Cricket on Zebra Crossing

Zebra crossing transformed to a makeshift cricket pitch while pedestrians cautiously avoid it and walk past on the road ... Life goes on in perfect harmony !!!

My Top 5 Ganguly moments

With just 3 more test matches left for the final farewell its time to pay a tribute to the best captain India has ever had, dada, bong icon, maharaja, prince of kolkata and god of the off-side !!! Here are my top 5 Ganguly moments :

1) Bare-torsoed shirt waving @ Lords : The single most memorable moment that I've witnessed in Indian cricket history ( I did not see the '83 World Cup ). After India won the Natwest trophy  thrashing England and chasing down 300+ runs, Ganguly in a pre-meditated move tore off his shirt and ecstatically waved it around his head. This was a fitting reply to England in general and Flintoff in particular who had done exactly the same when England had defeated India in a previous one-dayer at Mumbai ... An act of pure distilled aggression ... which has clearly rubbed off on the entire Indian team since then ( Sreesanth / Bhajji etc ... ).  

2) Taming the Pakistan demon : Ever since Javed Miandad smashed Chetan Sharma for a six to win a Sharjah tournament off the last ball sometime in the mid-eighties ( the single most forgettable moment I've witnessed in Indian cricket ) Pakistan had held a psychological edge over India.

The decade long shadow was finally lifted in Dhaka ... at the final of the Silver Jubilee Cup. Pakistan batted first and amassed 300+ runs ... for India to win chasing that huge a total and that too against Pakistan was unimaginable and most of us were not even watching the India innings.

However, news trickled in that Dada was batting rather well so we tuned in to watch ... Ganguly had just reached his half-century ... and went on to score 120+ virtually winning the match for India single-handedly. 

To me this was a tipping point in Indian cricket after the slump of the mid-eighties / early-nineties when a resurgent team with fresh new players under Ganguly's captaincy brought about a whole new attitude to the game.

3) The Lord's debut : A dream test debut of 131 runs and that too at Lord's ... mecca of cricket ... followed by yet another century in his second test. This was after 4 years in the wilderness post his ODI debut in 92 ... which showcased his tenacity and comeback spirit ... this would again come to the fore much later in his career ie. the comeback in 2007 after the Greg Chappel fracas.

4) Nemesis of Australia : Was captain for the 2001 and 2003-04 test series ... both of which will be remembered for the sheer quality of cricket ... and the fact that India simply dominated all aspects of the game. 2001 Kolkata was a major turning point where India prevented Australia from winning a record 15th Test Match in a row and then went on to nail the series by winning the decider in Chennai. The major contributors were of course Laxman with the bat and Bhajji with the ball ... but Ganguly 's captaincy and leadership was never in doubt. 

2003 Brisbane first test ... Ganguly set the tone for the series with a 144 even when the Aussie bowlers consistently aimed for his rib-cage ... a gritty performance which proved that he had the technique to play the rising ball ... something that the pundits had constantly questioned. India drew the series 1-1 ( should have won the 4th test as well ) but Ganguly still lifted the Border-Gavaskar trophy.

5) Propelling India to ODI World Cup finals in 2003 :  While the finals was a case of so near yet so far ... getting India to the finals was a huge achievement in itself. Ganguly himself performed quite well in all the World Cups he played ... in 1999 against Sri Lanka he scored 183 which at that point was the highest ever ODI score by an Indian.

Dada will retire from cricket in a few more days but his cricketing legacy will surely remain as folklore for generations to come !!!

Dada rosogolla khaben ???

Saurav Ganguly has done it yet again ... just when everyone thought he'd been booted out for good ( after all he was left out of the Irani trophy by Vengsarkar ) ... he's back with a bang into the Indian squad for the Australia series ( at least the first 2 tests ).

Of course he's had a bit of luck ... Srikanth took over from Vengsarkar as the chariman of the selection committee just at the nick of time. If Vengsarkar was still around I'm sure he'd have found a way to keep Ganguly out.

So Dada can now celebrate by eating rosogollas to his heart's content ... only beware of scoring them !!!

Photo courtesy : Mumbai Mirror 

Matka Phod @ Mumbai

"Matka" is quite a deceptive word ... there are 3 entirely unique connotations I myself am aware of :
a) In most IITs & IT-BHU ( I can at least vouch for the latter coz I went there ) "matka" is the mildly derogatory term for M. Tech students ... derogatory coz the assumption is that one should naturally be doing MS in an US univ instead.
b) In Mumbai underworld parlance "matka" is a particularly infamous form of gambling originally started by a gentleman named Ratan Khatri. IF you are curious to learn more please go here.
c) Then of course there is the straight "matka" ie clay pitcher. This in conjunction with "phod" ie smash ( the other more colourful meanings of phod and its derivatives like phad, phadna etc could be the subject of a future discussion !!! ) becomes "matka-phod" which many young folks in Mumbai ( also refered to as Govindas ... no connection with the bollywood Govinda ) become obsessed with during Janmashtami. The objective is to phodofy the matka which is suspended high in the air by forming a human pyramid ... the group doing it the fastest wins the prize ( which goes into lacs ... hence a big deal !!! ).

Today is Janmashtami and the original plot was to go out into the streets of Mumbai ( specifically around Dadar ) to see the Govindas in action ... but the Olympics closing ceremony and the India-Srilanka third one-day fuelled the inertia already triggered off by a particularly heavy Sunday lunch :-) and I happily lounged in front of the TV all afternoon switching channels to get as much of the action as possible.

The Beijing olympic torch at the Bird's Nest stadium 5 seconds before closing. Was the best ever olympics for India finishing 50th with 3 medals.

With Sri Lanka at 94-6 one would have expected a cake walk for India ... Jayawardane & Thushara put up a good fight to get the match quite close though in the end we won easily. Here's a Thushara run-out goof up ... luckily Yuvraj got him out the next ball before he could do any further damage.

Watching IPL

KKR vs MI ... kkr 46/6 hmmm...