There was this line I put for the performance of Chelsea against Barcelona in the CL semi finals on my Facebook status

They paved paradise, put up a parking lot…
- Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi.

The obvious reference is to the ‘parking the bus’ tactic they used to destroy the game and try to win by hook or by crook…

And on asking about the KKR performance for this year by a friend, I was quick to say

Bungle in the Jungle, and it’s all right by me…
- Jethro Tull, Bungle in the Jungle.

So that get’s me thinking, what can be a few others? Will figure out a few more and put in, as and when I think of any.

And of course you have seen the blog, haven’t you**? If the cave you stay in is so far removed from human contact that you have failed to have visited this site yet, well, here it is (click here).

And let me look into my crystal ball, what would be the next wave of goss on that front?

There will be a million bloggers, in their need to be famous, that will proclaim themselves to be the one. They will be the ‘fake fake IPL players’. And there will be many of them, who will be proclaimed by the media as the ‘fake fake fake IPL player’, namely, the ‘real fake IPL player’…

But eventually, the ‘real fake IPL player’ (RFIP) will never be found. Like the abominable snowman, like the chupacabra, like the sasquatch, like Keysar Soze, the RFIP will disappear soon after the IPL v2 ends. Just like that, he will be gone….

And the biggest trick that he will have played, will be to make the world believe that he did exist…

 Now wait a minute. What does my crystal ball tell me, then? Is it that the RFIP never existed?

That indeed is what it seems like, to my limited mind.

Why? Now here’s the reason….

It cannot be a player, for the simple reason that if it were, he would have been found out by now. It is not tough to track down the IP, located the cyber café/ laptop/desktop from where the posts go out, and many must have tried this already….

To no avail.

So it cannot be a regular rant by a disgruntled Ranadeb Bose (As Gulu Ezekiel claims here.. did he have a fallout with Ganguly after the biography?) or a needing-the-fame Anureet Singh. This is planned, and must have been brewing for a while, Whoever is writing the blog must have been planning this for a long while. And while I, willy-nilly, might still be convinced that there is some cricketer somewhere who can pull it off in terms of the writing skills yada yada (no, fat chance that Ranadeb or Anureet or Akash Chopra has that level of writing skill, this blog is genuine mirth… and yes I know that Akash Chopra has written a book, which I have not read yet… but I have indeed read his blog on Cricinfo, and it is honest, prosaic, solid and unexciting, pretty much like the player himself), the technical skills involved to ensure that the person is not caught, must involve some experts.

It cannot be a player in cahoots with a few other buddies of his with the necessary technical skills, because the secret will have definitely been breached… The more the people involved (if this would have just been for fun), the more the chance of the leak…

It cannot be a journo. No journo will commit that kind of professional suicide … the guy/ gal will definitely be ostracized by the media once the news comes out (and trust me it would have by now)… and the fear of libel is a big fear. It’s big, powerful, important people they are trying to take on (in whatever humorous way).

So who is left over?

One of the teams? In a bid for self publicity?

Well, that’s my hunch. One of my hunches, rather.

The IPL v2 has been a success, willy-nilly, I suppose; but has definitely not been the kind of success that the IPL had been the last time…. And what better that to spin some controversy (and fun, might I add) into the whole thing?

KKR itself would have been a possibility, Shahrukh Khan is one of the rare celebrities that has learnt the art of laughing at himself (kudos to him for that)… but would he allow his team to get into this mire of controversy? It’s his money at stake after all….

But then, the money KKR makes is not through winning or losing the tourney (and the team is pretty weak, there are few chances anyway that they will make it to the top), but through ad revenues etc etc….

So it may very well be KKR. Of course Ganguly and Gayle and Agarkar and McCullum and Buchanan and even the rest of the team would have been kept in the loop.

The doubt is that the other teams are not left out of the fun… and they might sue for damages. C’mon, at least Sresanth would definitely sue. And the secret would have to be out sometime for sure, if that many people are in the know.

Maybe.

And the other candidate might be the IPL committee itself…. They do need the publicity, this is a story! A real story! A scoop! Truth or otherwise!

And why would they care about whether a team does well or badly, when all they need is to just ensure the tournament is a success and they make their money, right? And this issue is giving the tournament a lot of publicity.

So is it the IPL committee itself? Will they do something incredulous like this?

Maybe.

And both the parties I have mentioned have the money to gather the technical wherewithal and writing prowess to create this monster…

And well, you and I have all started blogs at some point of time. Isn’t it tough to be popular? How strong, really, is word of mouth? Is it strong enough for a blog to get this incredible level of publicity in just a few days? Without someone in the background playing God? I doubt it very much.

So there, just my two pence into the whole debate.

And don’t come back to this blog and laugh at me tomorrow when some unknown XYZ cricketer (or even Ranadeb or Anureet or even Akash Chopra) owns up to being the RFIP… Or rather, please do. I do not claim to be the lord and master of all analysts, and it is nice to eat humble pie once in a while.

** If you are remotely interested in the IPL.

And I am a lot more interested in what happens, this year.

Great chance for Bangalore to do well. And my second team, Kolkata… does not cease to amuse and entertain…

Will he become the greatest ever?

BTW, after the pathetically dreary Schumacher borefests, F1 is exciting again. Great!

And here’s one post to write… I will have to write one on why Fernando Alonso is such a big favourite….

How good is he, really?

Haven’t seen him enough on court, so cannot put in a detailed, educated analysis here.

But he certainly has the smarts on court, and that’s what keeps him above his non-Nadal, non-Novak peers. Richard Gasquet, say. Or Jo Wilfried Tsonga, who is very similar to Marat Safin, in a way that on his day, he can swat any opposition like a truant fly off the court.

So, Murray (observation 2) says that he will win a Grand Slam or two… and might not become an all time great.

And I am glad. I am a fan of Zaheer’s, pretty much the same way I used to be a fan of Srinath.

Take away the pretense and the glamour and the showbiz, and all you have left behind is just bat and ball. And in that game, these two, considerable-but-not-extraordinary talents both, had done good. Had done enough.

And Zaheer has a few miles more to travel. A few miles more to travel, now as the craftiest fast-medium bowler in the world.

If only he could learn to pick up tail-end wickets….

Played for East Bengal, which is the rival club.

But was a genuine great of  Indian Football.

And surprisingly, he did not have a page on him, on Wikipedia.

Well, now he does (click here).

This is from the Guardian SportsBlog (Click here)

Nice list. All six are credits to football; although I have not seen the Everton or Liverpool midfields and have seen only grainy footage of Didi and Garrincha…

If i were to make a list, it would surely include

- The France Euro ‘00 midfield

     Djorkaeff – Vieira – Deschamps – Zidane 

    (with a backup of Pires, Petit, Karembeu and Micoud)

- The famous Arsenal midfield of the Invincible year 

   Ljungberg – Edu – Vieira - Pires 

(p.s. wonderful to see the Platini – Tigana – Giresse – Fernandez quartet, one of my first football memories…)

Will India ever be the ruthless world champions of cricket like the West Indies were? Or like Australia was? I have my doubts. India’s team will get better, and might even be the dominant team of the world, the ‘first among equals’ if you will, but that one bane, complacency, might prevent this generation from becoming the Baggy Greens of the 2010-2020 time frame.

And do we know anybody who does not like Jesse Ryder? And Ross Taylor?

I do dislike the fact that it took his foibles to be evident to the cricketing world for me to go beyond the respect / admire and actually become a fan of Sachin.

Arun Lal! Arun Lal! I liked him when he was playing for Bengal and making a proper cricket team out of a rather tag-rag bunch.. and I like him as a commentator. Not spectacular, but solid and consistent. Just like the cricketer, the batsman he was. Will have to write a post on Arun Lal the cricketer some day.

Isn’t Iain O’Brien’s blog (click here) exactly the way you always expected a New Zealand cricketer’s blog to be like?

Can I request all Indian cricket fans to not troll the abovementioned blog?

Dhoni is really the heartbeat of the Indian cricket team.

How long will Dale Steyn remain a top bowler, and continue to play for the South African national team? Will he remain a great bowler after 30?

Strengths:

Clean bowling action.

Strong, wiry, non-bulky, non-Brett Schultz frame

Some abilities as a swing bowler.

Reasonable Stamina.

Weaknesses:

In the short-to-medium term, nothing.

Is a shortish fast bowler, and skids on to the batsman.

Puts a lot of pressure on to himself on the follow through.

Bounce is not a weapon.

Similar to Allan Donald, does not have loop to his bowling. The ’skim the surface’ guys last longer than the ‘hit the deck’ guys.

Opportunities:

Swing. Can definitely convert himself into a crafty, Damien Fleming-esque swing bowler when the extreme pace has deserted him.

Sports Medicine. And South Africa is well nigh the best in the cricket world in that.

A handy bat.

Threats:

The assembly-line of fast bowlers for the Saffers.

Morne Morkel. In the long term, Morkel with his height and bounce will be a greater threat than Steyn at 30 (and will be better at playing the Ntini role). And he is a better bat.

Skiddy bowlers, unless they are Malcolm Marshall, never were the same after they were 30.

Final Analysis –

Steyn will retire / will be sacked with 300 wickets or so, at around the age of 31. He might well end up being remembered as an all-time great, in line for being the third best skiddy fast bowler of all time after Malcolm Marshall (who of course is the greatest fast bowler of all time IMHO), and Waqar Younis.