Kemp's Corner

I had no words to describe what I felt after we got Mein Kempfed by the Springboks yesterday.

Which is why I am glad my pal Qwerty said this

Now, can someone please make my tummy ache go away? I laughed so much.

Riggs.

Ashes to Dust

Well, Mort, it's not like we didn't get to watch blades, just not the way you'd have liked. And it's not like I try to be right all the time, it just sorta happens. There were some positives though - the Captain did pull his weight, and Dhoni was delightful for a bit. But the South Africans mon, they've really picked up from Mr Rhodes eh? Wonder why the wise men at the BCCI didn't try hiring him with all their love for angrez coaches. Wait, I think they did try and he, um, refused. Makes me wonder if it'll help if we had Robin Singh as fielding coach, wat? That's the panacea, in my opinion - make Mohinder Amarnath coach and Robin Singh assistant. And PLEASE send Chappel home or to his cottage at Bangalore's Westend if they wont let him step on Australian soil again. And while we're at it, send Agarkar home too - Mumbai isn't very fussy about its soil.

On a whole other note, the Ashes is as entertaining as ever. I think Mort's taken a step in the right direction- this blog could really use a less depressing subject.

Bart

Kev and Warnie

Spending a lazy Sunday morning watching The Ashes. The Poms were somewhat battered by the Convicts for a better part of this test match, but the last hour and a half has been a display of completely brazen batting by Messrs. Collingwood and Peitersen.

In a shocking display of complete disregard, they flayed the Convicts for a little over 150 runs in about 2 hours. Collingwood departed trying to get one too many of Warnie but the big Kev has just been joined by the even bigger Flint. Fireworks expected.

I have just been gobsmacked by the sight of big Kev taking a Sunday stroll down the wicket to Mr.McGrath. Not a 3-step jump like normal, a perfectly timed walk down the pitch. Such madness, but oh what fun!

I hope we get to see some from the Injun blades this afternoon as well!

Riggs

Glory to the King of Kings-mead

In a sensational display of personal courage and conviction, Captain Lumberjack led his team to a spell-binding defeat at the Kingsmead stadium in Durban last night. After a reasonably average bowling and fielding performance, India sped along to said scintillating defeat at a glorious average of 10 runs per Indian. Captain Lumberjack's perfectly scripted evening of disgrace appeared to suffer a potential setback when Sachin Tendulkar began to look like he wanted to stick around and do something of consequence. But the anxiety turned out to be unnecessary as he too proved himself capable and willing to set aside his narow sense of sanity to accomodate the greater good.

In this humble reporter's humbler opinion, this superlative performance veritably stamps the argument in favor of making Mr Dravid captain for life and Mr Chappel the special in-charge for the resolution of India's border dispute with China.

Bartman

How can you ban this?

I know - Intikhab feckin Alam was a batsman. No wonder he banned The Big Sho. Take a look at this.



Sheer genius and a larger than life personality. I don't care how much of a dumbass he sounds like when he speaks, I would put him in my World XI just to see that run up, that yorker and then that celebration.

Whew.

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep

We've always wondered what's being said when cricketers have a go at one another verbally. I went looking to see if there was any of it online and here's what I found.

I hope your speakers are on :-

The first Vid is Sangakarra mouthing off at Shaun Pollock. Funny!




The second is Sir Flint putting some uppity Windians in their place. He first puts the fear of becoming Ricardo Powell into poor Dwayne Bravo who's smile slowly fades away. Then he winds up Tino Best into trying to hit over the top. His 'mind the windows Tino' worked like a charm. I watched over and over again. What a star!!

Bartman Returns

Alright, it is now hopelessly clear - Riggster is terribly inept at handling my absences from this blog. He rants and raves about nothing. And by nothing, I mean Shoaib Akhtar and the Indian Circus or his conversations with me (which are usually centred around substance abuse, inanities and Greg Chappel - so it amounts to Riggs being stark, raving monotonous ) . Now I empathize with his current lot - I can confirm from having heard straight from the horse's mouth that Riggy has finally ( publicly) begun to acknowledge that Captain Lumberjack cannot really tell the wood from the trees. And that Sir Gregory really ought to be deified on the edge of the dying barrier reef - the only geographical location in the southern hemisphere where his smirk might be construed as independent of his general state of cluelessness. (Riggs - if you were skimming past the adjectives and still wondering about the horse and its mouth, have you shifted residence yet?)

Having accomplished desired pointlessness, allow me to further the Cricket Australia fiasco thread. While all is well with our collective shock/angst at the audacious behaviour of the Aussies, Chris Cairns had something thought-provoking to say on the matter - when a journalist mentioned that Mr Gavaskar had condemned the Australians for their rudeness, he asked if it might just be considered rude to walk out of a game for having been given out LBW. Touche.

Bart

The Last Hurrah

I had laundry to do before I could sleep and whilst I waited for the washing machine to do it's thing, I passed time trolling the net for something interesting. I came across a video clip I had intended to put in one of my earlier posts, relating to Schumi's last race.

In my post, I wrote about his last move, where he put one past the driver who is going to warm his seat next year. It was a move that was audacious, atrocious and more or less summed up Schumi. Remember this, he made the move on Kimi two laps before he was going to retire. Hehe, if I ever end something, this is how I want it to end. With people (like me and I'm sure all the Tifosi around the globe) jumping out of their seat and shouting for more, much like the Ferrari pit crew that you are about to see!

Enjoy...

Shoaib Saga - Contd.

NDTV and CNN cried themselves hoarse saying that they had Shoaib 'exclusives'. The NDTV version was so entertaining that I forgot to watch the CNN one.

Shoaib was his usual self. Brash. Ratatat. His mouth ran off before his brain knew so. His accent ran off even before his mouth did. It was Bend it like Beckham meets Loin Ajit meets Chris Rock meets Johnny Cash! I had no clue what he was trying to say other than he was innocent.

A chat on the messenger with Bartman had me giggling helplessly. On being told that Shoaib banged on Chappel's door and said something rude to his Missus, Bart said that Shoaib should have slapped Chappel instead. Heh heh. If the BCCI took Bart's point of view, Sourav-da would be India's Captain AND Coach!

Can't wait to see how this pans out.

IN OTHER NEWS - Punter wants to apologise to Sharad Pawar. Must be the first time he's ever done that. I hope Freddie is listening!

A slap and a song

.... is the real reason for Shoaib Akhtar being banned for a couple of years. Some of the reports that I have read this morning state that Shoaib slapped Bob Woolmer because they couldn't agree on what music to play on the team bus. I wonder who wanted to listen to what. I am sumwot sure that Shoaib wouldn't have wanted to listen to Mozart.

Post the slapperoo, Shoaib then went to a nightclub and proceeded to get into a brawl over a women (or two, or three). He then later went on to something completely crazy - said Retd Colonel Anil Kaul, the Pakistan team liason officer - "Shoaib went to the floor where the Indian team was staying and started banging on the doors. He accidentally banged on the door of Indian coach Greg Chappell and his wife came out, dressed in her night clothes," he said. "Shoaib made some comments about her. The next morning, I was having breakfast with the Pakistan team manager when Woolmer stormed in. He said even Chappell has complained about Shoaib and strict action must be taken."

At this point, all I can say is poor fellow. Take drugs - get in trouble. Don't take drugs - get in trouble for a slap and a bar brawl. I still stand by what I said in my earlier post. The game is poorer simply because people like Akhtar and Warne, do magical things on the field and sometimes off it, take away their match fees or something, don't ban them.

Riggy Resurfaces!

Hello One, Hello All and Hello Peccavi!

I have been missing in action for quite some time, living the life of my blog partner Bartman, by which I mean I completely ignore this blog. Much has happened since I last wrote a cricket post on the blog and I must apologise to those (few) who logged in here looking for something new. Please keep coming back, I am hoping I now ramble here more often and that Bart remembers this blog too.

In reverse chronological order :-

Damien Martyn and Ricky Ponting proved worthy ambassadors of Convict Country by getting a tad frisky with Sharad Pawar. While I am no fan of Sharad Pawar (he being a politician, among other things), I thought the Aussies were way out of line for pushing him off the stage the way they did. Lets reverse rolls for a second - Imagine a jubiliant Indian team at either Lords or the SCG, all happy and exuberant at winning a trophy that they had never won before - and someone like Harbhajan Singh pushes Malcolm Speed off stage just so they can go balle balle ballistic with the cup. Can you imagine the headlines? Can you imagine a smarmy Tony Greig say 'that was the most disgraisful ect I've ever seen on telly'. I can. We'll be called savages and barbarians and pushers (as well as chuckers).

Bah.

We then had the Paki Drug Bust just before the Champions Trophy! From where I'm sitting it sure looked to me that the Paki Board had a V for Vendetta with Akhtar and took care of him once in for all. I think the game is poorer simply because its lost one of its most colorful characters. I would stick Shoaib Akhtar in a World XI just so I could watch him come into bowl and let fly a couple of snorters. I wish he hangs in there and trains like a maniac and is still around in 2 years. More power to him. Strangely though, I am not too bothered about Asif simply because he is just 24 and has been given a one year ban. That's probably because he doesn't party too much and doesn't have an active sex life.

In between all these shenanigans, the Champions Trophy came and went. India, as usual, paper tigers, looked good for a bit and then sank like the Titanic. Minus Yuvraj Singh who was KhoKho'ed out of the game, the middle order looked like a pack of cards. In an unopened box. Poor Suresh Raina found out that it's not always rosy out there with a bat in your hands. Poor Irfan Pathan found out that it's not always rosy out there with a ball in your hands. Dhoni came, Dhoni went and El Capitan looked a tad jaded. For me, the team to watch was the Windians, who came, who saw and sure as hell conquered. I for one, will not be surprised if they make it to the semi-finals of the World Cup.

That said, the Ashes are about to commence. I chanced upon a picture of Freddie Flintoff doin some mean-ass pushups.



He is looking more like a boxer than a cricketer! Hopefully, this Ashes series will be as entertaining as the last one. Can't wait.

I also hope Bartman pays us a visit before the World Cup. Just to show that this blog is not forgotten! I shall return soonest as well. Till then, remember, Life's a pitch.