Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Cup tales ... !!

They say it does not take a lot of effort for Indians to provide advice ... and Cricket rules the roost in here ...

The mother of all Cricketing events is here ... THE WORLD CUP ... and no matter how much you hate Cricket, you cannot escape being engulfed in this phenomenon ... you will at least have to ignore it ... ;)

Every Cup has a tale ... and I feel privileged to have grown up in an era when Cricket craze was at an all time high ... the mid 90s and early 2000s ... but

when did it all start?

I was just a year old when India brought home the World Cup in 1983 ... so I was not even aware of what it was or what it meant ... today when I speak to my father, he says that Yes ... it was quite a happy atmosphere all over India during that time but still people did not feel it was a big deal ...

My first teeny tiny memory of the World Cup was of 1987 ... I wont say I distinctly remember everything ... but I do remember the India-NZ match at Nagpur when Chetan Sharma got a hat-trick and Gavaskar got his only ODI hundred ... he had totally shunned his drop-anchor image and blasted Sir Richard Hadlee and others for a brisk 100 ... even Krish Srikkanth was only a spectator ... imagine ... I remember it more coz it was probably one of the few matches in which the Man of the Match was shared between 2 players ...

I also remember my father getting very angry when India lost the semis to England ... as the experts very fondly said ... Gooch sweeps India out of the World Cup ... but I was still very naive even to understand what it meant to win or lose a Cricket match in the World Cup ... I remember it more for our home being flooded by gully-waalas to see every match ... the days of the TV antenna ...

My first real World Cup experience was in 1992 ... I was in the 4th Grade and I was a totally fanatic Indian supporter (I still am) and I had participated in Scouts and there was this All-Pune Scouts associations meet on the opening day of World Cup 1992. India was playing England at Perth that day. Scouts participants from Schools from all over Pune had marched till Dastur High School just to be part of the event. This was very early in the morning and there were no TV shops open too so as to check the score. So I was missing it bigtime. By the time all this got over and my father came to school to pick me up, the England innings was already over. I guess they got 230 odd. By the time I reached home, India had lost the top order and SRT and Pravin Amre were trying to get India out of the hole. SRT looked on track until a Botham beauty ended his innings ... and India fell short by some 20-30 runs ... not the most ideal beginning ...

This Cup had several memories ... Pakistan being all out for 70 odd against England only for the rain to intervene and give both teams 1 point each ... this 1 point enabled Pakistan to make it to the semis ... Jonty Rhodes' acrobatic run out of Inzy ... India's teary 1 run loss to Australia ... the emergence of SRT and BCL ... South Africa's re-entry to international cricket albeit a very sad end to their campaign by Messrs Duckworth and Lewis ... Martin Crowe using Dipak Patel as an effective opening bowler which saw the Kiwis go right uptil the semis ... but my best memory is of the India-Pakistan match at the SCG ...

India and Pakistan had never squared up against each other before in a World Cup ... so this match was going to be rough and tough ... India were still suffering from Aquib Javed's 7/37 (including a hat-trick) at Sharjah ... and we did not put up a huge total ... it was around 225 ... thanks mainly to SRT again ... I remember coming home when Pakistan's reply was about to start ... and we got some quick wickets ... but it was going to be Miandad, Imran and Malik who were going to be thorns ... Javed was nursing an injury but was still playing (come on ... it was against India) ... but he was playing very slowly... Imran came and went ... I guess he was stumped ... Prabhakar took out Malik with a trademark banana ball ... and Javed finally fell to the rising Srinath ... there was this Kiran More-Javed tussle too which was great to watch ... everyone remembers this incident but something that not a lot of people remember is the way Azhar got angry ... you seldom saw Azhar lose his cool but so much was at stake ... India won against the actual winners ... the 1992 Jersey was by far the best Jersey that any Indian team wore ...

In 1996, there was a lot of hype for the World Cup ... I remember Sony being one of the upcoming channels and they ran a special pre-cursor to the event
hosted by Harsha Bhogle called The Final Countdown (it also had the same song :)) ... I remember lot of experts voicing their opinions about who will win the World Cup and there was one man who said Sri Lanka ... that was Sir Richard Hadlee ... he said Jayasurya and Kaluwitharna alone can win the Cup for them ... well a lot of other players (and teams ;)) put their hand up for the Lankans and it was great to see them defeating Australia at Lahore ...

I was in the 8th Grade during this time and the TV room at Lunn Dorm was abuzz every day for any match ... Mr Guzder used to be very keen in knowing the scores from any boy who was emerging out of the TV room ... I remember my sister being in college at that time and her college was next to my school ... she used to pick me up specially during the World Cup so that I get to see more of the matches and waste less time travelling in a PMT bus ... I distinctly remember her screaming "Lara out ho gaya" when she came to pick me up during the India-WI match at Gwalior ...


I remember Nathan Astle getting the Kiwis past the Poms in the first match ... India starting off with a win against Kenya ... Courtney Browne dropping a sitter off SRT at Gwalior ... Manjrekar's stunning catch to dismiss Ponting ... Jayasurya and Kalu almost ending Manoj Prabhakar's career at Delhi ... Kenya upsetting the Windies at Pune ... the Proteas winning everything only to come up against Lara at Karachi and lose in the Quarters ... Heath Streak reducing India to 30 odd for 3 including uprooting SRT's off stump only for Vinod Kambli to play a blinder to rescue India ... Warne winning the semi against the Windies from a hopeless situation ... but again the cake goes to the India-Pakistan high voltage clash at Bangalore ...

So much at stake ... Wasim Akram pulled out ... SRT played an uncharacteristic innings on 30 odd ... but Sidhu played well and later it was the Jadeja show against Waqar ... but everyone was silent when Anwar and Sohail bludgeoned India in their reply ... until Sohail got out to Prasad after some pointing and sledging ... from there on it was India ... and it was a comfortable win in the end ... not the fairy tale ending that Javed was hoping to have ... and India were in the semis at the Eden Gardens ... only to lose to the Lankans ...

Switch to 1999 ... you wondered why the World Cup was played only after 3 years ... ideally it is 4 years ... now it makes sense since the venue was England and its generally held in the English summer ... waiting another year would have meant a 4.5 year wait ... I was in Junior College at this time and was enjoying the summer holidays and not-so-enjoying the Vacation classes for 12th ... my father bought me my Yamaha during this World Cup ... this was the first World Cup since I started going to college ... and around the same time I started playing for Deccan ... so it was quite memorable ...

It was a different format ... the Super 6 made its entry ... India lost their first match against the Proteas at Hove ... and then calamity struck ... SRT rushed back to India since his father passed away ... India lost to Zimbabwe in the meanwhile ... but SRT came back and India won their last 3 matches against Kenya, Sri Lanka and England to make the Super 6s ... the hammering meted out to the Lankans at Taunton was sweet revenge for 1996 ...

This World Cup was best remembered for Lance Klusener ... both for his good stuff and his stupid stuff ... he was clearly Man of the Tournament but he played the choker to the hilt in the semis against Australia ... indeed one of my all time favorite one day games on a rainy day in India ...

India played Pakistan in this World Cup too ... and we won again ... bat first and bowl them out seemed to be an evergreen script for India against Pakistan ... this time it was Prasad who was the tormentor ... but India lost the 2 other Super 6 games and didnt make the semis ... Shane Warne lifted himself for the semis and final after a bad start to the tournament and Australia started the most stunning sequence of victories which is still ongoing ...

I guess 2003 was my most enjoyable World Cup ... Dada had changed the face of Indian cricket and finally we could say that India's fielding was good ... the team had a balanced outlook and the expectations were very high ...

I had a steady girl friend at this time (who is my wife now :)) ... I was in my final year of Graduation and this was the time when we had to finish files for practical assignments and also submit our final year project ...

every game of India is etched in my memory ...

India were embarassed by the Aussies in the first game and it resulted in a fierce backlash back home ... no one would have thought that India would surrender so meekly especially since Warne was banned from the World Cup ...

This was also a time when Pranay, Satya and I used to study at Satya's place and also play Cricket in his courtyard ... I remember seeing the India Zimbabwe game at Satya's place ... given the unpredictable history of India-Zimbabwe games, we were expecting a tough match ... but India won handsomely to get off the mark ... in between India also won against Holland with Yuvi taking 4-6 ... incredible ... I had received a call from XLRI Jamshedpur and my interview was in Mumbai ... I had gone there with my Jiju the same day as the India-Namibia match ... there was a Electronics expo bang in front of Bandra Kurla complex and we saw the Indian innings at one of the giant screens put up there ... the next game was India-England ... and this was the time we were having night labs from 9 pm to 6 am in college ... since there were 2 divisions in college and the night lab schedule was distributed across divisions ... it was not our turn that night ... instead our lab timing was 7-9 pm ... and then the other division took over from 9 pm to 6 am ... the match started at around 6 pm and Pranay, Satya and I were watching it at Satya's place ... Satya's Dad's expression is still so vivid when SRT hooked Caddick into the parking lot ... he had both his hands on his forehead in pure disbelief ... we then attended the lab from 7-9 pm only to rush back to his place to catch England's reply ... and AshishNehra took over ... 6/23 ... almost all dismissals were behind the wicket ... it was great to watch an India pacer bowling such a spell ... and finally India-Pakistan ...

This has a story ...

It was our practical assignments submission day in college and there was utter chaos for getting sheets signed and submitting the files ... and it was a day game which meant it would start at 2 pm ... we had planned a big Biryani-Booze bash at my place that day ... we were done by around 1 pm and rushed to my place in the afternoon ... I dont exactly remember who all were there ... I guess Pranay, Swapna, Mahesh, Suchit ... who else? Dont remember now ... and it

was hungama when Zaheer got the first wicket ... but Pakistan played well to get 270 odd ... by the time India's reply began, the Biryani and Booze were ready ... and so was SRT ... the most astonishing knock ... the first over from Shoaib Akhtar was magical ... a cut over third man for SIX, a wristy flick backward of square for FOUR and the best of the lot ... a trademark SRT check on-drive past mid-on for FOUR ... there was a poster backfoot cover punch from SRT off Wasim in between ... India were away and Yuvi-Dravid saw us through ... this was followed by Pakistan-Zimbabwe (or was it England-Zimbabwe?) match being abandoned which meant Pakistan crashed out of the World Cup ... yipppeee ...

In the Super Six, India faced Kenya and almost made a hash of it only for Dada and Yuvi to bail us out ... and then we won convincingly against the Kiwis and Lankans to make the semis comfortably ... I remember Pranay, Swapna and I were sitting outside a printing shop near MIT watching the India-Lanka match ... we were waiting for our Project copies to be binded ... in the Semis we were pitted to play the Kenyans again ... this time we won more comfortably ... but the Final is a bad memory ... the Aussies were just too strong ... but it was a memorable World Cup ...

The Proteas again ran into Lara in the first match of the Cup and failed to get their calculations right against a D/L affected match against Lanka ... Kenya upset the Lankans and later defeated Zimbabwe in the Super Six ... John Davison of Canada smashed an unbelievable 60 ball century against the Windies ... I guess Vaas took a hat-trick in the first over of a match ... lots of people took over 6 wickets in a game ... Bond, Nehra, Mcgrath, Bichel ...


By 2007, I must admit I was not following cricket the way I used to ... I was married just 2-3 months before the World Cup started ... the format of this tournament left a lot to be desired ... and India and Pakistan were knocked out in the first round itself by Bangladesh and Ireland ... sigh ... it hurts ...

There was still some hope for India especially after they hammered Bermuda ... but they had to win against Lanka ... and I was back at Satya's place watching that match ... we didnt play badly ... the reply was strongish but we kept losing wickets ... and Satya and I could watch no more ... and went off to sleep only to get up in the morning to see newspapers and TV channels spewing venom on the Indian team ...

The tournament went on an on and never seemed to end ... the loss of India and Pakistan took the sheen away from the 2nd round ... Australia won another World Cup on my birthday in 2007 ... I was in Matheran that day ... but I didnt seem to care ... I didnt watch the 2nd round at all in that World Cup ... one of the forgettable World Cups ...

But here we are in 2011 ... back in the sub continent ... and India are a strong team now ... but there are several good teams ... here's hoping for some more tales ... and wishing Team India all the best ...

Baaki baatein baad mein ... Cheers ... !!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Badhaai Ho ... !!

No, its not something great that has happened in my life.

One of those things in life for which I am infamous for ... my sad sense of humor.

A colleague of mine was on leave for a week. He called me from his hometown just to ask about what is happening in office. I was in the middle of some important work at that time and I was not paying too much attention to the discussion on phone while pretending to take immense interest in it. After discussing about the state of affairs for around 2 minutes, he said ...

He - Aapke liye ek khush khabari hai ...
Me - Haan haan bolo ...
He - Meri shaadi fix ho gayi ...

This was the time I completely ignored the task I was doing and started wondering why it could be a good news for me if his wedding has been fixed. This guy is probably the sweetest person in the team by a long distance and is extremely innocent. Had it been a bumchum, my reply to that statement would have downright cheap ... I am sure all my good friends reading this know what I mean ;)

Anyway ... since I could not completely ignore the job at hand and I could also not afford to hurt him and I wanted to finish the discussion soon, I had to say something ... and I failed miserably at it ... my exact words were ...

Chalo ... tumko aur mujhko bohot bohot badhaai ho ... tum aa jaao fir saath mein celebrate karte hai ... (one can possibly think of gazillion meanings for that statement)

Dratch ... after about an hour or so ... I realised what I had said ... even though I knew it was something uncalled for ... I still feel ... hell forget it ... he said it was a good news for me so why cant I congratulate myself for that ...

Just a day in the life of Pratik Beri ... RIP bro ...

Cheers ... !!