Cricket

A barber shaves the head of Indian cricket fan Kallu Gupta, 30, a ritual performed after the death of a family member, marking the death of the Indian cricket team as a protest to the team’s performance during the ICC World Cup, in Allahabad [TOI]

Indian cricket team members and their respective profession after they return from West Indies.

Disclaimer- These pictures are NOT my property. I have no idea who created it. They were hosted on http://www.pictiger.com/

Dear cricket fans,

First let me apologize for the dismal performance of the team at the World Cup. We take full responsibility of the defeat. We understand your frustration at the team’s exit in the first round and especially at the loss to Bangladesh but you see we had no option. The loss to Bangladesh was planned because the Indian Government struck a deal with the Bangladesh that if it allows its team to lose this match then the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants,spread across length and breadth of India, would be accepted back. Plus there was lot of pressure from the ICC to make Bangladesh win as it has been so many years since it was granted test status.

The loss to Sri Lanka was to ensure that Bangladesh qualify for the super 8. We understand the humiliation at losing to Bangladesh but imagine the economic advantage that India stands to gain after these immigrants are taken back. We are patriots and we believe in sacrifice of our beloved things for the betterment of the country as a whole. Actually the government was really concerned about the human rights violation of these immigrants stationed in West Bengal, especially after Nandigram incident, so our PM made special request to the team to leave their private desires and sacrifice for the good of the country.

We also have some good news for you all. World Cup 2011 has been awarded to India! It will be a Indo-Pak final at the Eden Gardens. (The official sale of tickets begin in 2010 but you can book in advance through our back channel). Just to avenge the setback to our egos, India will play Bangladesh in Dhaka and defeat it by a margin of 200+ runs.

We are highly committed in making the World Cup win in 2011 genuine, so here is the masterplan-

1. Sachin will stay till 2011. We are planning to burden him again with the captaincy.

2. Rakhi Sawant will be our team ambassador. With her bouncers, she is incharge of ensuring the defeat of the mighty Australians. We might also hire Mallika Sherawat to handle other teams.

3. Ads which were made for the world cup 2007 will be regularly shown to the team so as to keep their morale high.

4. Saurav Ganguly will be our new physiotherapist. This is to ensure that there are no protest rallies in West Bengal and the communist continue their support to the central government.

5. Other details like the coach and team composition will be decided will time. We are looking at the option of Nayan Mongia taking charge as the coach of the team. No more foreign coaches as they keep creating feud among different regions of the country. We want a desi coach who understands the Indian psyche. Plus we are really running short of cash because of early world cup exit, the government has promised to compensate but it will take a minimum 5 years for the government to accumulate the huge loss we have incurred, so an internal coach will suit our bill.

Till 2011 keep watching cricket! Please be our support in these times of distress. Lets share this sadness so as to console each other. In the meantime feel free to show off your skills

Yours and only yours,

The BCCI.

Picture for the TOI

The inevitable has happened. Dreams were shattered, hearts were broken and many were sent to deep chasm of depression after seeing India lose to minnows Bangladesh. All the hype around ‘Team India’ seems to have suffered a big blow. I wonder why they still show that Pepsi ad, where Indian team poses like the tigers, when they falling like nail pins. Bangladeshis would have had a heartily laugh seeing these tigers become asses in front of Bengal Tigers.

Bangladesh deserved the victory because they played to their own satisfaction. They outplayed India in all departments of the game. I wonder why Indian team, being such an old and experienced, still struggles to dive and fly in the field even though India has the most powerful whitener called Rin. We have the power of Mandira Bedi, perhaps the only women commentator ever in cricket, and her fancy saaris.

Pakistan team should wait for their counterparts from across the border to get done with things and then they can together escape via the sea route. Indian players can cross over to India with the terrorists infiltrators, just a way to save money or else why spend so much or air fares.

So what should India do to get over this mental depression? Take a lesson from UP politics

DEPUTY CHIEF Minister R.R. Patil may have shut down dance bars, but Mumbai’s bar girls have found a new stage — campaign rallies in Uttar Pradesh.

The seven-stage Assembly election begins April 7 and ends May 8. Politicians have already started ‘booking’ the girls, hoping that their performances will attract larger crowds to their rallies and, ultimately, translate into votes.

Confirming the bookings, Bharatiya Bar Girls’ Union president Varsha Kale said: “The girls are flooded with such requests and are paid about Rs 1.1 lakh per show.� The money is shared by a group of 10.[HT]

They already were in a jolly mood so let them at least enjoy Caribbean. Their escape route is already set.

The Ho Ha ad is the recent Nike advertisement on TV

The two-minute ad shows boys leaping out of cars and taking up fielding positions; a Parsi statue stands with a finger up in the air, like an umpire; two girls blush as a ball hits a player in his crotch; a ball ricochets off a nearby billboard, jolting a man clipping his nose-hair; and a fielder calls out, “Ai, Balcony, ball de na!�

As for the logistics, it took four days to shoot, 250 vehicles to create the jam, 300 extras to simulate the feel of a bustling street, about 40 actors, one elephant, 20 chickens, a few pigeons, a dog and two star cricketers (Zaheer Khan and Sreesanth) to create Mean Streets cricket.

Interestingly, the set was adjacent to the Bigg Boss house, which led to some amusing and unexpected situations. “One of the balls landed on the Bigg Boss set and we could hear Rakhi Sawant screaming,� recalls Deo. The Bigg Boss producers also bor rowed their elephant briefly for an episode.[HT]