November 07, 2003
 

General

Its only when you go to a hospital and have treatment done that you realise you're possibly infinitely more fortunate than other folks there. A few weeks ago I'd started on some dental treatment and I ended up with a swollen face, which was the result of what the good dentist termed a 'muscle spasm'. The muscle apparently sustained some injury while the local anaesthesia was being administered, possibly through the injection needle. The muscle hence assumed it was injured and hence I couldn't open my jaw enough to even eat my food easily. It took a fair amount of tablets before the muscle started relaxing (it still hasn't completely!). So I came out of the dentist's room clutching my left jaw and worrying about whether I'd ever be able to open my mouth wider or if the pain would subside ... or if I'd be able to do justice to the sweets with Deepavali fast approaching. My worries were put into perspective when I saw a middle aged man whose voice box seemed to have been rendered dysfunctional. He had to use a voice synthesizer, similar to that used by Stephen Hawking, to communicate. This was a chap who couldn't have been older than 40 years old, yet his voice was snatched away from him. That sort of put my worries into perspective and I immediately felt a lot better than I had been. I did feel extremely sorry for the other chap, but when I saw his condition, my worries disappeared.

Moral of the story: Stop wallowing in self-pity. Everyone has problems.

Cricket

Strangely enough, this section is related to the moral I mentioned earlier. Stephen Fleming went public a few days ago with his displeasure over New Zealand being made to play on fresh early morning seaming wickets while India got to play day/night games. This was a statement, coming from a captain who provocatively suggested (circa end-2002) that if India's batsmen were the best in the world, then they ought to prove themselves in all conditions, including the ones which passed off as cricket pitches in New Zealand. If New Zealand prided themselves on being a good one-day unit, why should he whine about the pitches. I'd not have been surprised if he'd complained that the pitches for the one-day series were slow low doctored turners. He's complaining at pitches which provide less movement early on than what the Indians faced last year. He's complaining that the Indians have given him the same type of wickets New Zealanders grow up playing on! Of course, he conveniently forgets the fact that he defied logic (and was prompted by fear of the Aussie batting juggernaut for sure!) opted to bat first at Faridabad and then his world-class fielders suddenly found butter on their hands at vital moments against Australia at Pune.

Having beaten India at Cuttack, I cant see too much of whining from Fleming ... until the next game at Guwahati (once again, an early morning start). Besides, this is a home tournament, Mr. Fleming. When was the last time Australia played back-to-back matches in the Benson & Hedges Series/Carlton United Series/VB Series?

Styris got his match fee docked for audible dissent after getting out. The Kiwis dont mind when Tendulkar gets given out to a ball missing legstump or when Badani is given out and there's no conclusive evidence that he hit it or that McCullum caught the catch cleanly. Styris was more out than not out. Harris and Vincent were unfortunate, they shut up and walked, didnt they?

Stop complaining, get on with the game.

Rambled @ 6:28 PM

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