World Cup Gupshup

It’s curtains for the Caribbean Calypso. And I bet I ain’t the only one heaving a huge sigh of relief. Phew! It’s finally over.

Sure, Ponting and Co are reveling in the glory of their hatrick triumph. Over a brave Sri Lankan side. Yes, “Brave” – that’s what the newspaper called the Lankans. Guess that’s as far as you can get when you’re playing Australia these days.
Seriously, are these guys for real? The way they bulldozed over any given team in the tournament, was there even an iota of doubt in anybody’s mind about who would win the cup in the end? Even if there was, one look at Ponting’s play and that’d be enough to dispel any.
The team will go down as the greatest in the annals of cricketing history..yada yada..yada..But hey, they’ve made the game so monotonous and predictable. All thanks to them, we don’t have the nailbiting, nerve-racking games anymore, that used to keep us all at the edge of our seats. I mean, is there any fun watching a match with them, when you know they’re just going to saunter in and annihilate the opposition , in a rather business-as-usual manner?

Lata Mangeshkar volunteered to step back and let others get a chance to win the coveted Filmfare trophy after there were countless of those bestowed upon her year after year. How I wish the Aussies take a leaf out of her life , lest there be “ho-hum-it’s-Australia-again” endings to the next 'god-knows-how-many' World cups!

Remember the classic Lance Klusener retort at the 1999 World cup when asked about how he felt about screwing up the semi final match for his team?
“(So what?) Nobody die(d)!”
True, that's the worst that could happen.
This year, sadly though, someone actually did. What was initially surmised as a succumbed-to-stress death turned out to be a murder most foul. A respectable coach murdered in the middle of a tournament and all that happens is the players just have one extra black ribbon to wear before they resume business again. What can be sadder than that?

Of course, lesser said the better about our (beaten black and) blue brigade. Their World Cup debacle prompted our irate junta to burn their effigies. But then, it also ended up burning holes in the pockets of many a sponsor! When the “Ladega toh jeetega” Pepsi ads or the “Mind and Body,Heart and Soul” Visa ads proved to be nothing more than money invested foolishly. And these ads being aired like a zillion times before the exit, just added to the sponsors’ expense and to the cricket viewers’ annoyance.
So, when the sponsors realised that they’re just maaro-ing the kulhaadi on their feet by airing their ads calling the team hilarious names like “Team Reliable” , someone in the ad industry came up with this even more annoying idea.
Of churning out ads showing random gully-cricket playing bachhas as future World champions! If you’ve seen the enormously irritating Pepsi gold “Agla World cup hum layenge” ad or the Surf Excel “2015 mein World Cup” ad, you’ll know what I mean!

Like our desi team, Mandira’s cup of woes has been overflowing as well. As though, she didn’t have enough troubles of her own already, making herself look like a complete nincompoop amidst the whos-who of world cricket on her show, the enraged “activists” find a new effigy to burn. Just when she thought she could manage to have everyone’s eyes glued to her noodlestraps and get away with wearing the tricolour on her saree. It quite did not turn out that way, did it? I suspect a certain Shilpa babe is now sulking at the Mandira babe for diverting all the attention of the activist junta away from her!

I wrap up, with my favorite World Cup 2007 anecdote.

G and I are watching a world-cup match where the hapless Bangla boys are being battered mercilessly by the mighty Aussies in a grossly one-sided affair.
A few overs into the match, I turn to him with a “What’s the point?” look on face. My hands stretched out, in the hope that he would probably surrender the remote that he , the compulsive sports freak, would otherwise usurp during the entire length of a cricket match.

The man looks back at me , with a “Don’t-even-think-about-it” glare.

I yell back at him as fiercely, “Come on, it’s not even like, India’s playing” .

Still fuming, he reasons with a straight face,

“ See, that’s exactly the problem . If India wouldn’t have exited the tournament, I wouldn’t have to watch these matches, would I? All thanks to our useless players, I am now forced to watch a team like Bangladesh!”

I don’t exactly remember tying him to the sofa or pinning his eye lashes open with a stapler.
Yet, what do you do when your husband, a full grown adult, makes an argument as “valid” as that?

I, for one, almost fell down from the chair, laughing! :)