the pakistan team is a choot

My last post about the Pakistan team was about how awesome they were. And here I am writing another incendiary choot post with them as the subject. I'm not schizophrenic, and it's not that my opinion has changed. It's just that the team navigates so effortlessly between being "the shit" and being "just shit" that you can't really blame a person who tries to evaluate their performance on a day by day basis.

So anyway. They sucked yesterday. They were so completely lackluster and undominating that it was depressing to watch. Pakistan is the most nondescript team in this tournament. Apart from a vague reference to Mohammad Yousuf, it'd be hard to identify any one particular strength of this team with any degree of certainty.

Everyone has their own view on what went wrong. They may all have different opinions, but they're all correct, because the fact of the matter is that everything went wrong. Rana continues to suck balls, Imran Nazir is a jackass, and the "senior" batsmen played like idiots. Omar has summed it all up pretty well, so no need for my redundant analysis. I will add only that Azhar Mahmood would be an infinitely better choice than Rana. In fact, I was going to write a "Rana is a choot" post, but that would be unfair. Everybody sucked.

Umar Gul was the only one who actually put in a solid performance. The next game should be called Umar Gul vs. Ireland. It's not like anybody else matters.

Of course there is a chance that they will now play brilliantly and make me eat my words. Let's just say I've never wanted so badly to be proved wrong...

a tale of two pities

As the World Cup draws near, we are being hit every day with news of another player that must miss out for such and such reason. Each of these incidents is a shame, because the whole point of the tournament is to bring together the best talent in the world. But few are as interesting as the two most recent tragedies.

First, it's official. Shoaib and Asif are out, due to "injury." I put the word in quotation marks because I, like many, don't believe they are really injured. The conspiracy theory, for anyone who hasn't heard it yet, basically says that they are waiting till the nandrolone is completely flushed out of their bodies before they test. That way they might miss the World Cup, but won't have to deal with the prospect of a life ban.

Meanwhile, around 8000 miles away, New Zealand's Jacob Oram is grappling with a personal dilemma of his own. Having fractured his ring finger, Oram has been told by doctors that he will have to sit out the World Cup. But with himself and the rest of his team in tremendous form, Oram is so desperate to play that he is considering amputating the finger in question.

So here's a pair of players that are feigning injury to avoid having to take a urine sample for the duration of the World Cup. And there's another who is willing to injure himself just for the chance to play.

Here's a couple of men who have tried to patch up numerous problems by piling complication upon complication. And there's a man who knows how to cut to the chase. Literally.

Surely there's some middle ground somewhere.

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cross-posted at cricket.bloggers.pk

oranges and lemons

A common motivational statement goes something like this: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Turns out, you could also make the Taj Mahal. Or that big Jesus statue that sits on the cliff above Rio de Janeiro.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the Fête du Citron, an annual festival on the French Riviera in which people get together and make gigantic sculptures out of oranges and lemons. It's all pretty fantastic.

It also gives me a chance to post about something that makes me happy, to silence all you "billu.net is too angry" folks. You know who you are.





It also makes me think of a recent post by 4e44. How the heck do you find out that you have the uncanny ability to make sculptures out of citrus fruit? Is it discovered by your parents when you're young? "That billu, he's good with his hands, he's going to grow up to be a famous orange sculptor."

I wish. All my poor parents could say was: "That billu, all he'll ever be good for is writing a blog detailing how everything in life pisses him off."

Well, billu.net may fall short of the proverbial lemonade, but it's the best I can do with my lemons.