh right, so that’s what Douglas Jardine said to Harold Larwood! Hmmm…

Whereas Twenty20 is the babe on the threshold of an exciting new world – and a chance for everyone, even the old-timers, to revisit their youth. Though like some sick, perverted pleasure they will not admit to it openly – yet, like even the mighty warrior, Beowulf who gave into the monster’s yummy mummy, they will be hapless against the guiles of T20. And there is no shame in that.

But what about one-day cricket – it’s frankly too old to rock ‘n’ roll but too young to die. It’s much too simplistic to pin the blame on the very fabric of one-day cricket – that its very trappings were, a trap! Reducing the game from a laborious 60 to fifty overs was more of a quick fix solution. And hoping for rain, for the occasional truncated twenty over game is just living on a prayer. Or maybe that’s where T20 came from- the skies, with the rain!

If these cricket incarnates were three siblings, then clearly one-day cricket is the neglected middle one – crying for attention, game after game. First, it’s essential to grasp the problem, understand the symptoms. Else we’ll continue to toss power plays and super subs around, only to appease the likes of Courtney Walsh or a Glenn McGrath along with other reluctant batsmen. But that is not the solution.

The solution could be something drastic. Like borrowing from both test cricket and T20 – creating four innings of 25 overs each. More intervals. More action. What’s better than one T20 game – two T20 games rolled into one?

Or maybe the solution could be something simple. Reduce the number of games being played in a year. From the mindless seven match series, reduce the games to three. Increase the break between games – from one-two days to three or even four days. Going by the gargantuan sums of money involved, a few more days at the hotel won’t break the BCCI’s bank.

Do not be surprised if the quality of cricket increases manifold. Maybe teams won’t beat Australia overnight, but they will for starters, compete. And that is a big deal – today, every team aspires to beat Australia. Hopefully, they will look to accomplish this on a cricket field, and not the courthouse.

Games will stop being played to fill broadcasters and cricket Boards’ pockets. Somewhere the intensity of a test may sneak into one-day cricket again. Somehow our hearts may follow suit. Like the first time: in 1983.

After India’s win at MCG and beyond

India finally beat Australia at Melbourne in a one-day game. The last time this happened Dilip Vengsarkar was man-of-the-match. Now, he selects men for matches. Some might argue that he selects boys for matches. But that’s beside the point, or is it?

It’s no secret that this team has come under severe scrutiny from all quarters – often for not what it has, but what it doesn’t – Messer’s Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman. No surprise some skeptics even miss Kumble in this one-day squad.

And while potshot after potshot is taken at India’s young, new ODI team (now even more like its T20 avatar) – it’s worth reflecting: that a sport’s team, like good old Rome, is not built in a day. Yet sometimes, teams need to be undone in a day, in the blink of an eye – only at such times, the blink theory (the power of thinking without thinking) is not too encouraging – especially when writing off new talent.

And before you know it, the same critics will line up to applaud Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma and their ilk. Blinking idiots or what?
But then that’s what Indian cricket makes us all look like. Come Canberra, and India went down to Sri Lanka. And before you can dig out this defeat, there will be another victory to cherish. And then another defeat! Just around the corner. Go slow. Accident prone area. That’s one-day cricket for you!