And You Thought that Kiwi is a Flightless Bird?

I am glad that India lost the first T20 against New Zealand. Wait. Don’t be too hasty and start doubting my love for Motherland. The loss has only made matters more interesting.

Prime benefit is that it has given a significant reality check to the Indian ‘rockstars’. And, secondly it makes the talks more interesting in the studio. I am only too glad to have more to say/hear on AIR than just admiring the captain and his pack. They are good, no doubt. But for our own sake, let’s not raise anything to unrealistic heights.

I hope that the Indian fans would now make an effort to get to know the New Zealand line-up. I think an average Cricket fan barely knows what they are all about. And the reason is that there are no stars to be awestruck with – just professional & talented sportsmen. And if you have to have some showy stuff around Kiwis then you would have to turn your attention to Rugby. Watch out for a traditional Haka performance by their national Rugby team “All Blacks” and get a taste of a traditional Maori dance of challenge.

The NZ cricketers pose a different challenge, which we had no measure of till the game yesterday. I hope the ‘boys’ have got a fair idea of what needs to be done and would manage to strike back tomorrow without complaining to the big Daddies of Cricket back home.

But let me not say much about how things move. There are better authorities to talk about it that too with first hand accounts. Let me send you “Beyond the Blues” for all that information. And that’s where I want to send all the callers who flood the telephone lines of the show just to ask – “Why wasn’t XYZ made a part of the team” or “Why is ABC still in the team”. 

But the listeners of AIR can be really cute sometimes. Someone was tremendously shaken beyond belief and called in just to say, extremely innocently:

“Sir Ji, ye India aaj haar kaise gaya!!” (How come India lost today?)

That wasn’t really a question, but Raja replied nevertheless, almost instantly:

“By Seven wickets”

Well, that was enough to send me into splits of laughter.

Now, there is another match tomorrow and I am looking forward to more amusement. Don’t misunderstand me, I take my job as an anchor very seriously. But I’ll talk about the serious stuff later, really soon. Not in a mood right now.

For now I shall get back to my list of questions, whose answers the Indian Cricket fan deserves to know.  For answers, please tune in tomorrow i.e. 27^th February 2009 to AIR, FM Gold, 11:00AM onwards