Indian cricketing legend, Sachin Tendulkar, is trending on Twitter …….. in 3 different spots! Things related to India trending on twitter are starting to become fairly common. The other day a viral tag titled #awesomeindianthings (which loosely translates to …… uberdesi) was #1 for a while on Twitter. Sachin Tendulkar became the first batsman to score 200 in a one day international match against South Africa earning him 3 different spots on Twitter trends.
Update: Turns out being politically incorrect when referring to Sachin Tendulkar as batsman as opposed to …

It’s a weird world these day. We have Indian players in the MLB and MLB players playing cricket. To be fair, Manny does hail from the the region of the former cricket world champions.

On the third day of the second test match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan in Lahore, the Sri Lankan team bus was attacked by masked gunmen numbering nearly a dozen. The players escaped with about five of them sustaining minor non-critical injuries. Five security personnel however were killed in the gun battle. Cricinfo link.

Speaking from Sri Lanka, Sanath Jayasuriya said that it was an “extremely unfortunate incident. “We’ve never had this kind of problem,” Jayasuriya told CNN-IBN. “They are all safe, that’s the good news I got when I …

We’ve not blogged much about cricket lately and most of us on here hate the Australian cricket team but this is truly amazing. In a T20 match against New Zealand, Aussie Adam Voges made a stunning catch for the ages.
Coming under a skier on the boundary line, Voges realized his momentum would take him out of bounds. So he tossed the ball back into the air, went out of bounds with his momentum, stumbled back into bounds and made a diving catch which Sourav Ganguly would have a tough time …

Cricket as an Olympic sport has been discussed in the news off and on for many years. Logistics for organizing a sport like cricket were complicated, the number of teams requiring the number of grounds and the time taken for a cricket match in the traditional format was overwhelming. With the introduction of Twenty20 format, things look a little different and time constraints seem to have been overcome for cricket to make a comeback as an Olympic sport, after 120 years when ignorant players, not knowing they were Olympians, played …

Cricket Council USA is holding a Twenty 20 cricket tournament in the Washington DC area. The event will feature 4 homegrown teams: Royals, Washington Bengals, JBSA and Washington Tigers.
We received this email from Cricket Council USA.
The DC T20 Cricket Tournament ‘08 is another initiative undertaken by
Cricket Council USA and its Chairman & CEO Mahammad “MAQ” Qureshi.
CCUSA is the Main Sponsor and it is working closely with the Washington
Tigers CC to stage the Inaugural DC T20 Cricket Tournament. This Tournament
will showcase the best Cricketers in the greater Washington DC Metropolitan
in an …

The captain of the Indian cricket previously featured on this blog for brushes with the law and being the victim of the effigy burning industry, is now threatened by an entirely new species – female fans. [BBC]
Dhoni seems strangely relaxed faced with this new threatimg: via BBC and Hindu
To protect him from this clear and present danger, the police have provided him with female bodyguards – earning them the sobriquet “Dhoni’s Angels”. I’m not sure that minus the tabloid potential why this article was exactly featured prominently on BBC news. …

If you are a hardcore sports fan, you will definitely be familiar with ESPN360. For those of you who are not, here is the lowdown (via Wikipedia)
ESPN360.com is a broadband network for live sports programming in the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Europe. In the U.S. the network can only be accessed through Internet service providers who have signed up and paid ESPN for the programming. The entire service is free to the individual (the ISP pays for the cost) with few advertisements.
And ESPN360 now carries live cricket! So …

To those of you stuck here in this cricketless land with little live coverage, good news for the subscribers of XM radio.
ATN Channel 159 runs live commentary from IPL matches. I meant to post this long time back but kept postponing it. Over the last month or so, I’ve gotten my money’s worth listening to live cricket commentary from IPL games while driving to work and other long drives.
Point to be noted, XM does not stream this channel online. So unless you have a docking station at work or home, …

Part 3 – Über Desi goes behind the scenes
Sign prominently posted around the ground
As mentioned previously, we @ Über Desi are too cheap to buy $20 tickets, so instead we got press passes, and unlimited access to the behind the scenes of the tournament.
After obtaining press credentials for the tournament, I had a chance to get up-close and meet and photograph a couple of legendary players including an extremely controversial one. I also got to ask a former Bollywood actress if she was planning a comeback to the movies.
Presenting a …

Part 2 – The facilities and the atmosphere
The CCUSA pavilion and grandstand in Florida
The CCUSA facility in South Florida is located about 30 minutes to the North of Miami. The ground is round in shape. If you’ve been to a cricket match in the US, you probably know most of them are played on mat tracks. The CCUSA facility in Florida boasts of a test quality wicket with an outfield to boot. CCUSA also goes through a great deal of effort to maintain this wicket as was evident during the …

This is part one of a three part series covering the MAQ T-20 international cricket tournament, a Twenty20 cricket tournament held near Miami, Florida, USA.
Part 1 – The tournament
This tournament was the first of its kind anywhere in the US – the MAQ T-20 cricket tournament organized near Miami, Florida by the Cricket Council of USA, featured a host of erstwhile one day international and test cricket stars.
The tournament started on a Friday but we were unable to go there until Saturday. The first game on Saturday was scheduled for …

Two black British cheerleaders in an interview to “The SUN” were quoted as saying that they were stopped from going on stage at an IPL pre-match show by a staff member from pre-match show organisers Wizcraft International Entertainment. The staff members allegedly told the two girls: “people here don’t want to see dark people“. The two cheerleaders also allege he used the “N” word was and told them people “only wanted beautiful white girls“. [TOI]
Cheerleaders face racial abuseimg: via Courier Mail Australia
Coming on the heels of the Shilpa Shetty-Big Brother …

From the chronicles of the obvious: Thackeray has claimed cheerleaders seduce the spectators in a stadium. [link]
“I am a lover of good sports and music. It is the secret of my cheerfulness. I have a special affinity towards cricket. But till now only cricket was played in the field.
Of course, there Thackeray has conveniently forgotten when his thugs dug up cricket pitches to prevent Pakistan from playing in India during the 90s, thereby disrupting, you guessed it, the game of cricket. So much for loving the game.
However, now things …

Mumbai’s mamus (cops) are now out to defend us from evil cheerleaders. [BBC link]
Deliver us from this evil, oh almighty Mumbai Mamusimg: via BBC
Says Ram Rao Vagh, the police commissioner for New Mumbai:
….. organisers could be fined for violating the norms of the entertainment licence they had secured for allowing performances in the stadium.
Senior officers would decide whether the cheerleaders had crossed the “lines of decency”.
Senior officers will drop all important matters to be there first hand to protect innocent Mumbaikars from those slutty cheerleaders, rest assured.
Says Siddharam Mhetre, …

The Vijay Mallya-owned, Bangalore Royal Challengers, have roped in cheerleaders from the NFL team, Washington Redskins, for it’s first four games. [link]
Note: This image is photoshoppedimg via First Post
The Redskins cheerleaders troupe is also expected to train Indian cheerleaders for Mallya’s team. Predictably, Hindu extremists have gone nuts over this move, “as they believe their act damages Indian culture and tradition”.
Bangaloreans appear less enthusiastic about the cheerleaders …
“It is completely alien to our culture to have young skimpily clad Indian girls sporting pompoms on their derrieres dancing around furiously,” …

Turns out Bhajji was sledging back – “abe, teri maa ki” when said in a Punjabi accent does sound like “hey big monkey”. [link] (tip: Ahmed via email)

Harbhajan Singh’s three match suspension was the last proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. India’s tour was fraught with controversies. Not one but close to half a dozen ridiculous umpiring decisions by Australian and West Indian umpires cost India the second match. [link]
Then Harbhajan Singh was suspended for allegedly calling Andrew Symonds a “monkey”. While if true, Harbhajan deserves punishment the ban, what is mind boggling is that in a “he said she said” case the ICC has predictably decided to side with the Australian’s version of the story …

If you are desi, you will know that the Indian cricket team is currently touring Australia. And things have not been going well for India. Australia have been their usual efficient selves while the Indians, hampered by a mind freeze by their own board that pooh poohed the lack of preparatory games before the test matches and some horrific umpiring, have since crashed to successive twin defeats at Melbourne and Sydney. While all the chatter on and off the field was animated, the actual play by the Indian team …

The movie titled “Victory” revolves around a small-town boy who dreams of playing cricket for India, novel concept I know. As a (the only??) selling point, it features cricketers from across the world – Sajid Mahmood and Simon Jones from England, Craig McMillan, Daryl Tuffey and Nathan Astle from New Zealand and from Australia Mike Hussey and wannabe Bollywood star/singer, Brett Lee. [link]