IPL Daily Dose - 20/05/2008 - A special prize for Shah Rukh and why the Rajasthan Royals have fans all over India

The Knight Riders have been trying to persuade the NZL cricket board to make Brendan McCullum available for the semi-finals and have been willing to pay them USD 1 million for this special arrangement. I don’t know how it fits in the cap structure but this was surely a way of showing to the world that they were quite confident of making the semis. A very typical SRK stunt. Should have been quite a boost for the side ahead of a must win game.

The King Khan’s absence from such a big game, however, showed that this show of confidence was merely a filmy stunt. He had either already written off his team’s chances or had more pressing matters to attend (like Blogging against Aamir Khan). Wonder why all the fuss about getting an all access pass when he wasn’t going to be using it? He has to have it just because Preity Zinta and Vijay Mallya have it. I would love to hear from SRK, once KKR is finally knocked out of the tournament. Arun ‘Aryabhatta’ Lal thinks the Knight Riders still have a mathematical chance to make the semis.

The Bengalis had been highly aggrieved at the booing Dada received in Jaipur. It was a good chance to give chief culprit – Shane Warne some real stick. I was expecting a jam-packed Eden. Instead I saw a stadium which had enough empty space to seat the entire film community of Mumbai. Not just the ones who turned up to support SRK in Mumbai. The Knight Riders still have a long way to go before they can garner the kind of support the likes of Mohun Bagan and East Bengal enjoy.

Now here’s a new theory which I have.

The Royals come from Rajasthan, home of the Marwari community. This business community has a fair presence in all the major cities of this country. Wouldn’t this ensure that the Rajasthan side will always a decent number of supporters wherever they play? It’s similar to Indians being found all over the world; thereby ensuring that the Indian cricket team is never short of support in any venue in the world.

Quick Question 1

Ans: Who is the spinner’s biggest nemesis in the Kolkata batting line-up?

It should have been Dada till two games back. But not any more. Introducing Debabrata ‘his captain doesn’t know his name properly’ Das. Just check with Murali and Warne.

Quick Question 2

Who does Ajit Agarkar remind me of; every time he gets tonked for a four or a six, which is quite often?

Ans: Ranadeb Bose. Poor guy. Didn’t even get a chance to field in the IPL. Was he a worse option than Agarkar?

I have one last wish before KKR wind up their league engagements.

To see Laxmi Ratan Shukla bat higher up the order. I am tired of seeing him doing a salvage job all the time.

Dude of the Day – Yousuf Pathan. Gets the wicket of Kolkata’s best batsman and plays a blinder just when Kolkata were sniffing a chance. Also for speaking in fluent Hindi rather than trying to talk in broken English. No pretensions here.

Dud of the Day – Shah Rukh Khan. You can now frame the all access pass and hang it in your office. That’s your only prize from the IPL.

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IPL Daily Dose - 16/05/2008 - The 'gaddars' of Mumbai and why India leads the world in gender equality

Sachin Tendulkar scored a duck in this game. But his post-match smile was a lot wider than the ones he’s sported after most of his tons. He couldn’t have helped it. His team had just achieved the most one-sided win in the IPL.

The Mumbai Indians now have the best net run-rate and the greatest momentum in the IPL. Chennai’s position is no longer safe and Kolkata have just gone from being biggest winners to the biggest losers in the tournament. No points for guessing what it has done for their net run-rate. The race for the semi-final spots gets more intense with every passing day.

With only 20 odd overs of cricket to talk about, we’ll utilize the space to handout two special IPL awards.

The Award for the ‘Best object/prop/accessory to show support for your team’ goes to the blue flags of the Mumbai Indians. While it’s not in the league of the giant flags and the scarves in European Football, it’s easily the best in the IPL. Actually the only thing around. Wonder why the others including SRK didn’t think of anything?

The Award for the ‘Best proof that India is far ahead of the world in gender equality’ goes to the male cheerleaders in the IPL. Many countries now have female heads of State. But no nation has thought of semi-clad male cheer leaders. Who said there was no future for male strip-tease artists?

Most disappointing moments of the night – hearing ‘Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo Re’ blaring in the stadium every time the Knight Riders had a good moment in the game. And not hearing ‘Duniya Hila Denge’ even once. Was this match really in Mumbai?

Dudes of the Day – Shaun and Sanath. One was unplayable as a bowler and the other was un-bowlable to as a batsman. If you just looked at their performances, you’d be left wondering whether the pitch was batsmen friendly or bowler friendly.

Duds of the Day – All the film stars who turned up in KKR jerseys to support the Kolkata side. And that too at home in Mumbai. Most of them were born and brought up in Mumbai and all of them are what they are because of the film city that is Mumbai. These ‘gaddars’ took ‘chamchagiri’ (for SRK) to a whole new level.

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Chak De - Go chase your sporting dreams again!

Being a sports fan who also loves movies, it doesn’t take a lot to guess my favourite genre. Unfortunately, sport has not been a very popular theme with Indian movie-makers. Actually thank god for it. Coz’ most bollywood sports movies have made me wince (so fewer movies have meant less torture).The regular formula has been to replace the standard climax action shot with one where the hero is making mince-meat of the opposition players. And the sports scenes could have been shot better by a blind man. The batting shots of Aditya Pancholi, Kumar Gaurav and Aamir Khan in the movie Awwal No. should be used to interrogate cricket loving criminals in jail. There has been the occasional decent one – the likes of Hip Hip Hooray, Lagaan, Iqbal and Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander. But none of them has been a great sports movie.

This might sound preposterous but most of them are not even a true sports movie. They are more about fighting for a cause where the sporting activity was a means to the end objective. There is scope to replace the sporting activity with something else and the movie would be just as good. Iqbal comes closest to being a sports movie but don’t stir up enough sporting passion. Watching it, I don’t feel like getting up and bowling. The script also leaves a lot to be desired and the sporting scenes are no great shakes.

Luckily for me and thanks to liberalization, Hollywood comes to the rescue. They have given me a whole bunch of absolutely great movies. Ones, which have evoked the same emotions that made me a diehard sports fan in the first place. Movies like Bull Durham, Glory Road, Hoosiers, Brian’s Song, Rudy or Chariots of Fire aren’t about winning the game; rather they are about the victory of the sport itself. These great sports movie either make a player or a fan out of you. They have given me great joy and I have watched most of them multiple times over. However, I have still longed for an Indian sports movie of the same class.

Reason being – these Hollywood movies have been about sports and sporting environments I don’t identify with. I have taught myself to understand American football and baseball but there’s no way I can learn to feel them. There’s no way I can feel the madness of college football (which by the way is far more popular than the professional league). I will never have enough appreciation for the socio-cultural impact of sports in American history and I don’t understand the psyche of a nation which takes first place for granted.

Finally, the wait is over. Today we have ‘Chak De’ – a movie which finally makes the leap.

This movie is about India and a truly Indian sport. The situation is Indian and so is the reason.

Like most of the successful Hollywood flicks, this movie is based on a true story – a story of redemption which will motivate sportsmen and non-sportsmen alike. A true story, which is very believable and shies away from the regular ‘hero is a superman’ histrionics. The sporting scenes have been shot really well and the actors are very real.

More importantly, this movie brings the nation’s attention back to hockey – a sport languishing from apathy and lack of mass support. It’s actually the best thing which has happened for hockey in a long long time. It also does its bit for national unity, communal harmony and girl power. It has its drawbacks but they are minor and can be ignored in light of all the good stuff.

While all of this has been talked and written about in great detail; it also does something which puts it in a different league from the likes of Hip Hip Hooray, Lagaan, Iqbal and Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander.

‘Chak De’ reminds you of all the reasons, why people play competitive sport. It reflects on the purity of sport. Takes you back to the age of innocence when playing the game was all that mattered and you were ready to make every kind of sacrifice for another round of your favourite sport. (Remember the scene where the players put egos aside for a chance to play) When winning the game was the only thing which gave you a kick in life. Puts you in back in a situation where the sport and sportsmen are untouched by its crass commercialization.

If you have ever been part of a sports team, you were ready to live and die for; Chak De is a vicarious experience which will give you the goose bumps. It’s a movie about honest sportsmen - the kind we all aspired to be when we first started playing the game. The emotion of putting on an India blazer is palpable; you almost want to go back and take another shot at relieving your sporting dreams.

In the movie, Komal Chautala’s character, dribbling around scooters and bikes brings a touch of remorse. This is what millions of kids should have been doing in this country (just like kids continue to dribble a football in the by lanes of Brazil). India would have continued to dominate world Hockey. I actually felt guilty for never having played our national game.

Most of us dream of writing a book and making a movie. ‘Beyond a Boundary’ is the kind of book I dream of writing some day and Chak De is the kind of sports movie, I would want to make. I will leave you with my favourite sports quote which comes from my second favourite sports movie (Bull Durham – watch it even you don’t understand baseball. Just the dialogues are worth the money)

A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

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