Twenty20 – Jokers and Geniuses
I am convinced that Twenty20 is not for people like me. They killed a really nice game called cricket and made it a joke. These days, nobody cares for good cricketing shots, brilliant fielding and wonderful bowling. Talking of which, we should invent a bowling machine. Do we really need a bowler whose only goal in playing Twenty20 is to somehow manage to avoid humiliation?
That said, watch the Yuvraj 6’s below. All clean shots and brilliant hits. Now, this is what I call real cricket 😉 In a nutshell, this form of cricket makes a joker out of a bowler and shows the genius of a real batsman. I know I had sworn that I wouldn’t ever watch Indian cricket. Hey, but that was one-dayers 😉
Oh, and can someone pull Ravi Shastri out of the commentary box? You will be doing a great service to this World!!!
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A Paradise for Dreamers 
September 19, 2007 at 7:29 pm
what nansense i say!!
all full length/full toss balls only no? deserved it. in one day cricket half of these would have been respected. after three sixes, they would have gone, ok average bantalla next ball kuttaNa.
20-20 will separate boys from men. batting aagali bowling aagali. see how it put, ahem, agarkar in place? 🙂
September 19, 2007 at 7:39 pm
ok before i eat crow, apparently this broad doode is one of the up and coming stars and all.
bad luck doode. remember to change length.
September 19, 2007 at 9:02 pm
d.s.:
well, as long as somebody can hit six sixes in an over, i am happy ;-). after all, nobody is to blame!!
as has been the trend lately, i disagree with you once more :-). the pressure is well and truly on the batsman. not much is expected of the bowlers now. it is upto the batsmen to set a target and to chase one down. cricinfo had a piece on this recently …
btw, here is another ‘indian’ word – exchequer (maybe i’ve mis-spelt it). ask a thousand americans and maybe five – who’ve been to england or its erstwhile colonies – might know what it means. even i, who grew up in india, won’t hazard a guess at the exact meaning, though i know the contextual meaning.
tarle:
joginder out-agarkared agarkar. our golden boy will be back for south africa. mark my words!
– s.b.
September 19, 2007 at 11:57 pm
yes, Shastri needs to be kicked out of commentary box.. this is what he said when Robin win the match for India against England – “Robin Uthappa deserves 10 dosas for his effort” – huh?!
September 20, 2007 at 1:45 am
uneven competition between the bowler and batsman. like bull fighting
Looks like sense is more important than speed and swing.
Also sense for the bowler and (mad) swings for the batsman.
September 20, 2007 at 5:32 am
d.s.:
i had typed a long comment last night and thought (yes, it was pretty late at night) i had submitted it; when i did not see it come up, i assumed that maybe it was stuck in the moderation queue. if it is not queued up, please tell me and i will try to write it all over again.
– s.b.
September 20, 2007 at 11:12 pm
After yesterday’s India-SA encounter also you consider this as a boring batsmen’s game? Best thing about this form of game is you need not get attached to, as we did for One dayers.
September 21, 2007 at 7:15 am
sb i guess this means there will be no great bowlers but great spells.
sb i got in late into following this TT thingie. and am now very excited about it.
this is an intense challenge for a bowler and only the best can consistently give good spells. when comforting factors like time, bowler reputation, batsman reputation etc are taken out and only the raw intention of the batsman to strike is at play it will take immense amount of innovation on bowler’s part to come out victorious.
i think in the end this game will bring out some nice innovations in bowling and some great bowlers.
my fav anecdote is from a semi final match in a intra-college tournament.
so our team has to defend about 15 runs in two overs, and they are playing their best bats – univ players and all. so we huddle up. its settled G to bowl 20th over, S to bowl 19th over. G says, gimme about 6 runs. S goes for 11 runs. so only 4 left for G.
guess what? G bowls a maiden. i swear i had never seen balls rise so steeply from length.
aaah, makes me nostalgic…
G was a great player. 2 down bat. bowled medium pace. played for the univ himself. but his family wouldn’t let him play further. played with ‘shi and ‘ble. now a software engineer. another kid in college, K, a infinitely hillarious chap, was leggie and an opening bat, played league in goa before moving to sales. another guy chinese kid, i mean han chinese, from coimbatore, S was kumble class spinner. then there was this great bat P from andhra who was hot with girls. that was the golden period for my univ, we won inter-state and all. G is in the univ roster of whos who along with likes of Karnad and all, no kidding.
September 21, 2007 at 7:21 am
DS sorry for spamming you blog…
but i still contend, the best cricket to watch is local.
September 21, 2007 at 3:49 pm
tarle:
osman samiuddin has a nice piece on (pakistani) local cricket in the lead-up to the pakistan-nz semi, as to why pakistan should be favoured.
didn’t think i would say this; definitely didn’t think i would say it this quickly for sure, but i like twenty20! this should be the first step up from local cricket for player development. twenty20, then odi, then tests.
twenty20 for immature players (read ranji kings) trying to get that international exposure and develop skills, odis would provide the transition, and then – of course – tests. my view is that, as the twenty20 schedule develops, tests and twenty20 should not overlap, in the sense that no test player should play twenty20 and vice versa (ok, maybe one or two, but not more than that).
to this end, whether forced or otherwise, i believe that our big three did well to sit out of the current team. and kudos to dravid, as he definitely made that decision on his own – the other two were either persuaded or dropped (depending on which version you believe).
d.s.:
just like i claim that all my blog posts don’t mean i am the biggest federer fan ever :-), i also claim that all my vitriolic comments re: agarkar don’t mean that i am the biggest agarkar hater ever.
time was when i saw him as india’s next biggest hope. waiting in line for some ins process nearly a decade ago with an india today in hand, i recall reading an article (i believe it was the cover story) on him that wondered how one built so slim could bowl so fast so well. unfortunately, i felt that – over the years – he let the team down (but for a burst here and there, like totally out of the blue). how and/or why, beats me!
does mohan (aralikatte) read your blog?
– s.b.
September 25, 2007 at 2:28 pm
@ TS:
I am yet to see an Indian cricketer who has got as many chances as Agarkar has. It is unbelievable that we dropped Atul Bedade and Kanitkar’s so soon and keep playing Agarkar forever.
@ SB:
I have change my allegiance now. No more one days, Go Twenty20 🙂
Yes, it has been ages since I ehard ‘exchequer’ used anywhere. So, it seems more ‘Indian’, true.
@ Prashant:
Yep, he is gettign more and more annoying as the days go by. Rameez Raja is the only one who can beat him hands down in the current commentary box.
@ neela:
I have staretd liking this version …. ooops 🙂
@ Srik:
I don’t agree with the attachment part, but I have changed my mind about twenty20. I do like this version, a lot. Thatw as a fast 180 degree, huh? 😉
@ TS:
feel free to abuse the blog 😉
@ SB:
On the other hand, I am probably one of the biggest Agarkar haters ever…he totally doesn’t deserve to be in the national squad, period. And yes, I have seen Mohan doing rounds here sometimes.
September 25, 2007 at 6:14 pm
d.s.:
i read on bpsk’s blog that harsha bhogle (of all people) out-smaliked rameez by quoting from the bhagavad gita! 😉
– s.b.
September 26, 2007 at 5:44 am
sb thanks ayya for that ref.
btw, i just cant believe agarkar’s luck. he is world champion now.
for example kumble will never be known as a world champion.
a’kar must have done some immense punya in his last life.
September 26, 2007 at 7:44 am
agarkar was too lucky.
he got the T20 medal first! 😦
Kumble would have played T20 well.
September 26, 2007 at 5:11 pm
tarle/d.s./neela:
do a search for agarkar in this piece and let me know whether you laughed or cried (or did both!). me and my teammates mast majjaa maadidvee!
i fervently hope that the ganguly/tendulkar/dravid troika does not return for future twenty20s.
– s.b.
September 26, 2007 at 11:08 pm
A Agarkar is usually taken along as a mascot …and a lucky one at that.
They can carry a duck from amchi mumbai instead.
s.b : I am feeling relieved that we can now drop him.
September 27, 2007 at 5:59 pm
@ SB:
You know what, I somehow missed that comment from Harsha Bhogle, I am still wondering how.
And, that is a funny line on Agarkar int hata rticle you linked.
@ TS:
I bet he has done TONS of puNya in his previous births. Nothing else can explain his ‘success’ now.
@ neela:
You are very confident that he will be dropped, aren’t you?