Monday, March 21, 2005

Cricketing Cliches

Regular reader of Amit Varma's India Uncut would already have heard about the series of Cricketing Cliches and the way he explicitly mentions them before use. Hugely interesting and entertaining stuff, but is it anything more than that ?? Is he trying to imply that one should try NOT to use these ?? I'm not sure but it would be a hell of a difficult task.

For eg. How else would you describe the innings by Dinesh Karthik on Day 4 of the Kolkata Test other than "one of character" ?? A gutsy performance - another cliche (?) but surely it was more than that.

Cricketing cliches will continue to be used for as long as the game goes on. What needs to stop however is people like Ravi Shastri who keep hammering inane obvious questions after every match at the poor captains. Yesterday I felt so sorry for Inzy - the poor man has suffered a heavy defeat, he's down and tired, he can't speak a word of English and is mumbling something, his facial expression pleading "Please leave me alone". And what does our great Shastri do ?? I need hardly mention - "Bad luck Inzy. Where do you think it all went wrong. What was the turning point of the match ? What are the positives you will take out of this game ... " - the standard set of questions whose answers every kid in in every alley of India or Pakistan knows.

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