Brought the sun up with an all-nighter on chat after ages. Then grabbed a quick 3 and a half hours and headed for work.

Just like the old days. 

This old dog can still do it. Whoohoo.

Thanks for the chuckles, Beb!

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For about an hour, I cheered the Bermuda team on! They hit a few runs and then bowled 3 Bangladeshis out for next to nothing and a faint glimmer of hope appeared on the Indian team’s horizon. It was all a bit improbable, but for that one hour, I spent time at Footsie, with bunch of maniacs, following a Bermuda Vs Bangadesh game, egging the Islanders on… and I loved it.

Hope, is a wonderful thing.

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Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined our cricket crazy country would follow a Bangladesh Vs Bermuda match, ball by ball. I suspect that might very well be the case in a few hours from now.

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Stayed at home this Saturday Night and watched another run-fest and an absolute cracker of a match between The Oz & The Afrikaaners. Even though the Oz won, it was a cracker indeed! Decided NOT to go to the watering hole to watch. Who needs another night with Long Islands and a reminder that we aren’t playing anymore this Cup.

Trolling the web while the match was being played, I chanced upon a delicious blog that I read pretty much of. Yes, Mingle, this means you. Good stuff and I will keep coming back for more.

And finally, to make the night even better, a new chatter pal turned out to be an avid Terry Pratchett fan. Spent time discussing Discworld till over 4am and making sure her dissertation plans all went to hell. At least tonight. I’m sorry Reebs, heh heh, you’ll do just fine by the time Friday comes in. Discussing Pratchett with another fan of The Watch is a thing of joy. Yummy.

What a perfect evening. Night. Morning. Whatever.

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Oh well!

50 Overs, 413-5, 18 Sixes, a Sehwag century, a Dada bash, a Yuvraj massacare and a Sachin of old.

Was it fun? Oh hell yeah!

Oh and did I mention the largest margin of victory ever in ODI’s? 257 runs!

Can’t wait till we take on the Lankans.

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Alrightey then.

Not much to say other than the fact that I loved the way the Bangaldeshis took the game away from us. I had never heard of Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim, Saqibul Hassan and Mashrage Mortaza before but now I will follow the rest of their careers with great interest. Especially young Tamim Iqbal - what a blithe spirit!

It’s a bit galling that a 17 yr old, an 18 yr old and a 19 yr old has beaten a team that had 3 players who have scored more than 10000 ODI runs. Anyways, life goes on and so do those horrible TV ads that star our cricketers.

Blue, is truly the color. Nahi Ladega toh Nahi Jeetega.

Now, if blue ruled one channel, it was green all the day the other channel. It was St. Paddy’s Day and the Irish were in awesome form on and off the field against Pakistan. If you thought India Vs Bangladesh was a bit weird, this match was completely ridiculous. The Barmy Army finally has competition from The Blarney Army and the stands were a sea of green in clover. I also Brian Jerling give Andre Bota out - the worst decision I had ever seen since my bad decision to get married. Incredible, even Stevie Wonder would have given that as not out. The Bangladeshis were very muted with their celebrations, just a few hi-fives and handshakes all around which was very much in contrast to what those mad Micks did when they finally beat the Pakis. Incredible. The largest World Cup ever has now become the most open World Cup ever. Good stuff.

And finally, Scarlet was the color in Australia as F1 2007 got underway. Kimi in his new Ferrari clockied up their first wins of the season. Perfect, I say.

Just over 30 overs, India Vs Bangladesh, I find the Indians labouring along at the speed-of-Inzy, scratching 90 runs in the said time after having lost 4 wickets. Incredible. Having seen how the top 4 went, I am inclined to think Greg Chapel isn’t going to be saying too much to the newspapers and Sunil Gavaskar isn’t going to say too much about the Aussies anymore.

I don’t think the Bangladeshis will beat us, however, having said that I’m not counting the possibility out. THEN how important does the Sri Lanka match become for us?

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I know, I know. I have been doing some script-writing for a Hindi movie and that should explain my absence. I have been watching a lot of English movies for original ideas. Here are some commonly used Hindi dialogues translated to English for a larger reading audience.

I promise, none of these have been made up.

• I will never forget your favour
• Tell me where the diamonds are
• I am going to be the mother of your children
• Oh, he has a fast fever
• Driver, stop the car
• Inspector, arrest him
• God, I have never asked anything of you. Today, for the first time, I am asking
• I too haven’t worn bangles
• Have faith in God. Everything will be alright
• This marriage party will now go back
• You are somebody’s illegal offspring
• If you have drunk your mother’s milk
• Law’s hands are very long
• At home, I have two nubile daughters
• Once refer to me as mother, son
• I am still a guardian of my own virtue by way of my unmarried virginity
• Brother, I am no longer able to show anyone my face
• He must have some weakness, some mother, some sister?
• First we will loot your purse, then we will loot your honour
• Boss, I have eaten your salt
• Your wife gave birth to a first-class child, but both died upon childbirth
• I am not from the world, the world is from me

Aap ka huwa,

-Madrassi Manoranjan

Yes, we know the Aussies sledge and ‘abuse‘ opponents. Boo-f00ken-hoo.

SMG now says, and I quote ‘’a ‘hot head guy’ might actually whack the Australian cricketers if they dared replicate their on-field behaviour in a bar'’.

Mr. G, I would like to see any hot head guy try and pick on Haydos or Symonds. Or maybe they would have liked to pick on the small feller, Langer, who I think, happened to be a  black belt at Tai-chi or Judo or something similar.

Mr.G, who once, many moons ago decided to walk off the field because he was ‘wrongly‘ given out to Dennis Lillee, now says he walked because he was ‘abused’ by the Aussies. Bet you ten bucks he has no idea what a stiff-upper-lip is!

And lastly - the Aussies abuse? And sledge? Mr.G, you simply MUST watch the first ball Zaheer Khan bowled to Haydos in the last Cup final. He bowled it, beat Haydos and then proceeded to have a chirp. I am not a lip reader but I know Zaheer wasn’t asking Haydos if he wanted a side order of fries to go with that. I remember clearly, the Aussies abusing us back. With their bats. Especially Punter. Haah!

The Aussies sledge and get some back in return. Why, legend has it that Parthiv Patel had a go at Steve Waugh in his final test innings - it was another matter altogether that Parthiv Patel didn’t have anything to say after Waugh’s retort. 

SMG - You were a great. You scored a 34 Test hundreds. You were the first person to get to 10000 test runs. Great. You even had an ugly skull cap. Hurrah. Now, pipe down son, the games are on!

Rigged!