one more week for the world cup to get going..
Everyone's contributing their bit to make this event a huge success.
Indian Team
The Indian Cricket team left for West Indies the day before yesterday. All the news channels had pictures of the team waving hands to the fans from inside the bus.
Sourav Ganguly and Greg Chappel arrived ala Jai and Veeru on a motorbike with a side car - Ganguly driving and Chappel riding the side car. As planned earlier, 'Ye Dosti hum nahi chodengey' was played on the loud speaker.
All the questions that the waiting journalists intended on asking these two were answered by that one gesture.
Minutes later, Ganguly and Chappel were caught fighting for the window seat in the team bus. Ganguly, somehow, got hold of the seat. Chappel took out his laptop and started mailing the BCCI about the incident. Experts opined that Ganguly will be sent home halfway through the world cup for 'fitness' reasons.
All the news channels promised the viewers that a copy of the mail sent by Chappel to the BCCI will be delivered to every household in India, along with the next day's newspaper.
Most of the players looked very excited just before they got into the bus...Sehwag didn't. He rushed out of his car and went straight to the corner most seat of the bus. No interviews, no bye-byes. Inside sources later revealed that he was pissed off with the BCCI for refusing to sponsor his hair transplant surgery.
Yuvraj Singh is expected to be super fit for the first two matches - against Bangladesh and Bermuda. He might have a hamstring injury just before the second round starts.
Indian team - all set for the huddle.
Media
It’s decided!! All the news channels in India will have female journalists as sports reporters and presenters for the world cup. It all started when Sonali Chander (name NOT changed) decided to take on Harsha Bhogle and the likes to change the face of Sports Journalism on TV. A lot of people have serious doubts on her knowledge of the game - I beg to differ. She calls Harbhajan Singh 'Bhajji' - 246 times in half an hour. Don’t tell me she doesn't know Cricket.
Icing on the cake - For the entire world cup, she is going to have an 'expert' analyst to complement her insightful observations and analyses: Navjot Singh Sidhu!
ICC's anti-corruption unit
A week ago, a local sugarcane farmer in Jamaica had called up the head of the Meteorological department, Mr.Samuels Samaraveeran, to find out the rain forecast for the coming month.
The next day, Delhi police issued a sensational statement saying that Mr. Samraveeran is a Jamaican bookie and is involved in match fixing. They claimed to possess tapes of Mr. Samraveeran talking to a cricketer over the phone and divulging weather information in West Indies. They assured the media that the identity of the cricketer would be disclosed soon.
The West Indies Cricket Board immediately ordered the phones of all human beings in West Indies be tapped. Everyone was intrigued as to why Michael Holding's and Cameroon Cuffy's phones were spared.
Match referees
Their preparations started when the Sri Lankans toured Australia the last time.
Ricky Ponting was spewing racial slurs at Dilhara Fernando for bowling a good ball. Malinga Bandara, fielding at the third man position, was tying his shoe lace. The match referee took note of the entire situation. He immediately slapped a three match ban on Malinga Bandara for bringing the game into disrepute.
The ICC issued a press release saying that if any player is found misbehaving on the ground by tying shoe laces or digging noses, stern and immediate action will be taken against them.
Umpires
Run outs, stumpings, LBWs, no balls, wides - everything is directed to the third umpire, making the two umpires on the ground a lot more relaxed than they should be. The ICC declared the situation alarming, following a recent incident involving Steve Bucknor.
A new batsman, taking guard, asked Bucknor if his bat was in line with the leg stump. Bucknor stared at him for 10 seconds and referred it to the third umpire.
Anyway, the ICC has the situation under control now. Instructions have been given to all the umpires to rule the batsman out if he asks the umpire's help in taking guard.
Illegal bowling action
Brett Lee's ruled out of the world cup. For a long time to come, Shoaib Akhtar will be busy with Mohammed Asif in his bathroom (no, not that....just depositing urine samples for the dope tests they have to undergo).
So, all eyes will be on Muralitharan's 'deformed-at-birth' hand. But he has nothing to worry about. The ICC has increased the 'allowed angle of bend in the bowling arm' to 148 degrees. The Sri Lankan team plans on hiring a 'baseball' player as their bowling coach for the world cup.
As per the latest update on the ICC's rule book, if any one calls Muralitaharan a 'chucker', he/she/it/they will be punished for violating #8973 of 'The code of conduct for the followers of the game'.
So there....all the pieces are falling right into place for the World Cup.
