The meat safe and the study desk

As I was switching channels while watching the Australia-Bangladesh match, I saw the Wimbledon womens’ semifinals being telecast. The Davenport-Mauresmo match seemed to be promising, but the live relay was shifted to the Sharapova-Venus Willaims match. Ten minutes of watching the match, and my ears were already bothered. The number and intensity of the grunts made by both the players was quite bothering. Alright, I know they play very tough tennis and these two are amongst the most powerful hitters in the womens’ game, but just that, at that moment it was such a put off.

Its sad that its become a news item of this magnitude. Australia defeated Bangladesh by 6 wickets successfully chasing down their target of 251 with 2 overs to spare. But they had their moment of bother when they lost their top three batsmen with not too many runs on the board. A good, sensible partnership between skipper Ponting and Clarke ensured that the initial damage done by the Bangla bowlers was ineffective. Once Ponting was dismissed, the big hitting Symonds made his was and struck a good partnership with Clarke again, to ensure that Australia got home comfortably.

The Bangla Tigers can take a lot of positives from this one day series. After a the disappointing test series, the one day series was kept alive by them. Their competetive nature and their astounding win over Australia made everyone sit up and watch. The positives for them – Mohammad Ashraful’s explosive batting. Paul Coillingwood described Ashraful’s superb 91 off 54 balls as “Tendulkar-like”; Mashrafe Mortaza’s bowling, he was by far their best bowlers. Most importantly, they now have the confidence in their abilities after that win over the World Champions. This will take them some distance. As it is evident already, with ICC’s decision that their Test status is safe.

All the best Bangladesh and now its Ashes time, bring on the Poms!

I was tempted to hear the songs in this movie, more so after seeing that Ilayaraja was the music director. The movie, directed by Fazil, stars Srikanth and Sonia Agarwal, pairing up for the first time. The Fazil-Ilayaraja combination has been a very successful one in the past. Their last venture, Kadalukku Mariyadai had some memorable songs.

The songs in the movie are quite nice. The first thing that caught my attention was that Sonu Nigam has sung three (or so) songs in the movie. His solo ‘Enna paatu vendum unakku’ is a different song, and surprisingly his pronounciation of tamil words is good. The best song in the movie is ‘Katril varum geethame’. This song is featured 2-3 times in the movie. There is a version of this song sung by Ilayaraja, which begins as a conversation between Ilayaraja and Vaali(the lyricist). Ilayaraja sings the first two lines of the tune and then Vaali tries to fit in the lyrics. The mutual respect and admiration between these two stars is evident from the dialogue. On the whole, the mood of the song is wonderful and the song has been sung with a lot of feel by the maestro. In recent times, Ilayaraja’s singing seems to be wonderful. This song and the song ‘Adiye Kiliye’ from the movie Kudaikkul Mazhai are classic examples.

A must hear for all Ilayaraja fans. The songs are available here.

Victory Calypso

At Lord’s in 1950, West Indies defeated England in England for the first time. Egbert Moore, who sang under the pseudonym Lord Beginner, composed the most famous of cricketing calypsos to celebrate the occasion. He was accompanied by Calypso Rhythm Kings, ’supervision’ by Denis Preston. It was recorded on the ‘Melodisc’ (1133) label (MEL 20)

The Victory Calypso also immortalized the spin bowling pair of Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine. The calypso begins thus

Cricket lovely Cricket,
At Lord’s where I saw it;
Cricket lovely Cricket,
At Lord’s where I saw it;
Yardley tried his best
But Goddard won the test.
They gave the crowd plenty fun;
Second Test and West Indies won.

Chorus: With those two little pals of mine

Ramadhin and Valentine.

West Indian Cricketer Alf Valentine pased away last year. More here.

Gavaskar Calypso

Lord Relator (born Willard Harris) wrote the ‘Gavaskar Calypso’ to celebrate Gavaskar’s first Test series, in West Indies in 1970-71. This was voted at No. 68 at a ‘Calypso of the Century’ poll (Victory Calypso didn’t feature in the list). [4] The most famous part of the Gavaskar Calypso is the one that describes how he batted like a wall :

Little Desmond Lewis
Also charlie Davis
These boys could real play cricket
On any kind of wicket
But the best of them all was
Gavaskar
The real master
Just like a wall
The West Indies couldn’t out Gavaskar at all
Not at all
Not at all
The West Indies couldn’t out Gavaskar at all.

The lines about Gavaskar are well known in India as well, though hardly anyone there has heard the calypso itself.

I was determined to make it this week. Enough time had passed. I had to see them this past week. It was really bad that it dint happen this long, so bad that, I hung my head in shame that i hadn’t seen the it this all this while. Ok, let me kill the suspense and tell you all that I wanted to watch three movies the past week and ended up watching two. The ones lined up were Mumbai Express, Chandramukhi and Anniyan. I managed to score 2 on 3. The one I am yet to see is Mumbai Express. Since I am for anti-piracy, I dont intend watching it on VCD.

Absolutely loved Chandramukhi, it was an intelligent Rajnikanth movie. His performance was very much in sync with the rest of the script. No unnecessary ‘bandha’, no dialogues hinting his entry into politics etc…Jothika has done an impressive job too.

Anniyan was a shade lower than Chandramukhi, according to me. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this movie too. The highlights of the movie are Vikram’s acting, Vivek’s comedy and the picturisation of the songs.

Both movies could have donw away with the boring long unwanted ‘Matrix-like’ fight sequences. Anyway, until next time, vartaa…!

In recent times, Australia have been pioneers in Sport Administration, more importantly in Cricket Administration. Due to this effective administration, they have been rightly called leaders in Sporting arena.

A lot of advancements have taken place in Australia Cricket. The Australian Cricket Board(ACB) changed to Cricket Australia, Central Contracts were given to their players and much more. This post is about Cricket Australia’s policy of terminating careers when the players are at the twilight of their careers. Steve Waugh’s one day career was ended by Cricket Australia(so was Mark Waugh’s) after the twins were blasted off by Shane bond during the 2001/02 VB Series, Down Under. More recently, Michael Bevan(arguably the best one-day batsman ever) saw his career being terminated after a lean patch. His consistent scores in their domestic competitions haven’t been enough for him to knock the selection door again. Darren Lehmann has also been sidelined after a poor series against NZ. Its difficult to imagine him come back either.

Now, the same policy doesnt seem to hold water for the bowlers. Yes, both McGrath and Warne had memorable comebacks, after their injury and ban, respectively. But when do they put up their boots? If the australian selectors do not do something about strengthening their bowling attack, it may be too late. All of a sudden the McGraths, Warnes, Kaspers will come to a shuddering halt.

What goes around, comes around, real fast!

Yes, the last bit was added by me. Have a good day.