Archive for the ‘Fiction’ Category

Phraser Bullets: Did they say that?

Posted: September 4, 2011 by thecognitivenomad in Fiction
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Chandrasekhar Jayarama Krishnan

Wick(et)Freaks – The CouchExpert

4 September, 2011

 

“Why is it that only when India are in a winning position, it rains here in England.”

Gavaskar’s idiosyncrasies resurface as the rain gods come in to play in Durham.

“Even Sunny-bhai couldn’t prevent Rainy-bhai from intervening during a good day for the Indians.”

Ravi “Tracer-Bullet” Shastri throws another grenade into the first ODI result.

“The Englishmen are jealous of the Indian slow-movers. What right does Nasser Hussain have in calling some of the Indian fielders’ donkeys? He could’ve called them a tortoise. Or he could’ve called them a snail. Or he could’ve called them the Mumbai traffic. Or he could’ve called them Inzys …”

Ravi “Tracer-Bullet” Shastri, once again, demonstrates his know-how on the slow moving objects of the world.

“Nasser complemented the Indians! He referred to them has Don Qui(xote)s – after the renowned Spainsh folklore legend Don Quixote.”

An ECB official with Spanish roots backs Nasser Hussain’s comments.

“I was watching the game in the hotel with Rob Key and he said Nasser did nothing wrong. He just referred to them as ‘Darn-Keys’, ‘cuz Rob was one of the slowest movers on the field. What is wrong with that?”

Swanny tweets as soon as the pundits start taking a swipe at Nasser.

“I think after 96 tests, and 196 visits to the Zoo, I am entitled to express my opinions on air. That is why Sky Sports and Animal Planet (whose contractual agreements with Nasser cannot be disclosed) are paying me to voice my opinion during this series. I think I’ve earned the rights to do so.”

Nasser explains why he had the rights to say what he ended up saying.

“At 50 years of age, I could get past those bouncers at the gates of Lancashire CC, even after they man-handled me. What is 23 year old Rohit going on about?”

David “Bumble” Lloyd isn’t too impressed with Rohit Sharma walking off after a bouncer sent him back retired hurt.

“Bumble was a great player, no hard feelings of course! Maybe I was scared, I’m sure I’ll meet him over a beer and resolve this.”

The party animal within Rohit Sharma uses the Bumble jibe to his advantage to drown a few pints as he clearly forgets why Bumble quit test cricket.

“@ImRo45 When and where are you meeting Bumble?”

Injured Indian World Cup star Yuvraj Singh quickly tweets after hearing Rohit’s comments.

“@yuvsingh09 hahahahahahahahahahaha!”

Kevin Pietersen, in turn, reacts to Yuvraj’s comments on Twitter.

“My dad reckons Dravid applied sun tan lotion on his bat instead, and it was cloudy in Durham.”

A former England captain’s son tweets after the Dravid dismissal.

“Michael Vaughan, once again, proves that he is an idiot. This time, he makes his son tweet on behalf of him.”

Saurav Ganguly war of words with Vaughan resume.

“I agree with Saurav. Vaughan is an idiot. He once told in public that my dad was hard to control as a player.”

The mystery kid, now revealed to be Flintoff Jr, agrees with Saurav’s comments, at least partially.

India pick Steyn, Morkel and Bollinger for the third day’s play at The Oval

Posted: August 20, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Fiction
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 Goutham Chakravarthi

 20 August 2011


In what has been a series that has been played in the right ‘spirit of the game’, England, it was assumed showed great support to the India cause by sending a night watchman in at the fag end of a day where they pummeled close to 400 runs. But, Anderson riled up the Indian high lords by announcing that he had done enough bowling for the series and wanted to bat out the remaining three days and ordered the chickens hiding behind him in the batting order to support him as the senior batting partner in his endeavour to bat out the remaining 18 hours of this Test.

Srikkanth announced that India has summoned Steyn, Morkel and Bollinger into the Indian team based on their IPL performance

Not to be outdone, the Indian chairman of selectors, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, in a radical move announced the replacement of India’s pace-battery in England for the third day’s play with high performing domestic stalwarts. His statement said, “Given the abject performance of the Indian pacers, we have decided to pick a new set of fast bowlers. ECB and the English team are fine by the decision and they laughed off the suggestion saying that replacements cannot be any better than the ones that are here. After a not-so-long deliberation, we have decided to replace Ishant, Sreeshant and R.P. Singh with Rajastan Royals’ Morne Morkel, Deccan Chargers’ Dale Steyn and Chennai Super Kings’ Doug Bollinger. They should arrive in time for start of play on the third day.”

The English press called it “talent poaching” and “highly unethical”. Simon Briggs, covering the press conference for The Telegraph called it “blasphemous” and not even England’s recent poach of the Irish quickie, Boyd Rankin, to play for the English Lions, they claimed, came close to the coup Srikkanth and team have managed to pull off.

To the English uproar, Srikkanth has said, “England have recently poached Rankin of Ireland and made him play for England Lions. If England can pick an Irishman based on his domestic performance for the Lions, so can we!”

England's Irish batsman Morgan could represent India in this Test

Rankin’s former Irish team mate, Eoin Morgan, who happened to be at the press conference to explain why he chickened out and opted for a night watchman was now engulfed in a totally different dilemma post Srikkanth’s statement on Rankin. He wondered, “So, Rankin might get selected into the England Lions side based on his performances for Ireland and Ireland pick him to play against England in the one-dayer based on his England Lions performance. I wonder what’ll happen if I get a hundred batting first for England in that game! Does it mean Ireland will pick me to bat for them when it is their turn to bat?”

When asked for an opinion from Srikkanth on the implications of his decision, he only said, “We might pick even Morgan to bat for us based on his performances for the Kolkata Knight Riders come the fourth day!”

He signed off by saying, “We have ensured that these players will be playing newly selected bowlers for England that they have given me the privilege to pick as a return for the spirit of the game shown by our boys. After careful examination, I have picked these bowlers to play for England based on their county performances: Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla, Pragyan Ojha and Murali Kartik. Kartik has been advised to bowl right-arm chinaman.”

It is the neem effect says Flower

Posted: August 18, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Fiction
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 Srikrishnan Chandrasekaran

 18 August 2011

A visibly satisfied Andrew Flower addressed the media on the even of the last Test at The Oval. Excerpts from the interview:

Press: What is the secret behind England’s series win over India?

Flower: Our boys have been practising hard over the last 1 month under the neem tree. Due to neem impact, some of our boys like Broad, Bresnan and Swann have excekked beyond everyone’s imagination by scoring runs and taking wickets.

Flower attributed the success of his team to special practice under the neem tree

Press: What’s the reaction from the team after their series win?

Flower: Like I said earlier, they are in different world because of the neem tree practice and are by now used to making previously unimaginable comments on team India and its players.

Press: How tough it was for you to pick the team before this series?

Flower: England has got a good mixture of experience batsmen and bowlers. We were in a dilemma on whom to pick for series, I even personally suggested to the board to go for Onions instead of Broad.

Press: How was the team feeling and reactions after winning the first test match?

Flower: Strauss and other senior players came and shouted at me, “thank God we didn’t go by your words to drop Broad for this match, otherwise we would have end up in losing the test match.” After the test, even Board also requested me to keep silent through out the series

Press: How the English former players feel about this achievement?
Flower: You can very well see that every former player is writing articles and talking to the media that we outplayed India. Even Bresnan has publicly asked team India to go back home. It is team India who have given him the opportunity to be in the side by allowing him to score runs and take wickets in the series.  But nobody seems to have realized my true value to this team as it was me who requested Dhoni and his team to play as poor as they can so that we can win the series.

Batman Bresnan announces Englishmen as the alpha males of cricket

Posted: August 17, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Fiction
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1

 Goutham Chakravarthi

 17 August 2011


“Indians either need to learn to do banana splits to keep themselves warm or go back to India and start preparing for Champions League T20,” said Tim Bresnan, wearing a sleeveless shirt and a wrestler’s shorts, and flexing his biceps and then resting both his hands on his hips. But for the cape, you would call him Batman.

Bresnan has challenged the Indians to follow suit and try banana splits or go back home!

Bresnan added, “English boys are now the alpha males of cricket. Guys like Cook have reformed batting in the days of ugly swipes and heaves that are influenced by the blasphemy of the IPL. You cannot compare our extremely superior batting line-up to theirs. It is unfair. We pratice it as a sacred art – perfected by the likes of W.G. Grace, Hutton, Hobbs, Hammond and passed on to the likes of Boycott and now Cook. It is art in its purest form.”

Asked if it was a challenge to bowl to the likes of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Laxman, he said the biggest challenge was not to be bowled over by a dozen middle aged men dressed like Britney Spears on the fancy dress Saturday in Birmingham. Once he could resist keeping his eyes off them, he said he had conquered his biggest challenge and Indians’ batting was nothing in comparison and pointed out that Sreesanth and Ishant couldn’t and suffered as a result.

With the Indian media contingent also not interested in the series after having to go through the arduous task of praising Cook’s batting for three days, the series sponsors, npower, tried to attract media personals to the press conference by arranging for a “Who has more tattoos” contest.England’s long list included two South Africans in Jade Dernbach and Kevin Pietersen and India were represented by Sreesanth.

Vaughan has appealed to stop worshipping Tendulkar and copy Tuffnel's batting instead

Sreesanth’s sledging of Dernbach’s tattoos notwithstanding, it took an accusation from Bresnan again to warrant Indian media interest back in the series. “Sehwag is the joker to this Batman,” he said referring to himself. He said, “Virender Sehwag is the most overrated of Indian batsmen as he is a flat track bully and cowers when touring abroad. Boycott’s mum had better technique against the moving delivery.”

When asked for a reaction, the former English skipper, Michael “Vaseline” Vaughan said, “It is about time people understood Indian ways do not work anymore. The Tendulkar way has not worked for Tendulkar himself and he should learn a thing or two from Cook. No surprise his clone Sehwag hasn’t done well. Time someone like Ravi Bopara learnt the lesson and stopped worshipping Tendulkar. Even mimicking Tuffnel’s batting technique would have given him a hundred runs at Edgbaston. If he did, we will have the best Indian in our team, like we have the best Zimbabwean and South Africans in our team!”

Bob Willis joined the bandwagon and said, “This entire series has been about Tendulkar getting his hundredth 100. Don’t you see that he wants to put himself along Bradman with the perfectly imperfect number 99? Their preparation and prioritization of the English tour has been abysmal. If Strauss wins the toss at The Oval, they should look to bat till lunch on Day 5 and declare. Indians have shown no stomach for fight and will disintegrate twice in the remaining two sessions. England might even win with a session to spare!”

Zaheer Khan is reported to have pocketed the coin that is to be used for the toss tomorrow to check his weight after being accused for being fat by Stuart Broad. The umpires and match officials were busy checking if a substitute coin will be allowed if the designated coin for the toss can’t be recovered and if there was a possibility of the match being called off in such a scenario.

When the Queen, Scotland Yard and Weasley twins couldn’t stop Cook from sending the cricket world into depression

Posted: August 16, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Fiction
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4

 Goutham Chakravarthi

 16 August 2011

Ian Botham has slammed the ICC for not giving England a fair opportunity to win the four match series 5-0. His request to let India bat twice again on the 4th and 5th days on a crumbling Edgbaston pitch so that England could showcase their supremacy over the highly overrated Indian batting line-up. ECB had sold any number of non-refundable tickets for the last day. He quibbled, “This Indian side is only interested in IPL cricket and the razzmatazz associated with it. The partying and cheer leaders can be very tempting! But ECB should rub their faces in the mud when they can so that I can walk with my head held high!”

Ravi “Tracer Bullet” Shastri accused Ian Botham of being jealous for not being involved in the IPL. He said, “Instead, we could have had 5 IPL games on the 4th and 5th days as skippers of Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Daredevils, Pune Warriors, Mumbai Indians were around. It would have proved only Indian teams can win IPL matches even in England and England cannot stomach that fact and India would still be world no. 1”. Sunil Gavaskar, nodded in approval even as the editor of the Outlook magazine was stealthily eavesdropping on the conversation in a Scooby Doo disguise but wearing his ID nonetheless.

Cook is to be rechristened as “Sir Mulish” by the Queen

ESPNStar, the Indian broadcaster of the India-England series, has sued Alastair Cook for a severe dip in their television ratings and their studies revealed that grown men preferred to watch soaps over cricket who have refused to switch the channel back on to cricket even a week later fearing that he would be leaving deliveries bowled by M.S. Dhoni whilst still batting on 401 after 70 hours at the batting crease.  They have sued his mentor, Graham Gooch, and his hair-transplant consultant who is rumored to be a distant cousin of Geoffrey Boycott for implanting these ethics into Gooch, and by extension, to Cook.

Indian fans who have travelled to England have been seen scampering at Kings Cross in the hope to find the platform 9¾ to escape to the magic world of Harry Potter. They were seen frantically performing the memory charm ‘Obliviate’ on each other in a vain attempt to erase the memories of Cook. ESPNStar has warned that another innings of Cook on similar lines at The Oval would further weaken the economics as they already have no advertisers or viewers till the time there is Cook.

BCCI has warned the cricket world of there being a great depression should Cook continue to be allowed to play any cricket at all. They have challenged Cook to settle scores with Praveen Kumar in a wrestling bout followed by a sweating contest with Rahul Dravid. Cook has agreed to the challenge but only after he is done with his batting practice that commenced 10 mins after the 3rd Test ended on Saturday afternoon. Two bowling machined have limped off with hamstring and shoulder injuries, but Cook’s practice shows no signs of abating.

Praveen Kumar is warming up to settle scores with Cook in a wrestling bout

On Sunday, with the Indian Embassy appealing to the Queen, the matter was forced into Scotland Yard’s hands. They have hired the services of the Indian minister and former cricketer Sidhu and former England captain Nasser “Jealous” Hussain to provide pitch-side distraction for Cook in his practice. Sidhu has apparently not let Hussain utter, “I have been paid to provide my opinion,” in 18 hours of Cook’s batting practice so far. With bowling machines worn out and all net bowlers doing their shoulders, Scotland Yard’s private detectives were seen plotting their strategy against Cook.

They hired the services of George and Fred Weasley who ran-up to bowl to Cook and cleverly disguised the use of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes’ new trick of developing five arms on the delivery stride and bowling them over-arm, under-arm, side-arm, a Shoaib chuck and a Sreesanth beamer simultaneously against Cook only for Cook to defend, block, leave, sway and duck at the same time to the five deliveries. The mesmerized Weasley twins were last heard arguing with J.K. Rowling that Harry Potter should now be rechristened Harry Cook.

The Queen has decided to take the matter in her own hands and it has been decided that Alastair Cook will be given knighthood on Thursday so as to ensure that he doesn’t play in The Oval test after the BCCI accused ECB for not playing in the spirit of the game. ECB, it is understood from our sources, have sent out a massive search for bowlers who specialize in bowling long hops and leg-stump half-volleys in order to restore interest among Indian batsmen and Indian spectators.

Not even the magic tricks of the Weasley twins could get Cook out.

The Queen has urged that normalcy be restored in cricket. She urged, “Alastair Cook henceforth will be known by the name Sir Mulish for his insane ability to resist a Sreesanth half-volley after two days of batting when he can see even the smallest of craters on the moon even in broad day light.” Sreesanth complained that he never felt this bad even when he was slapped. And Warne ended-up sending text messages to all nurses in the whole of England to beat boredom. All the while, Sir Geoffrey Boycott was seen admiring Cook and blowing kisses at him.

ESPNStar, meanwhile, has resorted to desperate measures to keep the Indian interest alive in the series. BCCI has arm-twisted ICC to decide the result of the final Test through online voting and text messaging. Viewers will be asked to vote on the following:

BCCI is working with PCB to see if they can spot-fix the Test last summer where Cook scored his career saving hundred. They are talking to have the umpire change his mind and give him out against Mohammed Aamir when Cook was on 2 so that England would drop him retrospectively and his Ashes and Edgbaston exploits be deemed void.

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