Almanac (Cricket) Satire – Indian fans may be a little overconfident

With most Australian cricket fans sounding clinically pessimistic about our chances in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar series, it’s no surprise that Indian fans sit smugly on the opposite end of the spectrum.

 

Indeed, ever since Harbijan Singh fired the first shot over our bow by musing ‘if Australia play well, they’ll lose 3-0,’ blogs all over the sub-continent have been fizzing with a cockiness even Apollo Creed would find boorish.

 

One fan, Kapil Viswanath, even mentions Apollo in suggesting that Kohli ought to make his way to the crease with the same bombast as the antagonist from Rocky.

 

“I would like to be seeing him costumed with the 8 settings of arms of Burga and surrounded by Bollywood dancers,” he added.

 

Kapil went on to detail in Hindi that he saw the dancers removing all the prosthetic arms in a choreographed way as Kohli approached the crease. To be sure, he did an eloquent job of it too, while also revealing that English was his 14th language and that he’d like to see Greg Ritchie speak Hindi without botching inflections, clauses and past tenses.

 

Meanwhile, on his blog ‘Doosras and ducks’, Dilip Manjrekar suggested that the BCCI should order players to use cans of ‘spray on sweat’, as it won’t be a good look when they drub the Aussies 4-zip without having worked up one. “The advertisers should be telling BCCI this is essentially necessary because the TV viewing audience wants the illusion of a contest, even when there’s unnecessarily not one.’

 

Dilip also wrote eloquently in Hindi from there, while detailing that he’d only learnt English three weeks ago and that he’d like to see Greg Ritchie learn a new language while also working 14 hour shifts in a Kolkata sweat shop.

 

But back on the bluster; it doesn’t just stop on blogs! Over at Cricinfo, the threads are littered with fans trumpeting 4 nil in a canter. A fan with the handle ‘Spicy-reverse-sweep’ crowed that Jadeja would make so many runs, he’d hone his trademark sword dance celebration to a level befitting a Ninja. “I can be seeing him in the next Indiana Jones films,” he predicted.

 

While, ‘Bangalore-is-more-than-just-outsourced-call-centres’ proclaimed India wouldn’t just beat Australia, they’d make us look Pommie. ‘I will be seeing India taking the ocker out of Aussies and leaving them all Oxford Universities and Mayfair soft.’

 

This fan didn’t go on to justify his hazardous foray into English, but did however detail that Greg Ritchie is as funny as a mongoose in a samosa. (Note: we assumed that fits in the ‘not remotely funny’ spectrum over in his parts.)

 

But as eye catching as all these cocksure predictions were, most revealing was this little bit of pessimism. “Kohli played and missed once in his last double hundred,” wrote ‘Tigers at home; gerbils abroad’. “I worries the next time he will get a snick. He need to find the forms of his last three double hundreds where’s he never played and missed. India might only wins 3-nil if he doesn’t.”

 

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Comments

  1. It is ever so politically incorrect of me, PP, but let me just say that I saw Greg Ritchie at a pre-match function in Adelaide last November. I can indeed report that he is slightly funnier than a mongoose in a somosa. But, yes, his Indian accent does need work.

  2. Punxsu.... Pete says

    My god, he’s still doing the impressions? I thought he’d been ran out of town. They were woeful when I last caught them. Guess he’s improved the act a little if you saw it falling somewhere between bearable and entertaining.

    Pune … Aussies are ahead I venture. That pitch is diabolical. Can’t wait for 3.00pm today. Long live Test cricket, the world’s most fabulous game.

  3. Is the pitch so diabolical that we are calling 9/256 at stumps on day 1 a great result?
    I am not sure.
    But, if the answer is ‘yes’, then Australia should win this Test.

  4. Punxsu.... Pete says

    I guess we’ll know today Smokie. The ball was spitting for India’s spinners. If Lyon and O’Keefe are on song, I think they’ll make the ball talk. Can’t wait for it to start (home today … plan to not look for new projects till the series ends … guess that won’t look good on the CV!)

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