Sometimes in life there are few things for which we seem to have no explanation at all. Like this:
Why has there never been a left handed dibbly dobbler? A dibbly dobbler according to Geoff Boycott is one who trundles to the pitch and bowls an assortment of cutters, slower ones and anything which can be classified as 120- km/hr. I have watched cricket quite a lot and still I am racking my brains to find one bowler who belongs to the ilk of Gavin Larsen, Sourav Ganguly, Chris Harris, Ian Harvey, Hansie Cronje etc.. Heck, I dont think there is even a spinner/dibbly dobbler like Sachin.
There is one guy , Sohail Tanvir who bowls left arm fast medium/spin. The only kind of left arm bowlers I have seen are those who bowl left arm fast/fast medium/orthodox. A left arm leg spinner i.e., a Chinaman itself is a rarity, those on the top of my mind being Michael Bevan,Simon Katich and the frog-in-a-blender Paul Adams. This though is a well publicised fact and most us are aware that Chinaman bowlers are as rare as winter in Chennai.
There is only one guy I think who bowled left arm military medium, Ijaz Ahmed, the destroyer of an Indian bowling combination comprising Abey Kuruvilla,Venkatesh Prasad,Rajesh Chauhan,Harvinder Singh (Excuse me for the digression, the thought of this Indian bowling "Attack??" sends me on a nostalgia trip). Still, wouldn't there be one captain who would love to have a bowler of this variety? I mean, it is something that has never been seen by the cricket playing community and would certainly be a welcome novelty in addition to the Switch Hit and the Carrom Ball.
May the left hander survive. May he flower(like Andy, the great Zimbabwean maybe?) , may he prosper. And no, this is not a left handed compliment :)
PS: I am a left hander.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
What's in a name?
It has always been a source of amusement to me, the way teams have been named in the Indian Premier League. Mumbai decided to call themselves Indians, as if the rest of us are from Swaziland or Burkina Faso. Delhi decided to call themselves Daredevils, maybe due to Akshay Kumar's presence and Deccan in a fit of inspired thinking triggered by V.V.S Laxman's running between the wickets,called themselves Chargers.
Amidst all this sea of really "innovative" name keeping,Chennai went with Super Kings. Being an avowed Chennai fan, I was obviously curious. People bandied about various reasons and prominent among them were:
1) It's an indirect homage to the superstar of Tamil Cinema. ICL did steal a march by calling themselves Chennai Superstars, and hence the Chennai IPL team had to resort to this. One team I thought had got it perfectly right were the people behind PHL(Premier Hockey League),
who named the hockey team Chennai Veerans (Madurai Veerans would have been even better).
2)Super is an extremely important Madras baashai word. When I came to Madras in 1993, after having spent the first 8 years of my life in New Delhi, this was one word that I noticed kept recurring in everyone's lingo. People had to keep saying "Super a iruku","Machan Super da", and ultimately it entered my lexicon too without much hesitance one should agree.
And with the logo being that of a Lion, it could possibly be a sum of the two and hence Super + King(s).
It was when I read Business Line yesterday that I found the reason behind the naming of the franchise. Apparently, the 2 most popular brands of cement that are manufactured by India Cements, who own CSK are Coromandel Super and Coromandel King.Thus, Super King(s).
I never thought on these lines, thought it seems to be a brilliant idea, but why this was not publicised by India Cements really beats me. Generally, no one is too bothered about cement ad's, but this was one serious way of increasing brand recall.
PS:
If you don't remember Coromandel King flip your mind again, that construction site, those sacks with the spade imprint, that labourer in yellow colour jersey(CSK jersey colour btw), ahh.. yes finally you remember. Wonderful !!
Amidst all this sea of really "innovative" name keeping,Chennai went with Super Kings. Being an avowed Chennai fan, I was obviously curious. People bandied about various reasons and prominent among them were:
1) It's an indirect homage to the superstar of Tamil Cinema. ICL did steal a march by calling themselves Chennai Superstars, and hence the Chennai IPL team had to resort to this. One team I thought had got it perfectly right were the people behind PHL(Premier Hockey League),
who named the hockey team Chennai Veerans (Madurai Veerans would have been even better).
2)Super is an extremely important Madras baashai word. When I came to Madras in 1993, after having spent the first 8 years of my life in New Delhi, this was one word that I noticed kept recurring in everyone's lingo. People had to keep saying "Super a iruku","Machan Super da", and ultimately it entered my lexicon too without much hesitance one should agree.
And with the logo being that of a Lion, it could possibly be a sum of the two and hence Super + King(s).
It was when I read Business Line yesterday that I found the reason behind the naming of the franchise. Apparently, the 2 most popular brands of cement that are manufactured by India Cements, who own CSK are Coromandel Super and Coromandel King.Thus, Super King(s).
I never thought on these lines, thought it seems to be a brilliant idea, but why this was not publicised by India Cements really beats me. Generally, no one is too bothered about cement ad's, but this was one serious way of increasing brand recall.
PS:
If you don't remember Coromandel King flip your mind again, that construction site, those sacks with the spade imprint, that labourer in yellow colour jersey(CSK jersey colour btw), ahh.. yes finally you remember. Wonderful !!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Trivianomics
I kept taking notice of the fact that during a point in the Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps had more medals than the rest of the US squad put together.
Until, another startling piece of trivia came my way, only 4 countries have a population greater than that of Uttar Pradesh .
Until, another startling piece of trivia came my way, only 4 countries have a population greater than that of Uttar Pradesh .
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Bolt from the Blue Carib
The 100m dash has always made me wonder, why the most prestgious gold medal also takes the least time to win. Maybe it is the thing they call Need for Speed.
Anyway, the winner was a Jamaican very very aptly named Usain Bolt. Bolt could possibly be the most apt surname for a sprinter, but with another tinker we could make it even better.
"Usa"in Bolt --> "Usa"out Bolt
Anyway, the winner was a Jamaican very very aptly named Usain Bolt. Bolt could possibly be the most apt surname for a sprinter, but with another tinker we could make it even better.
"Usa"in Bolt --> "Usa"out Bolt
King Midas Reincarnated
Mythological tales are generally fantasies, which people concoct to imagine things which would normally not happen in reality. But there are times, when strange things happen and one is linked to the story of a king named Midas.
It is said that whatever Midas touched turned into Aurum (Ancient name of Gold, and Midas was an ancient king, get the drift ?). This tale though hard to believe has finally been repeated in real life by a gentleman(fish?) from Baltimore, Maryland named Michael Fred Phelps .
It is said that whatever Midas touched turned into Aurum (Ancient name of Gold, and Midas was an ancient king, get the drift ?). This tale though hard to believe has finally been repeated in real life by a gentleman(fish?) from Baltimore, Maryland named Michael Fred Phelps .
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