Thursday, September 6, 2007

A few cheeky observations

In this edition of Rahul's blog, i would like to describe the various vagaries associated with watching an Indian cricket match in the T.V lounge. The thing most noticeable is, of course the partiality shown by my peers towards the Indian team. The most disappointing aspect of that happens to be that they don't even begin to appreciate the opposition's exploits on the field.

The other mentionable thing is their lack of knowledge about the game (the same cannot be said about their knowledge of Sachin though) . Half of them don't even realise that a batsman can't be given out on a ball which pitches outside the leg-stump (may be they just enjoy the game and don't give a damn about rules). The same thing sadly applies even to the football watching denizens of our institute who aren'e even aware of the away goals rule applied in the champions league.

Some of them even believe that we can restrict a team without taking any wickets and they think a run rate of 8 over 10 overs is more difficult than a run rate of 6 over 50. They think like what i used to some 10 years ago. May be all these years of  watching T.V has made me a pundit on the game (Too bad that the tables are turned when it comes to academics).

Frankly speaking, i have never been a fan of Indian cricket and i, more often than not, find my friends' antics more entertaining than the brand of cricket dished out by the Indian team. I, by the way, happen to support a certain team which goes by the name of South Africa ( Haven't i mentioned it already ?).

Being a supporter of the Proteas is not so fruitful as i don't get to see all of their matches. Having said that, i do have the option of going to my home to watch their matches. As a matter of fact, the only reason i go home these days is to catch some sporting events on T.V.

Switching back, why do captains always go for dumb field placements at the death. Why can't they see that they need to get their third-man finer when the batsmen begin to slog and why do they bother to bring in the fine-leg and thereby allow all of those cheeky shots. (A shot over the extra cover is more deserving of a four than the cheeky shots to the vacant fine-leg region)

Yesterday's match was quite reminiscent of England's earlier win against the Windies where Owais Shah and company managed to score some 70 odd runs in the last five overs to win the 20-20 tie, and most of the runs scored on that occasion were "cheeky" as well.

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