Rohan Rohan,
Yes Papa?
Bowling over?
No Papa.
Scoring runs?
No Papa.
Open your mouth and have some mishti doi.
Kolkata Knight Riders had been on a winning spree. That is a state of being as unstable as a supersaturated solution and it was only inevitable that just like IPL 1.0, the KKR would have its juggernaut brought to a screaming halt.
But wait. Why are we even discussing winning and losing? IPL is not about such trivialities. It is about laughing at the Knight Riders and filling Lalit Modi’s pocket and by those parameters, KKR’s home game against Chennai was a roaring success.
The game started off with each team having one handicap. KKR conveniently lost consistent performer Charlie Langto-field due to injury just when big-ticket player Shane Bond became available. For Chennai, they also started with a handicap because KKR, for the third match in succession, did not play Ajit Agarkar. Rohan Gavaskar’s selection was to many in the audience a mystery since he was not given an over to bowl (which meant he was not a bowler) and batted after the bowlers (which meant he was not a batsman). Not to me because I understood why Rohan was in the team. He was there, representing wimpy people like your present interlocutor who for years in para cricket were part of teams where we were never given bowling, batted last and were asked to run about and fetch balls, particularly when it fell into evil aunty’s balcony.
Of course there still remained many things I had trouble wrapping my mind around—like why was there a discussion about Atul Wasson’s size, why Sunil Gavaskar was asking for mishti doi, why Harsha Bhogle was giggling like a school-girl while saying “Gavaskar is a very hard man” and where the hell was Arun Lal when we needed his vacant “my-mind-is-a-blotting-paper I soak everything up and get it all backwards” look the most.
KKR has the best of the initial exchanges. Hayden brandished his mongoose. Ishant whipped out his snake. Snake ate mongoose. Sehwag and Gambhir vied for a call from a certain Vidya (Vidya Charan Shukla?) in an ad that had definite 377 undertones. Runs were at a premium. Three wickets fell. Everything looked awesome for the home crowd except the cheerleaders, who seemed to be local CITU workers who had muscled in on the job.
And then Wriddhiman Saha dropped Dhoni. Bad mistake. Or as they say in these parts–Kelo.
Dhoni went berserk. Deepika Padukone berserk. Each delivery seemed to have Ranbir Kapoor’s face on it and was dispatched with a nasty personal vendetta. One savage pull almost took off the head of the guy who was wearing the Hooglie (tiger) mascot uniform of the KKR. Mashrafe was later seen praying to God for that narrow escape.
Runs flowed faster than industry leaving Bengal. Dhoni and Badrinath collided mid-pitch and Ishant Sharma, for whom information takes a lot of time to go from brain to hand, muffed the chance to run someone out (He may have been distracted by Kangana RunOut in the stands also). By then of course it was too late and the game was effectively beyond the KKR.
But when everything seems lost that’s when the King’s Men are at their best. Their entertaining best. Hodge packed up quick. Tiwari, whose fifty last game made his fans ask me to eat humble pie, showed why I held off on eating it, when he justified his 675,000 USD pricetag with another bizarre hit-hit-bowled innings. Dada chipped his bat by continuously hitting the air and Wriddhiman Saha, who seemed to have learnt batting from Kiran More, rode his luck for a while before the inevitable happened. So hapless were the Knight Riders that even Balaji was made to look like a fire-breathing dragon. Rohan Gavaskar, the Uday Chopra of cricket, was the only bright spot in the innings, if only for the “Yaaa I got batting” expression on his face which made me all nostalgic. KKR hurtled to a huge defeat and order was once again restored to the cosmos.
The crowd left morose and disconsolate. A man told his Boy Toy—Get me that spinner Ass-win next season. The Super Kings celebrated. Sadness descended over the city.
And somewhere amidst the heat, bustle and tears, a father and son, oblivious of the world around them, quietly had a cup of mishti-doi together.
[Let us have a blogmeet/tweetup/ on March 21st, Sunday at 4 pm in T3 (T3 has closed down), Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) Park Street, Kolkata. Please email me to confirm participation. Since a book launch isnt conducive to general conversation, come to this event if you want a more “personal experience”.]
The Greatbong Blog & Podcast 
First???
At least KKR is leading the field here in this Orkut poll – http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#CommPollResults?cmm=99087253&pct=1268340472&pid=1801845970
Kolkata! Kolkata! Go KKR!
iPod?
Heh.
Heh.
Also, very interesting to see how large portions of this post have been composed of those bite sized live tweets of yours during the match:) Tweet, tweet se blog banta hai!
@Suhel:
You have to try a bit harder to be the first claimant to the fabled iPod here.
@Arnab:
Charlie Langto-field? LOL
@Jayanta – Two 2nd places in a row, I know what you mean!
Now THIS is a GreatBong post!
Encore! (Though I hope KKR don’t put up an encore)
J.A.P.
LOL //For Chennai, they also started with a handicap because KKR, for the third match in succession, did not play Ajit Agarkar.//
But why is everybody so happy whenever KKR loses? And yeah, pl don’t stop tweeting live. It’s fun…
Should not have read your twitter channel earlier !! might have found this interesting..
Why did you not arrange a blog meet in Delhi? I missed your book launch as I went home for Holi, and was looking forward for something like that. Now that is not something you can blame on the publisher, can you? Or did you find that Delhi people do not have that GB-factor you so crave for ?
And BTW, I missed yesterday match as well. I do not fret about missing IPL matches, but after reading this post I might just in future. Thanx for making it come alive for me….
GB pls dont stop live tweeting..lots of fun..(no twitter account so posting here..)
look forward to next match 🙂
keep tweeting during the match GB, i loved it.
Quintessential GB post after a long time. The starting, The ending, small funny observations- Everything perfect.
Thoroughly enjoyed it! 🙂
Rohan Gavaskar part is just too good.
Actually, KKR was out of form for the last two matches…..they just regained their form now….
Brilliant post. Would put it up there with your best!
Is your ‘ a more “personal experience” ‘ going to have a Happy Ending? Is Satisfaction Guaranteed ?
We can re-christen this meet as Coffee with GB !!
he he… this was bound to happen sooner or later, no? I guess, you would have written such posts making fun of KKR even before IPL started. It took them a few games before you could publish this… he he…
Seriously, what was Rohan doing in the team!
lol at Ajit Agarkar not being picked being a handicap for CSK…
Whatever we say, this is one of the most ‘interesting’ teams in the tournament. It is like the RGV of the IPL. Generating comedy in horror situations!
tehee
Sorry for asking a silly question, but why is the post titled ‘chennai uncle massage’???
Agreed, that ‘Karbonn’ ad looks seriously gay! Do these doofuses not get anything? Somebody take out a supari on the Karbonn folks for the most irritating ad campaign in history.
KKR batting looks quite fragile, especially as Dada himself has contributed zilch so far and looks rusty to put it politely. You can’t carry the kind of baggage they have and expect to get away with it regularly. 164 was a tough chase, but this was Eden Gardens, not a minefield. Pathetic batting.
GB- Nice to see the posts coming thick and fast.
what is the English translation of mishti doi?
rohan gavaskar ne kya biagad diya hai tumhara, bhai? peeche pad gaye ho??
at every line of his, we were rolling!!!
But GB the post feels like a collection of all your tweets….but khair koi baat nahi. mazaa aayaa…
Mishti doi= sweet yogurt,a Bengali delicacy.
Chennai aunty massage was a phrase that used to occur regularly in Desibaba, in different contexts. The title is a hat tip to that.
heh mishti doi = Sweet Curd! Something that Bongs cant live without. 🙂
@GB: “my-mind-is-a-blotting-paper I soak everything up and get it all backwards” – priceles. You somehow leap to your hilarious best when the topic is cricket and film reviews.
In the US, for KKR followers it was a good morning to schedule meetings.
One hell of a limerick !!! “Nepoy maare (misti) doi”
Brilliant. Mazza aa gaya.
Where is T2 in Park Street?
I think its T3 if you mean “The tea table”?
Please let us know if it is other than T3!
Sorry sorry T3. Coming?
You used one word in this blog, which summed up yesterday’s match in the best possible way. KELO.
“Rohan Gavaskar, the Uday Chopra of cricket” ..haha priceless
Sure. Sure. Coming.
I will be there early to assist you with the broom and Haturi marka Phenyl X.
Without your tweets, watching the match was not the same!
deja vu of 2008. again beating only deccan and bangalore
watch out for the KKR ad which features Rohan Gavaskar 🙂
Heyy nice blog entry :).. Hilarious !
🙂 Nice nice nice. I know your writing intimately enough to know that you can write like this when you are really happy and grounded, as you are now back where you grew up reading Desibaba stories. I once dated a girl who had some Irish blood, who told me that she could feel something in the air when she felt Ireland, even though she was born in the United States. It seems that you are going thru similar feelings. I can almost sense the taste of mishti doi, the seediness of Pradeep,the smell of the dust outside Eden, the feeling you have when the barber uses the “khur” to close shave your hairline, the feeling of seeing a steamy scene coming on TV while you were flipping thru cable channels in the dark living room at midnight and the feeling of drifting carnal thoughts while eating kabab after kabab after kabab after kabab.
And yes, KKR is a boring team when they do not make an ass of themselves. Jokers don’t look good when they turn serious. Good to see them back to what they do best.
Awesome!
I finally have some clue as to why Rohan is in the team. Dada always favors few payaras. Vignesh should play.
I infact got angry listening toHarsha’s repeats of Mishti doi… was like Shuddup already!!!
Hii,
I wanna join u @T3, park st. I didnt buy ur book yet (gonna buy soon though). will i be kicked out?
You have captured the “much ado about nothing” part nicely. I think Uday Chopra is still better than the “uday Chopra of cricket”.
one comment of harsha during this match was pretty snide…murali was the bowler..and harsha said “there might be only 1411 tigers left, but there is only one murali”…a seemingly innocuous statement..but isn’t the reference to the LTTE unmistakable?
Saint Demented’s ! benediction everybody!
GB, You score with the irreverent nursery rhyme 🙂
Read your book.Thoroughly enjoyed most of the chapters
Welcome to Chennai
yes, what a new and improved head of Harsh said left me wondering for a second like Saha
@Saba – I think Harsha was refering to the Aircel ad where they have tied up with WWF to save the Indian tigers. They have and ad which has the tagline “1411 tigers left”……so I think thats where the comment emanated from