123...for Ponting and Australia in Bangalore

By John Cheeran
Australia has put aside bravado for the time being. Skipper Ricky Ponting first called 123 at the toss on Thursday at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore and a few minutes later walked in to compile a polished 123 to thwart India’s designs of winning the first Test of the three Test Border-Gavaskar series.
On Thursday, everyone was disappointed at the guarded approach of Australians. 256 for four in a day is, not what you have come to expect from the Aussies. But Greg Chappell or Nielsen, Ponting has understood the meaning of playing well in the early hours of a series and the importance of playing the first innings big and proper, especially after winning the toss.
It is true that India’s aging spinners, skipper Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, did not have the best conditions to confound the Aussie batsmen. It would be largely incredulous to expect these two lead the likes of Ponting and Simon Katich astray.
You cannot deny that India had begun well in the series when Zaheer Khan sent back opener Matthew Hayden without a run on the board. And what a deceiving moment that turned out to be. Only in the final few minutes of the day India could salvage some pride by taking the wickets of centurion Ponting and Michael Clarke.
But by then Australia had achieved their basic objective. They had some runs, and denied the first use of batting crease to hosts, and there by, managed to pile the pressure on the home side.
Aussies could not go wrong much from this stage, unless India produce some very, very special efforts in the remains of the Test.

A to Z of Indian Premier League (IPL)

By John Cheeran
The Indian Premier League is in its last stretch. Here is an A-Z about the IPL.

A for Aussies

(John Buchanan, Tom Moody, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Shaun Marsh, Shane Watson, Shane Warne, Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Dareen Lehmann, Justin Langer, Brad Hodge, Cameron White, Brett Lee, James Hopes, Luke Pomersbach, Simon Katich -- these Aussies have dominated the IPL than any other mercenaries)

B for Ban, Bhajji and Bangalored!
C for Cheerleaders
D for Dugout, dotball, dollars
E for Extras
F for Franchise, freehit, fantastic (the most abused word during the IPL), foreigners
G for Glamour, girls
H for Hotheads (Harbhajan, Sreesanth, Yuvi); hit wicket
I for IPL
J for Jab We Met (Charu Sharma meeting Vijay Mallya)
K for Kingfisher; King Khan and all other Kings in IPL
L for Lekha Washington; last ball dramas
M for Modi (Lalit); Money and Mind It!
N for Nightlife; not out, net run rate
O for Orange cap
P for Purple cap, partnerships
Q for Queen of IPL- Preity Zinta
R for Rajasthan Royals, Run outs, Run Rate and reverse sweep
S for Sixer, Shah Rukh, Slapgate
T for Twenty20, teen brigade
U for Unsung heroes (*Yousuf Pathan, Swapnil Asnodkar); upper cut
V for Vijay Mallya
W for Warne
X for Xenophobia of Mukesh Ambani (Ambani, when asked about his team's early defeats, said "just wait for these Aussies to go home, then we will know who is winning"), Xtra Innings
Y for Youth power
Z for zeroes (Challengers and Chargers)

Harbhajan, Symonds, Darwin and Lord Hanuman!

By John Cheeran
Now the Australians are fuming, including Ricky Ponting, and all other media pundits.
The point is that there was not enough evidence against Indian off spinner Harbhajan Singh as having abused Andrew Symonds racially.
It has been alleged that Harbhajan called Symonds monkey during the Sydney Test.
There is truth in the argument that the Indian cricket board’s financial clout and the BCCI’s threat to pull out the side from the forthcoming one-day triangular series in Australia played a major role in arriving at the Harbhajan verdict.
Aussies are enraged because an Indian could get away with his sharp tongue. It is also true that during Australia’s last tour to India, the local crowd abused Symonds by calling him a monkey.
According to Charles Darwin, a monkey, may be not an Australian one, is our granddad. So why is Symonds taking offence? And if at all Symonds felt offended, instead of acting a saint, he should have retaliated calling Harbhajan a double monkey.
Had he done that he could have avoided all these posturing from guys ranging from Mike Proctor to Sunil Gavaskar to Sharad Pawar.
To think of it, the Australians, the masters of the art of sledging, are taking shield behind umpires and match referee is absurd at best.
The infamous conversation that Glenn McGrath had with the West Indian batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan, referring to Brian Lara is sufficient what sorts of gentlemen are the Aussies.
Certainly, Harbhajan erred in calling Symonds a monkey. Monkeys are more civilised than Aussies.
And it saddens me a lot that none of the characters who had a role to influence the outcome of the Harbhajan trial and ban, including that great Sachin Tendulkar had the nous to tell the Kiwi arbiter Hansen that in Indian civilization monkeys are venerated with specific reference to Lord Hanuman.
May be some Aussies should build a shrine for an anonymous monkey call that happened in Sydney, in Sydney.
May be Shantaram Gregory Robertson could explain it further to the Aussies.