The Arch-Rivals Of Cricket

India-Pakistan Champions Trophy

When we do a random search in Google as ‘Arch Rivals of Cricket’,the first result that google throws is ‘India-Pakistan Cricket Rivalry‘.That is the impact of a cricket match between India and Pakistan whether it a is final,warm-up,friendly,league match or a dead rubber match in ICC Champions Trophy which is to held on 15th June 2013.

India-A Strong Contender to lift the Champions Trophy.
Pakistan-Out of the Tournament.

Still the heat of this match is never coming down and a much awaited match for all Cricket Lovers of both the nations.

If we go by the Champions Trophy perspective this match has no significance as India is through to the semi-finals having won their previous 2 matches and Pakistan out of the tournament losing their previous 2 matches.But from the perspective of the cricket fans from both the nations this is going to be a High Voltage Match as with all the other matches between India and Pakistan.

Cricket being considered as a religion in India and also may be in Pakistan,a match between these two teams is always a fulltoo entertainer.With the tickets being sold out for the match within hours of going on sale last November this match looked like a huge entertainer is now just a dead rubber but nevertheless the sporting contests between the arch-rivals are never irrelevant for players and millions of fans across the globe as heroes turn villains or vice-versa depending on the result.

Going by the Team comparison India Team looks better than Pakistan Team,with players like Shikhar Dhawan twingling his moustache,the charismatic Virat Kohli,Sir Ravindra Jadeja,pacerhead Umesh Yadav,Bhuvaneshwar Kumar,Rohit Sharma after getting so many chance is now showing some gratitude towards the team,Suresh Raina the middle order lifeline and leading them from the front The Captain Cool MS Dhoni.

Having said all that,the Pakistan is also geared up for this match and will try with all their might to put the best foot forward and will leave no stone unturned with the likes of Mohd.Hafeez the allrounder,Kamran Akmal,Imran Farhat,the experienced Sohaib Malik,Saeed Ajmal,pacerhead Wahab Riaz and Mohd.Irfan and leading them the Captain Msibah-ul-Haq who is any day a delight to watch for his batting skills

In their recent encounter of 3 day ODI series held in India,Pakistan won the series 2-1 and the 2 t20 International series results was a draw with both team winning a match.But these results are past and lot of things has changed since then.It is considered a myth that when a India-Pakistan match is on the card it is more of a show of Indian Batting versus Pakistanis Bowling and that holds true for this match also.

The match is scheduled on a Saturday which is very good because cricket fans like me don’t want to miss this match even for a second and saturday being a weekend there is no issue as I will free from regular duties and will stick to my TV from 3pm onwards.

At last Wishing best of luck to both the teams and to the people of both the nations and may the deserving team win this match and The game is played in the True Spirits of  Cricket.

Death-The Inevitable Fate

Drowning

There are certain things in that are inevitable,it is bound to come sooner or later to everyone’s life.Out of all the inevitable things in life I consider ‘Death’ to be the most inevitable thing in one’s life.

To be honest no one really knows or have any idea of the timing of this inevitable fate and I consider this to be the most inevitable because I have seen death so closely that even today when I think of that moment I go numb.

So,it was back in my engineering days,on a bright sunny weekend me along with my roommates and two of my friends who had come over to my room to spend the weekend decided to go for swimming in a nearby lake as an adventure,adventure because out of 6 boys(3 roommates,2 friends and me) only 2 of them knew swimming, me excluded so for most of us it appeared to be an adventure and fun unlimited and we  was like ‘mazak mazak mein tairana bhi seekh lenge :-P’ though it is not a one day job.

In no time we were near the lake with snacks,cigarettes(all of us were smokers though not heavy smokers) and cold drinks,the view of the lake was exhilarating and the feeling of swimming inside me was saying like ‘aaj to tairana seekh hi lunga’ no one can stop me from mastering swimming now.We all started taking off our clothes,not completely though 😛 and we all were in our shorts getting ready swim,smoking cigarettes before the swim.

One of my roommate was the first one to get into the water,he is really a damn good swimmer then my friend followed the suit with 4 of us left(the non-swimmer guys) waiting for their fun to get over and help us to get into the lake.Finally they came to us and told to follow them,we held their hands and slowly went deep into the water not so deep though just above my chest and I am 5ft 7inch. After spending sometime in the water we became comfortable flapping our legs and hands tirelessly and started having

Fear Of Drowning

fun with everyone showing our different skills in water  then came my friend who niether know swimming nor he was interested in it rather he was interested in showing his “Muay Thai” skills which he started learning few months back,he started punching and kicking everyone around with unique techniques and all of a sudden the horror show started as he kicked me and suddenly I went deeper and my legs slipped,without the knowledge of me slipping he came near punched me,in this event I grabbed his hand for support but to my dismay even he slipped with me and the water getting to our neck slowly without much notice of our other friends.After some screaming they noticed us but at that point of time my body was completely under water with only my fingers visible and for my friend his hair was also visible.My good swimmer friend came to our rescue and started pulling my friend by holding his hair and me by holding my index finger as to him only my right hand 3 fingers were visible at that point of time.Lucky God we were saved and my friend was a ‘hero’ for me at that time.But I must say I was like drowned for 2 minutes and I knew that if my friend would have been late by 30 seconds or so I would have been a Past Person and for that 2 minutes of my drowning,I literally saw all my loved ones face appearing before me and I was bidding farewell to them.

This is my real story getting one to one with death and It was a lifetime experience as for that now I have no fear for Death as I know every Human is bound to taste this Inevitable Fate when time comes.

Sorry for this long post but I wrote this post as to preserve my memories,so that at some point of time I can cherish my memories as it taught me a lesson in life.. 🙂

Indian Cricket and Betting

India is a country where Cricket is Religion that binds the Indians irrespective of their caste,creed,sex or color.The history of Cricket in India points long back to an era when our forefathers were fighting for an Independent India,at that time Cricket was not the same as it is today,a religion.

Cricket gained its popularity in India with its maiden World Cup Victory in 1983 when they defeated a great West Indian team in the finals.To me,it was the moment of a new religion that came up in India and from there on there was no turning back,Cricket in India went on from strength to strength with some good performances and title victory in the past,then came the Sachin era in 1989,a 16-year old Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar joined the Indian Cricket Team and none had ever thought that he would be greatest Cricketer of all time.Now it stands as ‘If Cricket is a Religion than Sachin is God’.

Indian Cricket again proved their dominance in World Cup 2007(runner’s up) and World Cup 2011(Champions) and even we won the first ever T20 world cup in 2007 which was a process to make the Game of Cricket Entertaining and to an extent it is successful.

Amidst of all these,when Indian Cricket is on its peak there are certain issue that is making Cricket the corrupt religion in India,with all the emerging glam,fame and money in Indian Cricket I think it is ‘No More a Gentleman’s Game’ and to a die-hard cricket fan like me it hurts like anything.

Out of all the issue,Sports Betting is the most severe and dangerous issue in Indian Cricket in current scenario.The recently concluded IPL has brought everything to light from players to top officials to celebrities all has been linked up.Even in past times when Indian Cricket team was under Mohd.Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja match fixing came into light but at that time no top officials came to light and the link up was only with bookies and players.The one thing that eat me inside is that what makes the Players or the officials involved in match fixing or betting to choose money over India and cheat Indians.These players or officials in my view don’t have such huge need for money that they do such cheap things,still their greed force them to sell our country and countrymen dignity without any hesitation.Recently the youngsters like Sreesanth,Chandila,Chavan whose name came into light get easliy lured by the money,can’t keep themselves content with their greed falls into the trap and make a mess out of it loosing their dignity and also the respect we Cricket lovers shower them with.

These betting and match fixing issues are spreading like a contagious diseases and the only way to curb them is to make stringent laws to fight such issues or to make things legal.I don’t think Indian Government or the Cricket fraternity has the guts to make such laws as time to time they have proved their inefficiency to curb wrong doings.So the latter option of making things legal holds a good position as people tends to bend towards illegal things and once such illegal things became legal it looses its importance,So making things legal at least gives the hope of minimizing such issues if not completely eradicate them.

To me “Cricket and India is a tale of two loving souls” but I am no more proud to be a part of it.With this notes I leave up my expectations to Players,Cricket Fraternity and other sensible person to make Cricket once again a sports as Corrupt free religion of India