Aussie ki Tehsi: Prefeed

Folks,

I have embarked on a trip of a lifetime - Watching Boxing day test match between India and Australia at the MCC. This will also roughly be the time that my entire generation of cricketers (Sachin Tendulkar/ Rahul Dravid/ Saurav Ganguly/ VVS Laxman/Anil Kumble) will make way for the next. I have grown up and loved to watch cricket with these players; sometimes, they have messmerized me with their exquisite display of skills, at other times, they have left me disgusted with utterly impossibly infant-like disregard for winning. Heck, they are no different from anybody out there who has seen similar mix of jubiliant successes and miserable failures. And I still love them.

I arrived in Singapore last evening from KL, Malaysia. I covered 401 KMs in exactly 3:47 hours, door to door which includes immigration and a ten minute stopover for refuelling. I touched a top speed of 240 km/hour; all thanks to a wonderful 2.0L 200hp Volkswagen Golf GTI (the one that was featured in Bourne Ultimatum - after I bought it, by the way) and awesome music (I spent the previous weekend burning CDs with the best music that I could think of). With the stage set for the upcoming trip, I am restless like the teenage guy the night before his first date.

And what a series it promises to be. The five cricketers, I mentioned before are almost sure never to visit down-under as players in future. Down-under is also the last frontier for most cricket playing nations. India is also the only team to have come closest to winning the series here the last time, in 2002-03 which ended in a draw. The team has the same unforgetting foursome of Dravid/Laxman/Ganguly/Tendulkar combined with the young and aggressive Yuvraj/Dhoni. The current bowling attack is better than the last one but relatively speaking Aussie bowling attack is nowhere close to what it was back then, what with Warne/Mcgrath out of picture. Not taking anything away from Australia who kicked the heck out of us just recently and at home; if it can ever happen, Indians stand the best chance now.

I will be flying out to Melbourne alongwith three other guys from the same generation, Sharad J. Lal/Nitin Gajaria/Kartik Bangalore (And I thought only blacks had fancy names, no racism intended) and we will be hosted by none other than Eshan Ponnadurai (I am looking forward to the barbeque on the boxing day eve at his home). This will be followed by new year's celebration at Sydney and of course the second test at sydney. Savvy?

Over the course of next fortnight or so, you can expect daily updates on the test-series on this blog from the eyes of an average cricket fan posted right from the stadium stand. I will try to be biased but my respect for good cricket might come in the way. You can be the judge.

PS - For non-curry folks, Aussie ki tehsi loosely translates as "To hell with the Aussies"