Gough and Lawson for Maharashtra

I just read that Maharashtra is considering taking on Jermaine Lawson and/or Darren Gough as professionals for the 2006-07 season. Maharashtra has, of late, shown a tendency to look for talent outside its Cricketing borders. Besides wooing players from Mumbai (Sairaj Bahutule and Amol Muzumdar) and Munaf Patel from Gujarat, Maharashtra has also appointed the Aussie, Darren Holder as the coaching director of the team.
This is a huge step, not just financially but also strategically, though I'm not sure of its efficacy. With Munaf Patel on India duty for most of the season, Maharashtra really lacks genuine fast bowling options. Iqbal Siddiqui is past his peak and the others are - let's face it - not anywhere near being in the same league. I guess bringing on professionals from abroad could help in improving the fast bowling standards in Maharashtra provided the professionals are made to get involved in outreach programmes that focus on developing talent in the hinterlands. God knows there's plenty of untapped talent there.
Some years ago, when I was playing for PYC club in the Pune local league, we had a player, Kailash Hazare, come from one of the internal districts of Maharashtra. He was as quick as anything I have seen and could very well have gone on to better things, but for some reason, he didn't show up to play the following season. While I can't be sure, I feel his absence was because there was no one to guide him in terms of taking up Cricket as a career. I can name numerous such examples. In fact, every time I went on a Cricket tour to the interiors, I was startled at the talent there. These kids had a quick eye and nimber feet, though their techniques weren't always up to scratch and the bowlers were talented and enthusiastic...but raw. Well, I just hope that the Maharashtra Cricket Association does not lose sight of the real aim of taking on these foreign professionals, viz. creating a paradigm of spotting fast bowling talent and exposing it to international talent so they realise where they stand in the food chain and pick up some useful tips from players who have proven themselves at the international level.

Can you believe this!!

One can only wonder at their audacity! Within a month after giving show-cause notices to 9 contrators for carrying our shoddy work - the roads these contractors had made were washed away with the first rain - the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has gone ahead and awarded another contract, this one worth Rs.1.38 crore to one of the offending contractors, Sunshine Pavings Pvt. Ltd. As usual, the PMC is tight-lipped with no justification being provided on why this contract has been awarded to a contractor who has a history of sub-standard work.
BetterRoads Pune and some other NGO's have decided to protest to this and we should hopefully see some action in the corporation soon.

Gosh! you're 27!!!

I turned 27 yesterday. I came to Dubai when I was 23 and was very easily accommodated into my current circle of friends and was even pampered a bit, being one of the younger members of the group. Yesterday, when some of my friends asked my age, I in turn asked them to guess. Quite surprisingly for me, most guessed that I had turned 25 or 26. Not one guessed correctly. When I actually went on to tell them my age, I could see that many of them looked just a little troubled for a fraction of a second before forcing on a more cheery mask. I could understand the thought behind their troubled expressions though. If the baby of the group is ‘27’, then realization strikes that they themselves are pretty much on the fringe of their first youth, however much they may try to deny it, mostly to themselves. While there isn’t too much difference between 26 and 27, 26 can be called ‘mid-twenties’ while 27 will definitely go under ‘late-twenties’. I guess this subtle comprehension along with a sudden awareness of one’s own ageing body must have caused that momentary angst.

when hijacking a story

We all are guilty of it. You hear a good and diverting story from a friend at some party. Many days hence, in another social gathering with a different set of people, you pass off that story as an incident you experienced yourself. I’ve done it a few time, I admit. Not very often, for my actual real life experiences are generally enough to keep everyone entertained. But on those rare occasions when you think that your friend’s experience will perfectly fit into the context of what is being discussed, you pop in that story; unchanged in most respects except the main protagonist has changed from your friend to you. One such occasion came up recently and I was halfway through my story when I realized that one of the people present had also been present when my friend had narrated the original story. Now, I may not move around in the most brainy circles but I was sure that this friend was gifted enough to put two and two together and call my bluff. My mind raced, trying to think of a way to get out of this situation. At such times, when you most need it, no phone rings, no ones baby cries and you realize that your audience is hanging onto each word with bated breath, goading you with each silent gesture to carry on. Well, to cut a long story short, I couldn’t get out of it and I narrated the story, all the time praying that my friend would have forgotten the original. To give my friend credit, she didn’t comment at all when I finished my story and actually laughed as if she was hearing it for the first time. And then I realized that she probably ‘was’ hearing it for the first time. She’s a smoker, bless her tarred heart and the last time this story was being narrated, she was out in the balcony puffing away at one from her daily quota. That was a narrow escape though and I’ve become wiser now. I look around the room a bit more carefully before narrating a plagiarized story.