LORD OF THE MINDS

As the 9:15 am Jet Airways flight (which was delayed 15 mins due to some idiots who turned up late at the check-in counter) turned to face the runway and start its run towards the sky, towards its destination - Kolkata, my eyes fell upon the words “Bangalore International Airport” and I closed my eyes, tired and somewhat moist. Somehow I felt empty, somewhere there was a void.
36 days ago when the GD/PI results for Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIM Lucknow) came out, I was overjoyed. They were published the day before but I didn’t have the courage to look them up (yeah... I too can be scared at times, especially when it’s a life changing event). Moreover the site was unstable and results inconsistent. So I waited a night to see my results. It turned out to be the second longest night of my life (The longest being the night before my CAT exam). My roommate Navoneel was the one to tell me the good news. In a split second, my life had changed. No more was I a struggler. I had made it. I had fulfilled my dream. I had triumphed, finally. What made the news even more sweet was that my childhood friend – Adarsh had made it to IIML too (We were in the same class in high school too. So we were going back to school, albeit a b-school, together).
The celebrations had started before that. We had had an amazing IPL match outing (even though Kolkata Knight Riders lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore, overall the match was fun) in mid-April. That was followed by a crazy Loyola Reunion which included beer, tequila and marijuana (kudos to GVS for that). I bet we ‘took it to the next level’. But things went berserk after the 29th.
The month that followed included trips to Hard Rock Cafe (one on a Thursday to watch a live band performance... awesome \m/), numerous movies (mostly the Friday 10PM show at Big Cinemas), countless lunch/dinner parties (especially the one at Koshy's), my first birthday party where I didn’t touch alcohol and had vegetarian food (veg. food can be lovely too), my career-best performance at Amoeba bowling (right after my career-worst performance), some lovely cooking at home (we made Chicken curry one Sunday afternoon), farewell parties with amazing gifts (that show-piece was beautiful, thanks guys) and fantabulous IIML achievers and alumni meets. I don’t know how it could have been better.
Then the time came to bid goodbye to MindTree. I had prepared 5 versions of my ‘bbye mail’ and even a video of my days at Cadence (my last project in MindTree). Last day included some tearful moments (from the girls of my project who saw the video and the mail) and some hurting ones (from the last day bumps that is). I surrendered my tag and finally lost my MindTree Mind status. At that moment, I didn’t know whether it felt good or bad, but somehow it felt very different.
So, now I am at the 'Bengaluru International Airport', waiting; waiting for my flight to Kolkata; waiting for the journey that I had planned to make long time ago; waiting to end a phase of my life (so that I can start a new one); waiting for a 'change' in my life. But somehow a part of mine didn't want to make that trip, partly because of the fear of torturous weather which I later get to know in Kolkata was atrocious, partly because of the wonderful party life I was enjoying in Bangalore (How I wish I could have had more... :( ) and partly because of.... I don't know! Am I missing something or am I missing someone?

And its not to the tune of music. I mean I do dance to music. Whenever I have been to discos, I have not been on the sidelines watching the pretty babes dancing but actually been shaking a leg or two with them (although I must say I am a pretty bad dancer, though better than Sreesanth). But I just couldn't fathom a better, more fitting name than this. The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) had won their second consecutive match in the Indian Premier League Season 2. They had defeated the Rajasthan Royals (which the Fake IPL Player calls Big Sister's team) ensuring that the defending champions bow out of the competition before the semi-finals. And this time too, the match went down to the wire.
And this time around the unlikely hero was Laxmi Ratan Shukla. And guess who was at the other end to provide support? Ajit Agarkar. Who would have imagined that? Especially after the departure of Hussey. It was a complete transformation. KKR had won this match without the batting prowess of McCullum, Hodge and Hussey. Wow! In one innings of 48 not out from 46 balls made under a pressure situation when KKR were down 5 wickets for just 37 runs, Shukla had shown what he was capable of.
But the victory also belonged to two other knights - Ajit Agarkar and Charl Langeveldt. Agarkar had scored an unbeaten 13 off 17 balls establishing a partnership with Shukla to see KKR through. He also clocked a bowling figures of 4-0-15-2 which means he bowled 4 overs taking 2 wickets for 15 runs giving 3.75 runs per over. Did he actually do that? I mean I will have to think hard to remember the last T20 match when Agarkar had conceded less than 6 runs per over and also taken wickets. And the other star was Langeveldt. Where had you hidden him Buchanan? He was outstanding in the match taking 3 wickets for 15 runs in his 4 overs. If only KKR had played him before!
But if you had to single out a comeback match, it had to be the previous one against Chennai Super Kings. CSK batsmen had again put up a fine performance piling up 188 runs off their 20 overs on the back of a superb knock by Suresh Raina and a cameo by Captain MS Dhoni and Morkel. Raina was particularly good smashing 3 sixes. And all that was done without Hayden (the orange cap owner) playing. KKR had started off poorly. Dada again departed early having been bowled by Murali for a mere 4 runs off 14 balls. From there McCullum took over. He smashed 81 off 24 balls studded with 11 fours and 3 sixes. He spared no bowler in his pursuit of showing everyone exactly what he and KKR batsmen were capable of. On the other side was Brad Hodge giving able company to his captain. When McCullum fell in the 13th over with the score at 124 having been bowled by Jakati, it looked like match over again for KKR. But Hodge had other ideas. He lost Hussey to a totally foolish run out but found a partner in Saha. Together they went on to put up a match winning partnership of 56 runs of 28 balls.
What struck me in both the victories was the never-say-die attitude of the KKR team. An attitude which I and all other KKR fans had been looking for from the very start of the tournament. An attitude which we thought they had forgotten having lost so many close and not so close matches. Both the above matches were chases. The first one was a big one and the second a small one. In both the cases, while chasing they were in dire straits at a point. A point where it looked as if we were going to see the now-very-familiar KKR debacle. But they had come out of the predicament. First match via Hodge and Saha and the second one via Shukla and Agarkar. Too good! This is what I had been dying to see. When KKR won the match against CSK, I was in my hotel room in Ooty with my brother. We both danced and shouted at the top of our voices. So much so that all the other boarders understood that there were KKR fans in room 101. But when they won against Rajasthan Royals, I was at home dancing alone. I had said that if Kolkata Knight Riders would go on to win the tournament, I would dance on the streets of Chowringhee with Shah Rukh Khan and the other fans to the tune of করব লরব জীতব ের (Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo Re - the theme song of Kolkata Knight Riders). Well, that didn't happen. But after both the victories, somehow I could hear করব লরব জীতব ের playing in the background and I did dance to it.


Cross posted on : ,

Yesterday, while watching the Indian Premier League (IPL) coverage on television, I couldn't help but ponder on the fact that how brittle the Kolkata Knight Riders' team looked in totality. Kolkata Knight Riders had just won their match against the 'injured' King's XI Punjab via the Duckworth-Lewis method and they were showing Mandira bedi's interview of Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), the owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders team. One loss and one win from two matches. According to SRK, it wasn't bad. The team started slow on the first day against Deccan Chargers. Deccan Chargers looked the hungrier side. He defended his team beautifully setting the multiple captaincy saga, Gavaskar lash behind. He can be excused for that. After all, I can imagine what amount of hate mail he must have got when Sourav Ganguly a.k.a. Dada was removed from captaincy. But when he said that his dream was to bring the IPL trophy home to Kolkata, was he really serious?
Don't get me wrong! I have my loyalties set correctly. My heart is for the KKR team. I have the KKR wallpaper on my laptop wallpaper. I have the KKR theme on my orkut profile. I listen to the 'Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo' song on television atleast once a day with much pride. I follow KKR on twitter. I plan to buy the official t-shirt too. When any discussion comes up over the team, I defend it religiously. But then the mind does not believe in the team. It would definitely bet upon Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai for that matter for the IPL '09 trophy.
And why wouldn't it do so? Okay they won their match against the Punjab team. Veer's team had defeated Zaara's team. And Zaara would surely not be kissing or hugging Yuvi last night. But was the manner convincing? I mean just look at the stats. It was a 2-man show for Kolkata. While bowling, it was a beauty of an over from Dada that got us 2 wickets in quick succession and stemmed the start. If he had not done that, then Punjab would have scored above 180 and the match would have slipped. And while batting, it was Gayle. His whirlwhind 44 which included 4 sixes and the rate at which he hit made sure we were ahead on RR and thus put us through when the D/L method came into effect. Now look closely into the bowling statistics and you would find a lot of mistakes. When you have a specialist spinner in Murali Karthik why bowl him for only one over and Shukla for 2 overs? Was Karthik picked up as a bowler or an all-rounder? I don't have much knowledge about the stats but I certainly can say that Karthik's batting is not something you would bet upon to win you matches.
Now lets come to the batting. It has always been said that to succeed in IPL, you need the local lads to fire. Depending totally on foreign imports is like playing with fire. Most of them don't stay up for the entire tournament and then you have the cap of playing only 4 per match. KKR's batting totally depends on the foreigners. If Gayle and McCullum both don't fire on the night, the brittle middle order gets exposed badly. And we don't have any tried-and-tested consistent performer in there. Sure we have Dada. But let's be realistic. Can you really depend that much on him now that he does not play for Team India anymore? And this fact was heavily exposed in the match against Deccan Chargers. You have a Brad Hodge there to bail you out at times but then again he is a foreign import and you have the max 4 foreigners playing criteria. So can you be totally confident with this team?
Having said all this, last night's victory also told us a few things. Firstly, you don't need to have a team effort to win matches. How many of the T20 matches have actually been team effort victories? Secondly, you need just one or two members in the team to fire and that's it. You are done. Unfortunately, the Kolkata Knight Riders seem to be heavily banking on this. I too share the dream with SRK to see the IPL trophy come to Kolkata. I too would like to dance 'Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo' on the streets of Chowringhee when we have the victory lap. But its a dream which needs to be heavily worked upon and a dream which does not look to be fulfilled in this edition of the Indian Premier League.

Cross-posted on ,

As the official website of Kolkata Knight Riders had put it 'Royal win for Kolkata Knight Riders', it was truly a win in ROYAL style. Right from the first ball bowled by Praveen Kumar to Ganguly till the end when Shukla got the ageing Sunil Joshi caught by McCullum; it was Kolkata Knight Riders all the way. The Bangalore Royal Challengers could never put up a good challenge and thus got crushed by a mighty margin of 140 runs in the opening match of the Indian Premier League held at their own backyard - The Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.
But lets rewind ourselves to the start of the match. After the dazzling fireworks and the sizzling show put up by the performers, everyone was expecting a similar display from the players. And boy, did they get one! But it came from one of the most unlikely fellows in the team - New Zealand wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum. He hit an unbeaten 158 of just 73 balls, which included 10 fours and 13 sixes. Not only was it the highest score in the match (for which he rightfully got the Man-of-the-Match award), it was also the highest score by any individual in a Twenty20 match. Such was the impact of blitzkrieg that Dravid and his men were down and out when returning to the team dug-out after the Knight Riders' innings. The next highest score was that of Ponting who made 20 followed by extras which amounted to 17. Sourav hit 2 fours. Ponting hit a boundary and cleared the ropes once during his stay. Hussey played a bit too. But no one could take the glory away from McCullum. His innings was a show of clean hitting, improvisation and some clever positioning. That he was able to survive the entire 20 overs tells the story. The Bangalore Royal Challengers' bowlers had no clue as to what to bowl to him. Even Dravid admitted during the presentation ceremony that he tried various strategies to get him out; rotating his bowlers, trying new tactics; but to no avail. One of the shots that I truly liked was the attempted sweep which went for a six. Whew! How can one hit such a cheeky shot to the ropes, I just can't fathom! Quite deservingly, the Kolkata Knight Riders ended their innings at 222/3, thus setting the Bangalore Royal Challengers a target of 223 to be scored in 20 overs at an asking rate of over 11 per over.
Now what would you expect the captain of a team coming out to chase a score of 223 in 20 overs to do? You would want to see clean hitters opening the innings so as to get the boost. But what do you see? Wasim Jaffer and Rahul Dravid coming out to open the innings. I presume they took it as a Test Match where their Objective was to survive the 20 overs. The home crowd expected fireworks from their Royal Challengers team. But sadly there were none to come. In contrast, Kolkata Knight Riders chose to open the bowling with a rookie - Ashoke Dinda. He was quick, pumped up and accurate. From the first over itself, he showed no nerves (None of the bowlers needed to; the target was too big and the pressure was totally on the batsmen) and bowled to the field. His first over on the big stage was good but there was better to come. The prized bowler of the Kolkata Knight Riders - Ishant Sharma was next. And his entry was a bang. The first ball he bowled ripped apart the leg-stump of Rahul Dravid as he attempted to hit through the line. The WALL had been breached. Next came the captain of the Indian U-19 team - Kohli. Ishant Sharma was bowling in-swingers to which he had no reply. He was bowled by Dinda in the very next over. Kallis came in next and tried to steady the boat. he hit a six too. But the rout had started. He was caught off the bowling of Agarkar (who as usual got hit for a few runs but as usual took some wickets, which were all that mattered). And then Jaffer was caught by Ponting. The others just came in and tried their hands at swinging the willow. The Knight Riders were enjoying their time so much that Ponting could even afford to miss a catch ( so rare I don't remember any instance of this happening before). In the end it became a no-show with the Bangalore Royal Challengers getting bundled for a mere 82 runs, thus providing the Kolkata Knight Riders with a victory of 140 runs.
My roommates were joking that the Knight Riders don't have to bat in their next match. The opponent team should first chase down the remaining 140 runs, then they would come out to topple the score. In the presentation ceremony, Dravid was looking dejected as usual as he admired the innings of McCullum and Ganguly was understandably elated. The tournament had started well and I hope that the 40 day Festival of cricket really lives up to its massive billing.