NO 1

Yay, we are the no.1...... NO.1 NO.1 No.1. And if I couldn't believe it yet by now, every English , Hindi, Urdu, Bengali , Marathi, Bhojpuri, etc etc news channel has strained every nerve and sinew to infuse my mind , body and soul with this earth-shattering, zamin-hilaoing bit of information. Everyone. probably except CNN . They care as much about cricket as we do about global warming. But we are NO.1. Australia teri monkey(or maa ki) , POM POM POM, you baby bums. And Proteas.... unko karo khallas.

We are the NO 1. So what if they had Kangaroo curry in Kangaroo land and after all the bandar shorba we tried, all we were left with was maa ki, behan ki and Irfan Pathan's fiancee. We are the NO 1.

And all hail the Almighty and omniscient BCCI ,who of course foresaw it years back when it designed the FTP for India. After all, you remain champions until you lose to any other team .And in order to lose, you have to play. And since Bangladesh has been begging us for a test series for the last 4 years, lets us oblige them then. Since it wouldn't be the world cup, it is rather unlikely that we would lose. Damn those ICC rankings which will automatically dethrone us in time to come. This is the BCCI way of setting benchmarks. Anybody who becomes No 1 , we would snicker and mockingly say them ,"But you haven't played us, we suppose!!!!" And also officially at last we have something we are better than China at. Given the fact that they have started thrashing us in hockey and have taken a liking to learn English as well.

We are the best . Even as I write this , a T.V. channel is going bonkers about this at 12 at midnight. Yes, after we were thrashed in a 20-20 just a couple of days ago , which the captain described as a practice game . How one can regard a game in which he is representing his country at par with a game between Board President XI and Timbuktu XI is of course rather beyond me . Perhaps representing India Cements (CSK) is more Indian for our captain than representing India itself in an admittedly hit-and-giggle format.

But what has been rather surprising for me has been the general surprise and shock that has preceded happiness and satisfaction displayed by Indian media. Reminds me of India playing tests in South Africa in 2007-08. By winning the first test they surprised themselves so much that they promptly ended up losing second and third . As they say , winning is a habit. But as much winning is a habit, losing is also one. It has taken more than a quarter of a century to lose the habit of losing. Losing the habit of winning can be much easier and can be rather swift. Specially when confronted with spiteful Australian and South Africans on their home turf.

But then after all it remains rather debatable that how much importance need be attached to the rankings of a system which until recently ranked Nuwan Kulasekara as No1 ODI bowler, Sri Lanka as No.2 ranked test team , and Gautam Gambhir(though rather good, but....) as No1 test batsman. The same council, recently adjudged on its "All Time Great Bowlers List" that Dale Steyn is No.22 on the list and one highly ineffective , inconsistent bloke called Wasim Akram whose 900 + wickets chiefly consisted of the tailenders only, be rightly placed at 59. The same system on the batting list opines that Mat Hayden be at No.10 and a certain flat track, small ground bully called Sachin Tendulkar be languishing at no.26. If a drunkard like Shane Warne puts him at No1 on his list, lets punish him by throwing him off at no.15 on bowlers list. Is it that important? Blogs like Greatbong or Amit Verma don't even consider it important enough to even post about it. Sections of Indian media has been honking about it and I wrote a post. But then some people are rather less occupied and rather less important.


P.S--- Icc is considering introducing two balls from either end in ODIs thereby effectively eliminating reverse swing as each ball will be maximum 25 overs old. As Dennis Lille once said," Maybe they will ban the yorkers next." But probably, next may be they will ban bowling itself, installing a bowling machine instead which can be adjusted as per to the whims and fancies of ICC.