cricket with balls

How do you know your cricket community has gone to shit?

You burn a toy that relates to the wrong country.

If these Pakistanis had any pride in their effigy they’d burn Apu from the simpsons.

This is sloppy fucken work, and if I was the insane bastard in charge of a posse batshit crazy enough to burn things, I’d at least get the metaphors right.

I assume the group, Pakistani Unified Burnt Effigies Syndicate,  had this toy ready expecting Ponting to anally rape Yousuf at the toss, or start throwing shoes at Umar Akmal, and when he didn’t they had the Tassie Devil (a token character, as he hasn’t lived there in how long?) taking up space.

Someone probably said, what does Lalit Modi look like, and someone else said, a smug prick, the first dude probably said, Ricky Ponting is a smug prick.

See how easy these things can get out of hand.

What they need is strong leadership, is Shoaib Malik free?

Buy the book, get a t-shirt, or donate to the whisky fund.

Like Ganguly doesn’t have an employee to wash his face.

The stunt double pretending to be Warne is doing a great job.

Has anyone ever read the paper with more intensity.

The IPL is back in India.

The IPL is back, so are the weird ass ads.

I was having a look at the list of potential IPL players for the next object and there was only one that stuck out, that of the super slogging Canadian Rizwan Cheema.

In the last little while there has been a some buzz about him, mostly because he hits the ball like it slept with his sister.

Luckily the fine non-Arquette like Canadian Cricket site hooked me up with the good shit.

Sure he plays across the line and he has a touch of wild slogger about him, but I am willing to say he is the best thing to happen to Canada since Degrassi Junior high, or the dude in our polls.

Ryan Ten Inches from the Netherlands was also nominated.

The IPL is doing for minnow cricket what the NBA did for Asian basketball and might do more than the ICC ever has.

I’ve just been reading an interview that Lalit Modi gave to Karan Thapar.

For most of the interview Lalit seems to be saying that every quote Karan uses has been taken out of context. He could be right, but it seems illogical that every single comment could be out of context.

Lalit is wasting his time with cricket, the man has to get himself into politics.

There is one point in the interview that I just couldn’t overlook.

“Lalit Modi: You are absolutely wrong. The quality of cricket that is played in the IPL is by far the best in the cricket matches that I have seen or for that matter anybody else has seen. The entertainment outside the ropes is only an add-on. It’s the quality of cricket that creates the viewership, and not the add-on.”

Whoahhhhhh.

This interview was given after the champions league. I understand standing up for your product, but don’t include others in your biased, and factually wrong statements.

Has anyone, other than Lalit, or people on the IPL payroll ever said that the quality of cricket in the IPL is BY FAR the best in cricket matches that they have seen?

Doubtful.

I like the IPL, keeps march and april interesting and all, but the level of cricket was just ok. The champions league pretty much proved that.

It certainly isn’t better than international cricket.

The interview is definitely worth a few minutes, it also covers the fact that Manish Pandey (if you don’t know who he is this will be a complete mindfuck) considers himself a celebrity. And some very interesting stuff about the fact that senior players have complained about younger players not putting in for their ranji sides.

Lalit does well to weasel his way around most of the questions. Got to respect that.

EDIT: Thanks to Homer, we now have the youtube links of the interview. Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four.

I found it great viewing, the more condescending Karan gets, the smugger Lalit looks.

It is easy to take the piss out of Lalit Modi.

Look he is a greedy wanker who once pleaded guilty to kidnapping.

Look he has paid people to listen to him now the camera is on.

Look he is talking on two phones at once.

Look at his face, he is clearly the Ricky Ponting of Sports Admin.

But, think about what he has done for us.

He has given us three cricket sides that cost roughly 300 Million USD to be put together.

Only 170 Million of that was on the Deccan theme tune.

Then he put these three teams into a tournament especially set up so that they would have a second chance to shine.

He invited others for the hell of it.

And then his 3 millionaire clubs all fell down.

Not one of these sides has even made the semi finals.

That is quite an effort.

Instead we have the great story of the Trinidad & Tobago team captained by the smooth drink of water that is Daren Ganga.

And 3 other teams.

Lalit, i thank you for allowing all of us to laugh at millionaires and IPL teams, while giving us the gift of Ganga.

You are truly a good hearted man.