Ten ways to lose Twenty-Twenty
Looking at India’s despicable run chase in the just concluded match against the English (in the ICC twenty-twenty world cup), I felt like enumerating the ten most important ways you can lose a twenty-twenty cricket match !
- Who looks better ? (On the field)
1.) Push the third time losers like Ravinder Jadeja up the ranks so that they can make their test match debuts in the Twenty-Twenty format. The funny side of the whole affair was his face. He has more expressions than a monkey on heat. But he had no shots unfortunately.
2.) Come in down the line with mammoth expectations like Yuvraj, and then get stumped while your backfoot hangs above the ground like a limp phallus. Here I must give some credit to the man. He puts an honest effort all the time. Better luck with Kim Sharma.
3.) Come in as captain like Dhoni and then start playing like an entry level cricketer playing his first Ranji trophy. I wonder if Dhoni stopped getting his milk. Maybe he should head to the nearest cow and stick his head under the udder. He looked more like a “doodh pita baccha” than the captain during the match.
4.) Get cocky like Harbhajan during the usual interview halfway through the match. He thought it was a “good pitch to bat on” . I thought his lack of foresight and intelligence is a “good pitch to Bet on”. There is nothing like making cocky statements like that and then coming a cropper.
5.) Get all confused with loopy bouncers. Suresh Raina needs to understand that he is no good if he can only play “good length balls that come on to the bat”. He looked like a guy trying to fly a kite. His expression after his dismissal , conveyed the distinct impression that he wanted to hit the ball higher in the air – so that all the eleven on the fielding side could get underneath it !
6.) Put a kilo of white sunscreen on your face like Gambhir and then play like a zombie. He needs to get his act together before he lands up being the “borderline case” all over again. The guy probably put in the best efort in the whole side. But alas … it was just too little. The better thing to do would have been to take a swipe at Jadeja, so the guy could be removed from the match and thus improve our chances.
7.) Come in like the next Nemesis of the balling and then drag the ball to your stump like Mr. Sharma at the top. Sharma looks confident. He moves confident. He gestures confidantly. He does everything right in terms of the show. And then he plays like a third time loser. I wonder if he was thinking this was the IPL – and there would always be “another match” surrounded by those foreign babes swinging their booty at the ropes. Come on man – can you please grow up !
8.) Win the toss , and then mis-read the pitch and then choose to chase just because you lost the last match playing first ! ( Which is what I think our good captain had in mind anyway !)
9.) Play like a opener in the third last over. This one must be the best way to lose the match without getting blamed for not trying hard. Our great players were taking the “ones and twos” diligently while the required rate was 12+. Qualifications for playing in the Indian should include proficeincy in basic math !
10.) Play the “same team” in all the non-consequential matches. And then start doing the experiments in the important ones ! This probably is the single best way to confuse your own team members and lose the important matches. Suddenly we see “new” faces when the most important match comes up !
The Indian team has this uncanny ability to make benign cricketing sessions look like russian roullete. Their confidence is as thick as the ice on a frozen lake during a warm summer. Some one just needs to jump a little hard, and the whole surface of the lake cracks up. At the end of the match all I could say was – “well we deserved to lose !”
