Congratulations Warne , Well Done Dhoni

I didn’t feel dejected after the final match in the IPL . It was a dream final.Could have been even better if it had gone for the BOWL OUT. Warney , you too have done a great job.I will remember this match for a long time as both were the captains I respected a lot.

Dhoni, has won in many ways.He has once again proved that he is the number one and the success he gets is not a fluke one.He deserves all the success he gets.May be this time , success didn’t hit him at the middle of the bat but he has done it again.

Apart from the results , Dhoni has proved a lot in team building as well and fairplay.A lot of character indeed at this young age.

IPL trophy is as butiphul as Mallika Sherawat’s Nose

What a waste of money and time.Probably SRK and Vijay Mallya now would have convinced themselves about the old indian proverb “Jo hota hai ache key liye hota hai” [ Whatever happens , happens for the good] after seeing the IPL trophy.

SRK’s diplomatic response after looking at the Trophy for the first time

Heyyhey !!! What a Sexy Trophy.I love the trophy but I love my Wife even more.

Mallya’s Candid reply to the media about the Trophies BEAUTY

Modi has been fooled by the Belgians , just like Dravid fooled me during the Auction.

Preeti’s (My Favourite actress) Response

Wow !!! it’s amazing ………What a Momento…..I never expected this just for reaching the semi-finals.Hey! where is the trophy you were about to show (looks around).

And for the captains who reached the finals of the IPL tournament it would be the ‘Karma’ for which they are fighting for,Dhoni for proving himself that T20 World cup victory was not a fluke and for Shane Warne it’s time to prove that Australian Board that he too could have been a good captain for Australia , certainly not for the Trophy.

It’s difficult to hold !!! man !!!

Cricket is a Men’s sport !! and Men like Curves …Smooth Curves….where are the curves in the trophy.The first time when Shashtri was describing about the trophy during the Rajasthan and the Delhi semifinal , I got excited to see the trophy.But when they were showing the trophy on Television, I literally vomitted just like the feeling I usually get on seeing Namitha’s potruding tyre shaped belly.I remember Ravi Shastri describing the trophy studded with Blue saphires.I couldn’t see any BLUE there.

Negatives in the Trophy:

The first thing I didn’t like about the India Map was it’s unfairness to the Game.IPL is a celebration of cricket by forgetting the political barriers we have during the international matches.We have seen some of the arch rivals in the game hugging each other during the matches.Putting the India map bluntly on a carved wooden board doesn’t really looks good even though the map is studded with diamonds.

Apart from that I have a personal guilt from my childhood about the Indian map.I always felt smooth structures and symmetry is the defining characteristics of any beautiful object.And also the right size.The IPL trophy is not only awkwardly huge but also has the asymmetry of our political failures of the past.I am talking about the gaps near Nepal , Bhutan and Bangladesh in the Indian map. They look like broken edges of a termite attacked bathroom door.Specially, Bangladesh reflects our political inability to retain the Original delta region of the Holy River Ganga. Pakistan is not an issue for me because , the map looks much better without pakistan. Also there is so much ambiguity in the map.We still claim parts of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan as POK. In future if any Pakistani player is a captain of any one of the Indian side and wins the trophy , there would be a huge media uproar in Pakistan , saying that the IPL has a wrong map of India , specially near the Kashmir border.

The only good feature in the Trophy that too short lived

The statue of a player smashing a ball ,square.But I think , I saw the face of the batsman in the trophy quite closely , but not for a long time.Ofcourse I tried searching for a close-up shot of the trophy on the internet but could get only the above pic with the broad smiling face of Modi behind it.I still think the facial features of the player immortalized could have been given more realistic look.

See the discussion going on the Trophy’s BUTIPHULNESS

Ludo Cricket

Last week I posted a blog on Book cricket inspired by this blog which is probably the first ever written evidence that book cricket was infact a reality during the end of 20 th century before the advent of Video Games.I was cleaning my room when I got the Ludo-Cricket boards which I prepared nearly ten years back, that pushed Book-Cricket to new levels.The following blog is all about the golden era of Book-Cricket that thrived in the Pinastro illam.

Even after Video Games arrived but was still inaccessible to the middle class society the Book-Cricket was alive and attained new heights until the death blow was given by drastical fall in the prices of electronic goods.

I used to play a very different form of book cricket indigenously developed by Pinasto and his Sister.It had all the elements of Modern day T20 Cricket. Quick Scores , Quick Wickets and Massive Entertainement.The game was basically a cross breed of two timeless masterpieces of Time-Pass games ; LUDO and BOOK-CRICKET.

I named it LUDO Cricket.Me and My sister used to play this Weird Form of Cricket for hours and sometimes days.The plus point was it recreated the same thrill generated out of all the action on the field like , the Commentator’s excited commentary over the huge six that goes out of the park,The crucial Third Umpire decisions,The batsman hit on the Grill, Batsman being Run out by just a few inches from the crease, the sledging wars between the players,Catch being dropped by the fielder in the Slip,No Ball, Wide,Stunning Catch by the Wicket Keeper and almost everything that used to happen during the 1990’s to 2000 in the world of cricket.

A Different Ball-Game

The Ball used in this game was a Cube shaped , Red in color.This Cube shaped ball also known THE DICE which used to haunt many students in the Maths Mani’s , Probability class.

Rules of the game Ludo-Cricket

The Game is played on a board painted with images of action that happens on the ground.There are two batsmen standing on the board at a single time.

The coaches ( real players ) throw the Red Cubical shaped ball(dice).The dice shows a number.The batsmen on the Ludo cricket board move that many squares and ends up in a square.Whatever action is drawn on that particular square is the fate of the batsmen.Whenever a batsman scores a single , the next ball is faced by the other batsman.

Sometimes,when the batsman entered the square that had a small STAR at the corner.If the batsman landed on a starred corner , he is moved to a More Electrifying board that had nothing but Wickets and Boundaries and Sixers.More on the Electrifying board is explained below.

Advantages over other forms of Book-Cricket

All the action that happens in the real cricket can be felt on paper.Who bowled the maiden over, who thrashed the stumps of the batsman,How many dot balls the batsman wasted in the game,how many drop catches by the team,how many run outs by the team and almost everything except the FREE HIT and the CHEER GIRLS.

Disadvantages over the other forms of Book-Cricket

Very difficult to appreciate this game if you are allergic to Mathematics.I loved calculating the run-rates, strike-rate,runs-per-over etc. ofcourse everything was manual calculations.But this disadvantage can be an advantage too, if you seriously wanted to improve your math , as this game is a fun way to learn.

Since, this game was played by only two people in the world , me and my sister, I was the person who always did the calculation part (remember manual calculation)

Efforts taken to Maximise the Entertainment generated from LUDO-Cricket

Apart from the High scoring games there is a special type of Entertainment generated by the low scoring games.For Low scoring games a special board was painted which had most of the squares as DOT BALLS.

Also sometimes the games tend to charged up either due to the Crowd Noise or the Sledging Wars between the Bowler and the Batsman.For this kind of Game a separate board was painted with every square having either Boundary,Six or a Wicket, in which every square is richly illustrated which is called the Electifying Cricket Board.

Indeed Twenty Twenty was invented long back in the form of Book Cricket which was lost in the missing pages of Folklore ,due to the advent of Video Games.