Thank You Sachin

Time doesn't stop. It didn't stop for Einstein, or for Gandhi, nor for Jagjit Singh and Steve Jobs. And it won't stop for Sachin Tendulkar either. But some people will feel that it has stopped, for them. Cricket won't end, but for some, it will. Some will stop watching it. I'll be one of them. I don't know if this will be forever. Maybe I'll watch again when he's a coach. Maybe I'll watch when Arjun comes on crease. And maybe I won't. Maybe none of these ever happen. Nothing is certain.

But what is certain is that I'll not forget what I felt over the years. I'll never forget the way Flintoff paid for his words, or the dreams Shane Warne talked about, or the hooks off Shoaib Akhtar that Sachin sixed and Sehwag copied. They'll remain with me till I die, unless some dementia takes them away from me.

Thank you Sachin. I have not yet, nor can or will try to think how cricket will be without you. Maybe I never see it at all. But you played the first cricket match I ever saw. And I'll see the last cricket match you ever play.

IPL Season II - Ye "Naya" Hai

Finally the DLF IPL Seacond season is here. And slowly it is gaining momentum that was nowhere in the start, unlike the first season. There are lots of expectations from the old winners. And somehow, many people are expecting the old tallies to continue. For such people, I have only three words. This is New. Ye Naya Hai.

IPL Season one gave us winners like Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings. While teams which stood high grounds on paper, like Deccan chargers, played some schoolboy cricket, especially in terms of team spirit. Royal Challengers of Bangalore looked challenged on many grounds and Mumbai Indians could not make it even with the biggest biggies around.

But if you concluded that Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the ultimate King (or Super King) whose team cannot be beaten by that of an aging Sachin or that Gilchrist, Gibbs and RP Singh cannot make a good team, it's time you think again as everything seems to be new in this season.

IPL season II proved from the very first match that one should not go by the tallies of last season when Mumbai beat the Finalist of last season, Chennai Super Kings. If this was not enough of a surprise (for me it really was not) in the second match Royal Challengers Bangalore not only won the match but Rajasthan Royals, last year's champions, were reduced to a mere fifty eight, the lowest yet in the IPL. And it was purely because of the all charged up performance of the Challengers, and their changed attitude which was clear when they were fielding.

The third match was unfortunate as the rain made things not so impartial, but the fourth match once again brought in Deccan Chargers as victors against Kolkata Knight Riders, after an extremely poor show by the former during the last season. Also, the fielding and bowling of the team looked wonderful and the attitude of Chargers on field was hardly anything less than that of the Challengers.

In short, the first two days have made it clear that the new season of the IPL has to be written in new, blank sheets and one need not think that the impressions of the last season will be found on this season too. And now even if a few matches again give the results like the past, it will not be because of who won in the last season, but purely because who is in command this time.

On that note, there is something I would say about Dhoni's comment that I read in today's newspaper. Dhoni had written that they'd make a comeback (after their loss to Mumbai in first match), but my say is that there is nothing to make a comeback to in this season. To win this one, he'll have to start anew with his team, something that Pieterson and Gilchrist are doing.

Dhoni Savvy Media

A few years earlier we used to have media savvy people. But now, we are having the opposite, people savvy media. Actually, it's not a people savvy media, but a celebrity savvy media. They make celebrities, they run programs on them, increase their TRPs, and then dump them with a few more programs and polls deciding should he/she do this/that in this way/at all etc.

I guess nowadays it's our one day Cricket captain Dhoni who is the apple of camera lenses for these TV channels, even newspapers. There are articles proving and reproving, assuring us all, that Dhoni has done something which was never done by anyone in India from Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar to Sachin or Sehwag. By now I have no idea what exactly this something is but if the media continues this way I guess in some I shall be sure that this something has a real existence.

The interesting thing is that this media thing is affecting even bigger things now. Or so I feel. I really have no Idea why Dhoni is the only other player than Sachin Tendulkar to get a Khel Ratna award. I do agree that he is the poster boy of Indian cricket, but if Dhoni deserves a Khel Ratna, what about the players with 950+ wickets or with 10k runs in ODIs as well as in tests?

I think we just need a hero, and now that some are saying it's Dhoni, we are happy to have him. Otherwise, there was never a need to clarify that a winner 'deserves' the Khel Ratna award. Isn't it?

Post-Gold

Prices of Gold have been falling for last one week. And there is a number of ladies in my home and family who are planning to buy some Gold and wishing it falls down more.

I think it will. As Abhinav Bindra will be bringing some extra Gold home while coming back from Beijing. Though I wish and hope there will be more Golden moments in Beijing for India, history doesn't allow me to expect a lot, and considering we have not fell down in terms of overall performance in Olympics for past 12 years, ever since Paes won us a Bronze in 1996 olympics, fighting Andre Agassi in the semis, one gold is where we should have landed after Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore's silver last Olympics.

Fast forward to 2008. Abhinav Bindra wins a gold in 10 meter air rifle. Of course 95% of Indians will be learning the name of shooting events for the first time, it being a conservative estimate.

First of all, my hearty congratulations to Bindra. Anything said here is not meant to dishonor the national hero by any means.

Now, let us see what happens when Abhinav Bindra wins the Gold. As soon as we know Abhinav wins, there is a usual race among news channels to capture the nearest. Some reach his home to find his parents dealing with neighbors living at the other end of town whereas some try to reach him on phone before the national anthem in the Beijing's Olympic stadium could finish, rest trying to make up their stories with relations and coaches.

But the interesting part starts when it seems that entire contry except Srinagar where a curfew was imposed, was celebrating Abhinav's victory on roads with Dhols and fireworks. Not just in Chandigarh and Dehradun, people were found celebrating even in Meerut which had no specific relation to the national hero dancing with the national flag of India, though it was held upside down. Surely the men in front of camera cannot be framed guilty as they are too happy being on television but the channel showing the national flag upside down could have given it a thought while showing the clip repeatedly.

Television was also showing news of lacs of rupees being announced for the shooter by state governements that are trying to swim out of their debts of crores, as it was a great chance to prove our commitment to sports and sportsmen. But of these, the second most interesting was BCCI giving Rs 25 lac to Bindra, as if it were ADC, and number one was Bihar government's announcement to build a Bindra stadium. I wish that's not a cricket ground.

And among all this, there was a bunch that enjoyed the moment of Abhinav's victory as their own. It was the Indian cricket team, who lost another test and the series to Sri Lanka but as Abhinav won, there was almost no coverage on the match loss, whereas it would have been an experts' day on news channels who would lament the loss of our cricket team.

In the end, I also feel that some leading towns of India may see the rise of small shooting ranges where you could 'Learn shooting in 15 days' or something like that. And in my views which might be considered pessimistic, there will hardly be anything positive for Indian sports resulting from this because we will still be seeing the rates of gold day after tomorrow and mom will be sending me to my study so that I become a computer engineer and then I will be able to buy lot of gold.

But whatever the result, Abhinav has proved that we CAN do it. So if there are a few moms who try, we can WIN some more gold in future.

PS: ADC stands for access deficit charge that was paid to (a losing) BSNL till some time ago by leading companies like Airtel and Hutch as only BSNL operated in remote areas.

World's Luckiest Cricket Team

Indian Cricket team might not be the world's best Cricket team. In fact it is not. But surely they're the luckiest ones. I hope you have no doubts about it.

India lost a test series as Sri Lanka won 2-1. But both the times it so happened that nobody seemed to care.

The first match India lost was on the evening when Ahmedabad was going through serial blasts and no channel was interested in covering match as people wanted to see exactly what was happening in Ahmedabad. The score of 138 could not be heard among the blasts that rocked the country.

And then it turned out to be the third test, an almost similar show with not as bad scores. This time it was the good news that helped people forget the loss of Indian cricket team. Or rather, once again didn't give them a chance to think about cricket as shooter Abhinav Bindra gave India it's first Gold Medal since 1980.

It's not possible for any team to win all matches on pure luck, but this team has proved something different, that you need not always win. Sometimes you can perform pathetic, drastic, lose matches and still, luck favoring, you can escape the fury of the media and hence people.