The game of words

Cricket is a game of passion. But when it comes to commentary, along with passion, the commentators show their sense of humor. 


Cricket commentary is not an easy job it seems. 
"Do not speak unless you can add to the picture" was the definition of commentary for Richie Benaud.


Cricket is blessed with many great commentators -Richie Benaud, Geoffrey Boycott, Ian Botham, Tony Greig, Micheal Holding,  Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar, Navjot Siddhu, and the last but certainly not the least Harsha Bhogle.
Harsha showed the world that cricket commentary is not restricted to the former players. To talk about cricket, you need the passion about the game and not the experience of the game.


So let's start with the amazing one-liners from the great commentators. 


At the ICC champions trophy 2000 Ind Vs Aus:Harsha Bhogle
"This inning from Sachin has been like a garden, and the last shot being the most beautiful flower in it.."


After being caught at the slip off Anil Kumble, Clarke was waiting for the decision.
Harsha said, "I think, he is waiting for tomorrow's newspaper to declare him out."


During Pakistan's tour of Eng in 1962, Rex Alston came up with this beauty.
"There is a bowling change and we are going to see "Afaq" at the Nursery end"


Richie Beanud- "The slow motion replay doesn't show how fast the delivery was!!!"


After Anil Kumble scored a maiden ton Vs England, Harsha said,
"This is the most romantic moment in Indian cricket"


Blame game..
Fred Trueman tried to be honest,
"I am not the one to blame anyone, but it was definitely Viv Richard's fault" 


When we are talking about commentary how can we forget Siddhuism?
"Wickets are like wives, you never know which way they will turn..."


Once Sunil Gavaskar and Harsha were sharing the commentary box, when Sachin was at the crease,
Sachin hit an awesome straight drive very close to non-striker wickets,
Gavaskar commented, "I have seen only one man hitting straight drive so crisp and brilliant and that man is playing at the moment"
Harsha without wasting a second, "I have seen two, the second is sitting next to me at the moment"


When Sachin once got out to a lollypop offspinner (I guess it was Michael Vaughn) in '02.
He wonderfully said, " Oh what a shame. It was reminiscent of a soldier who survived the war when all the bullets were flying by his nose and then got run over by a bicycle in his native town ." 


At Perth, when Gilchrist took a blinder, Harsha said,
"Some of the sea-gulls flying here, are going to get complex"


Once India lost a test series in SA after winning the first match,
Harsha-"India lost the series because they surprise themselves by winning the first match, a win should never be a surprise"


In a match between Aus and SL, Harsha said to Ian Chappel, 
"I am sure, you will never become a lawyer, I understand everything you say"


Harsha' comment on Yuvraj's six out of the ground in Durban,
"Are there people working late in the office, we want our ball back"


These are some of the great on-liners, most of them from Harsha Bhogle.


If you also recollect some of the good ones, please put them as comments.

Camping near Malshej Ghat

Malshej ghat is always fascinating destination for me. I have been there 3-4 times.

But this time, we tried something different.Thanks to Sanjay,Kunal, KJ, Lilo and Viraj.

It was Sanjay's idea of camping there. He has been there for camping I guess.

So he invited all of us this time.

We had no prior experience of camping. In this trip also we were not at all prepared in terms of equipments.

In contrast, Sanjay was very well prepared. He had everything that needed, right from the screw-driver to towing rope.

So we started on Sat afternoon towards Malshej ghat. Around the evening we reached the village, Khireswar.

(Our camp site)

This is the base village of Harishchandra Gad. Near the village, there is a well built , beautiful lake called Saptatirtha.

We decided that we will put our tents near the lake.

The air was cool, the place was nice, the tents were placed and we were very excited.

We built a barbecue..and cooked some veg n non-veg food on that.

So after eating, chatting, boozing, we decided to go for some off-roading, in the Scorpios.

But while returning to the camp, Sanjay's Scorpio   

got stuck in the mud of the lake.

It was the towing rope, Kunal's Scorpio that came to rescue.
After almost 2-3 hours of hard work, we were able to pull Sanjay's scropio out.
And then it was celebration after that.


Meanwhile, during the car pulling episode, Viraj was very much frustrated. Because he thought we wasted a good time in that. But it was fun for us.
I just remember a funny incident.- Viraj after 2-3 pegs down, while preparing a peg for himself, poured some edible oil into his whiskey. And he drank all of that. We were just laughing like crazy after watching Viraj's expressions.


After that everybody was just singing and dancing till 4 o'clock in the morning I guess.
Overall it was a very very dhamal picnic.


I hope there will be more outings like this in the near future. :)


Btw , u guys can have a look at the pics of this fun at http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoan_kau/sets/72157625969794577/

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