less than 24 hours to go and the wait cant get any longer…

The butterflies in the stomach cant flap their wings any more stronger, the adrenalin rush continues unabated, all sites giving all information have been read out, all views taken, all opinions read, heard, seen. Nothing still seems enough and you just cant pass the day. Being a holiday its even more difficult to pass, the constant highlights the past whole month on Star Cricket have not helped make matters any easier.

Tomorrow at 5.00 am(IST) its time to begin the games…

Over my growing up years it has always been the most exciting place to play and watch cricket, Australia. The country with hard sun-baked pitches, huge playing grounds, sea-gulls, flies, traditions, hats, beers and the crowds that were tough to win over. Also the fact that after I took to cricket around 1985-86 and the growth of the Australian aura coincided made me an even bigger fanatic of the tour of Australia. Ever since 1998 when Sachin after being made a bunny in the first innings by Warne in Chennai churned up that brilliant 155* the battles between these two teams have been most engrossing and mouth watering. The only abberations could be the 1999 tour of India where they were white-washed and subsequently M S Dhoni paying the favour back on Australia’s last tour of India where they beat them 2-0 in a series of 4.

Those two series apart the 2001 series was one of the best ever seen by me, if not the best ever played, where the world champion team was brought down to ground by rookies. Waugh’s Australians were on a record streak of consecutive Test victories they had won 15 consecutive tests and came to India to Mumbai. Waugh billed it as the Final Frontier for this all conquering team and India had a new captain and were without Anil Kumble. It seemed the Final Frontier was going to fall. Whilst India had a slender chance when Australia were 99/5 in their first innings in Mumbai the game changed after Gilly and Haydos decided to simply sweep the Indian off-spinner, apparently turning the ball square, to individual hundreds. The Aussies thereafter romped to victory after 3 days. I was in Wankhede to see that pasting we got.

Surely, after 16 consecutive test wins it was only upto Steve Waguh’s men to turn up at Kolkata and victory would be theirs. India were following on with a deficit of 274 runs and it was all but over. The biggest optimist of Indian cricket could not have fathomed what was to come. Two men batted as if they were possessed, the best bowling line up of my era had gone wicketless a full day, a Hyderabadi artist would collar the world’s best leg spinner and a defiant Banglorian would not cave in. They scored and scored and scored, the bowlers went from grumpy to red hot angry to eventually wow at the contest and applaud what they had just witnessed. Herculean efforts was what it took to stop Mcgrath and Warne and deny them a wicket one whole day. The last day a young brash captain inspired his equally brash off spinner and they decimated the World Champion batting line-up in little over 2 sessions. The visions of that Test Match and the mad crowd of Eden Gardens is stuff of Legends.

India took the final Test in Chennai and it was 2-1.

Indian cricket turned a new chapter in their history, for me Indian cricket has two era’s one before this series and one after this series.

The 2003-04 series which was seen as a chance to avenge the rude shock in 2001 by the world Champions. Quite contrary to the talks of Chin Music it turned out to be one of India’s best batting display down under. The Australian’s were wowed by the batting line-up and they genuinely even admitted that at times they got a feeling the Indian batsman were meditating!!!  India failed to seize the initiative in Sydney where they didn’t enforce the follow-on in the last Test after being 1-1. Winning in Australia still eluded India.

Australia finally won a Test series in India with a stand in captain, India was robbed of their chance in Chennai by rain and the series went 2-1 to Australia.

The following tour of India to Australia under Anil Kumble in 2007-08, was most troublesome and the Aussie captain was lambasted for his win at all costs attitude. Anil Kumble’s remark of only one team was playing in the spirit of the game after Sydney rankled the Aussie media and public and they all went after their team, after being 2-0 down India put on a steely performance that mirrored the image of their captain and they won a famous victory. Once again Australia had won 16 consecutive test matches and were poised to win their 17th in their favourite hunting ground where astonishingly India stopped them and although India couldn’t push victory in Adelaide the 2-1 series ensured India’s pride was restored and Australians were left with a victory 2-1 but a bitter taste in their mouth.

Then began the Aussie fall and India’s rise and India blanked them 2-0 in a 4 test series. This series was slightly one sided with India going to become the best team in Test Cricket atleast in terms of ranking.

Now in 2011 on Boxing Day these two teams take will be in combat once again on the biggest stage of all at the MCG. This time though both teams don’t seem confident, which is new for the Australians, especially in Australia. Plagued by injuries and form loss they converge on the most awaited Test Series of the year. Its this series that will make some careers where as some will bid good bye to their legendary careers.

I can’t wait for tomorrow to see Sehwag take strike and Pattinson bowl to him with wind behind his back. Its show time… let the games begin !!!!! No I am too superstitious to make any predictions. **touchwood**

Hey btw I read this very encouraging and interesting article inquiring when is the first 500 in tests going to be scored !!! No prizes for guessing who is the batsmen being expected to do this  ! He is no one else but our very own Veeru and the writer and Australian !!!!!!

Time for an encore Veeru !!!!

Cheers to this love, hate & admiration between Indian and Australian Cricket !

PICS Courtesy : Cricinfo.com

rage

~ when rage fills you up ~

the vision becomes all murky,

inane things also seem catastrophical..

bereft of even poetry and sense,

clenching teeth… and heavy breaths…

like a ocean’s tempest..

the world’s in a swirl,

and no calm in sight..

SRK and The Brinjal ! Unbelievable similarities !

A few of us friends were standing at our frequently visited Net Paan for our Paan when this discussion came up. Btw our Paan which is for some reason called 30(Tees) number its a very sexist Paan, its certainly a male Paan as it has no tutti fruity or gulkand and no it doesnt have tobacco ! Its a Saada Paan ! The female (meetha) Paan is called 150(Dedhso)number ! Yes any guy who eats the Meetha Paan is ridiculed by us that he is having a Ladies Paan !!!!   Now have I given enough food for thought to IHM to write a post in response to this ????   Raam is the name of the guy who makes the Paan and we all swear that his is the only Paan we like and have acquired a taste of. Almost all of us are now in unison that we cannot enjoy any Paan anywhere as much as at Net Paan !!! Anyways that is not the reason for this post but as usual I must digress a bit. After all wordpress has given me this space free and I may use it as is my whim.

Coming back to the discussion, after I heard all sorts of things about The Dirty Picture and after I sighed enough telling I am yet to watch, someone mentioned Don-II is coming ! Immediately another friend commented, “Hum Bhil (read SRK) Logo ke picture nahi dekhte” It is pretty usual in Gujarat to consider Bhil as downcast people although wrong but thats not an issue this post is going to discuss.

Its quite amazing that SRK always evokes extreme reactions ain’t it ? I see people who just love love and love him like IHM, Solilo and then there are some like my cousin who wont hear a word against him and if I do that she wont speak to me for a year or pick my calls ! I myself cannot hate him enough. I don’t even have a reason to hate him, I used to be a fan till I saw Baazigar and Anjaam !! Dunno what happened and I hate him ever since. I must though put my hand up and say that in Chak De and Swadesh this guy has acted and proved that he actually can act quite well but time and again he will do the run of the mill and make you cry and fill you with emotions, an easy thing to do in my opinion. The Yash Chopra Karan Johar are so not my type of movies !

I regret not watching Chak De and Swadesh in the movie hall, sometimes I so wish SRK hadn’t done these movies and I would have seen the movies in the Hall. No, me and Mrs. both never watch his movies, havent even watched DDLJ or KKHH in halls, infact I have not seen them full on TV either !  Had he not acted in Chak De and Swadesh I could justify my hating him and saying to all he can’t act. The fact is he can and can do it quite well and yet I continue to hate him whether he says he will dance in weddings for money (which should entirely be his own prerogative ) or when he supports Pakistani player bidding in the media and doesn’t bid for any of them himself. I have always found reasons to hate him. I was heart broken to know Ganguly was going to play for KKR in the first edition of the IPL !!!! My most favourite cricketer playing for the guy I hated the most !!!!!! It was a relation so destined to be broken The fact that the John Buchanan’s multiple captain theory and the controversies surrounding SRK and Sourav didn’t help make the matters any better. For the first time in my life, I would wish a team with Sourav would lose and lose badly. You may want to discount these feelings like those of a lil kid but that is what I felt !!!

SRK has an amazing Love Hate relationship with his fans, very rarely I find neutrals, there are people who rave him and love him and there are those who cant hate him enough !

Very similar to SRK is one vegetable, The Brinjal !

Interestingly, there are quite a few similarities between Shahrukh and the Brinjal than you would imagine. The Brinjal is how I call it, that is how I learnt in school and no its not an egglant *period* ! Eggs are laid they don’t grow plus this is my blog ! Yes ! Adamant !

Now like we all are told that SRK is a good actor, so are we told Brinjal is a good vegetable with lots of Iron, atleast that is what I always heard when growing up from my Mom ! But hey, like SRK no where on Wiki is it mentioned that Brinjal gives us Iron ! Please help me here Suranga if you can ! After the Iron puzzle is solved … the other point to be noted is SRK can be addictive as some fans would admit, similarly the brinjal, The fruit is botanically classified as a berry, and contains numerous small, soft seeds, which are edible, but have a bitter taste because they contain nicotinoid alkaloids; this is unsurprising as it is a close relative of tobacco. Eggplant is richer in nicotine than any other edible plant, with a concentration of 100 ng/g (or 0.01 mg/100g). However, the amount of nicotine from eggplant or any other food is negligible compared to passive smoking.[11] On average, 20 lbs (9 kg) of eggplant contains about the same amount of nicotine as a cigarette. Again its Wiki that speaketh and not the mortal me ! I am sure SRK would also do well to eat the Brinjals and cut down on the Cigarettes

Then again, as a kid I used to hate the vegetable Brinjal and we brothers would revolt by eating maggi whenever my Brinjal Lover mom/dad decided to treat their own taste buds and forget about their 3 sons ! This hate continued till long, then one fine day in College in Hostel in Baroda we went to a legendary Kathiawadi restaurant near Vasad called Kismet and I ate Bajra Ka Rotla and Baigan Ka Bharta and the rest as they say is history.  I am a total lover of the Brinjal now and can eat it in any form and actually quite adore the vegetable ! It is also known as the poor man’s meat ! As SRK is known as today’s Dilip Kumar okay that was a cheap one… but its my blo… you get it rite

Like SRK, Brinjal, has its hard core lovers in me and equal number of people who won’t let brinjal even touch their plates. They too like SRK share a love / hate relationship with their fans… !!!! Cool Ain’t it !

DISCLAIMER : Woke up with this post in my brain at 4 am ! So if you find it delusional kindly excuse yourself