graeme smith

Cricket:Mamparas,”hee for chasey” and natural replacements

Cricket lovers have Graeme Smith to thank for enriching their vocabulary last weekend.

The South African Test skipper was “Mampara Of the Week”—selected by the nation’s leading daily, The Sunday Times. It is a moniker reserved for politicians and businessmen but ‘Biff’ trumped all contenders last week with his “wishy-washy apology” to the South African public for his side’s early exit at this year’s ODI World Cup in India.

Mamapara roughly translates to “idiot”. I must admit—“You b****y Mampara” has a nice ring to it.

Sachin Tendulkar—in the sunset of his career—is an inspiration to older cricketers. Simon Katich is the latest to pay obeisance. The West Australian cricketer—in his press conference—slammed Greg Chappell ,rightly questioning his credentials as a selector as he pointed out his inability to predict the master bat’s recent heights.

“Elder cricketers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but bad selectors.”

Rushing to Katich’s defence  was minister of defence for the realm, Stephen Smith. Australian politicians love their cricket and their cricketers.

“If he’s not in the top 25 Australian cricketers – and I can’t find one better opener than him on that list, let alone two – then I’ll go hee for chasey.” said the minister. An Aussie phrase learned here—take note,English language lovers.

The West Indians have been shafted once more. Zaheer Khan and S Sreesanth have opted out of the India-WI Test series citing injuries. Indian fans don’t seem to care. The boys in blue have ratcheted up wins—rising to the occasion. Who’s to say that Praveen Kumar and Abhimanyu Mithun won’t?

The trio of Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli seem natural replacements for RahulDravid,Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman.

There’s oft a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip, though.

Remember the dynamic duo of Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif?

Kaif languishes in the minor leagues of domestic cricket whereas Yuvraj "blundered" from strength to strength.

ODI success does not instinctively translate to Test level. Yuvraj Singh will testify.

Quote of the day:
Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well. Think about it. – Elias Schwartz

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Cricket World Cup 2011: What they said and what they definitely didn’t (Humour)

What he said:

Ireland’s Trent Johnston tweets to Graeme Smith, on hearing about the South African captain’s engagement

Congrats on the good news @GraemeSmith49. We r looking for an opener here in Dublin – Unfortunately we can’t offer you any 50 over cricket!

What he definitely didn’t :

“We have our own version of the IPL here”

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Jacob Oram rams home the ‘C’ word: SA choke as NZ play spoilers once more

A woman knows she’s wearing the right dress, when her man wants to take it off. Robert Paul

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India make it 1-1 against South Africa:Takeaways from the Second Test at Durban

The second Test at Durban ended with India triumphant, levelling the series 1-1.

A few takeaways from a thrilling encounter:

VVS Laxman is Very, Very Special. He has proved that before and did so anew. What can be said about the Hyderabadi maestro that has not been said before? Dealing in mere superlatives seems trite given the backdrop of his recent achievements. Suffice to say, that he was man-of-the-match (MOM), top-scoring in both innings, the only player to score over 50 from both sides.

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Sachin Tendulkar: Why Graeme Smith Called Him Out

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Cricket Bytes: UDRS, Hot Spot,‘To The Point’ and Chahar, the new kid on the block

The mystery behind the non-adoption of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) by the BCCI has been resolved.

It is the skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni who  is sceptical of the system’s merits. Dhoni believes that the system has had mixed results. Sehwag, in a recent interview, strongly supported adoption of UDRS. Rahul Dravid too has thrown his weight behind the review arrangement.

But the man whose word carries the most weight Sachin Tendulkar has not backed off from his opposition to the technology. Tendulkar prefers the competing technology —Hot Spot— that uses infra-red cameras to decide whether the ball has struck bat, pad or the batsman.

The basic UDRS system, currently in use, uses only the Hawk-Eye technology besides super slow-motion cameras and an audio feed from the stump microphone.

The Hawk-Eye is the same technology used in tennis to decide if the ball has struck the line.

Hot Spot is an improvement that is seldom used.

The ICC hope to make the UDRS mandatory for all Test series in the near future.

The Proteas  wish to use the system during the upcoming tour by India but are being pressurised  by the BCCI to stick to the tried-and-tested arbitration via manual umpiring.

When the top two cricketing heroes in the team put their foot down, the BCCI is bound to follow their lead.

Herschelle Gibbs has crawled out of the woodwork and into the limelight — albeit a controversial and notorious one with the release of his autobiography ‘To The Point’.

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