No Singham in Nottingham

Yeah India got a real drubbing at the hands of English. And like many self-proclaimed cricket pundits I would like to take this opportunity to criticize our beloved “Indian Cricket Team”. This article is a pure product of fiction and any resemblance to any real situation is unintended.

Image Source: www.espnstar.com

“Is the dream really over?” is what Mr. Dhoni said to Mrs. Dhoni this morning, confirms our very unreliable source Pumba at Nottingham. Pumba also confirmed that Ian Bell has thanked the whole Indian team and especially Dhoni, first for the generosity they have shown to him with so many boundary balls and secondly of course for the run-out thing. Apparently Stuart Broad and Ian Bell are going to throw a party for the whole Indian team once the series is over.

Pumba also got a chance to interact with some of the Indian players and got their reaction on the test match and the series so far. Here are the few reactions we got.

Sachin Tendulkar said he is quite enjoying the English weather and hopes that his family will join him soon and they will spend some valuable time together.

VVS Laxman when approached said that he and his family never used Vaseline in their life. They are fans of Boroline and have been using the brand since many years.

We couldn’t get a comment from Dravid as he straight away went to have a net session with few local bowlers.

Harbhajan Singh said that he was very angry with Vijay Malya and that he will make sure that his and whole Sikh community’s prestige be restored in the court of law. (Pumba says Bhajji is also angry on Dhoni for appearing in the Ad and hence the performance)

Ishant Sharma seemed very happy, when asked the reason he replied that he was very happy with the barbers in Nottingham.

Sreesanth when contacted said he was very happy with his first innings’ performance and he credited Harbhajan Singh for it. He said “Bhajji-paa really helped me a lot…he told me which lines and lengths to bowl on these wickets and how to swing the bowl from outside leg-stump to off.”

Pumba says World Cup MOT Yuvraaj Singh was very sad when he met him. Apparently he was missing his mother and Neha Dhupia.

Dhoni apologized to Pumba because of lack of time. He said he was getting late for wonderful Thai curry his wife Saakshi had made for him.

Coach Fletcher was seen in a local pub enjoying a few beers. Apparently English team was celebrating their win in the same club and had invited Fletcher to join them for old-time’s sake. Fletcher though declined politely.

Indian team in the mean time is boosted by the return of Nawab of Najafgarh aka Virender Sehwag. Pumba has got inside information from Team India dressing room that they were actually trying to make England overconfident by losing the first two matches and then launch Sehwag on them. He also informed that Gautam Gambhir is already feeling fitter on hearing about Sehwag’s return. We have also learnt that India is considering playing two spinners and that Munaf Patel might be called in the third test to share the spin burden with Praveen Kumar.

So hopefully with such positive energy all around India will be able to make a turnaround in this series and level it 2-2. With high hopes this is me signing off.

RBI hikes REPO rates

Image Source: www.ibnlive.in.com

RBI recently hiked the REPO rates and I was reading some articles on WSJ.com and LiveMint.com about the same. For those who don’t know what a REPO rate is, it is the rate at which RBI lends money to banks. Now this was done to curb the inflationary pressure that the economy is facing. This inflationary pressure is largely due to the rise in food and fuel prices. Now I fail to understand that after 64 years of independence, an agrarian economy still has basic problems like irrigation and storage. Governments after governments sing the songs that how far India has grown. But if the most important problem related to the most basic need i.e. food cannot managed, we should ask them are we really growing?

I understand that rising fuel prices is another cause of concern. But if that is so, why not improve public transportation facilities and encourage people to use them (Almost all Indian cities have a really bad and insufficient public transportation system in place). Why not discourage people from buying and using private vehicles by having more duties on buying and using cars? (Of course that cannot be done with so many automobile majors looking to set up shop in India, because of two reasons one India being a big market and secondly its geographical position for exporting cars).