December 2011
1 post
Relfections on Umar Akmal
One mild winter evening in Lahore, on a dirt walk-way in front of a two-story shopping plaza, as fluorescent tube lights muscled the dying sun, and traffic settled into rhythmic monotones, a stick of sugar cane found itself being gnawed on by Umar Akmal. Slackening his jaw, tilting his head, Umar hitched the blunt end of the stick on his lower canines. Then, the incisors descended—like the drum...
October 2009
3 posts
OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE
Really guys? Did you really have to piss him off again? was it really necessary? DOES A SENATOR IN THE NATIONAL FUCKING ASSEMBLY HAVE NOTHING FUCKING BETTER TO DO?!? IS HE A FOUR-YEAR-OLD CHILD?!!!???!
Though admittedly the same could be asked of Younis. I mean, c’mon man, suck it up. I’d call you a flake but I’m afraid you’ll go crying to your mommy.
RIGHT when...
Someone, somewhere, grows a pair.
This is good shit.
Someone has finally piped up about the proposed post-2012 FTC. And for my money, it’s a pretty relevant someone: FICA, the world players’ “lobbying” group.
The new FTP is anything but new—it’s the old one tweaked so that everyone but the ECB, BCCI, CA and CSA play less cricket. If the FTP is continually drawn up like this, Sri Lanka, West...
September 2009
3 posts
“I don’t smoke cigarettes that I can go and smoke away some tension....”
– Younis Khan
Cricket Sucks. It Should Die.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we’re back!!!!
Well we actually never really left. See there was this time warp thing that brought us to this point in time right after we wrote our last post. So though it may seem to you that months have passed, for us it’s been just a few fleeting moments.
But the disadvantage of time travel is that a) you age much quicker and b) you miss out...
July 2009
31 posts
The Shoaib Malik Conundrum
We’ve tried to like Malik, we’ve tried to highlight his strengths. But there’s no real way to get around his major shortcoming: the guy sucks.
Let’s take Malik the Test batsman. The man averages about 38 runs per innings. Now about a decade ago, that would be borderline decent. These days, with flat pitches and bigger bats every where you turn, it puts him in the esteemed...
Is anyone still watching?
In retrospect, game 2 of the series was exciting cricket. It fluctuated wildly, there were comebacks, mini-battles, debutants, seaming new-balls, swinging old balls. We say ‘in retrospect,’ however, because watching Pakistan’s second innings collapse real-time was about as fun as having Alex Rodriguez use your head for hitting practice. A few recommendations for the team ahead of...
So That was Fun.
The Ashes is well and truly under way. Here’s our take on England. (Oh, the Aussies, aside from Hussey (C) and Mitch (C+), all got A’s.)
England Report Card:
Strauss: Outbatted by Panesar, outcaptained by Ponting. I know you luv to pop up that collah, dawg, but you bettah be worth that shite. C
Cook: Outbatted by Anderson. Missed a straight full one from Mitch in the second...
Embrace the Rainbow
There is a rare, exclusive pleasure in being a Pakistan cricket fan. It is a pleasure few can share, and almost none can experience so often. It is a sharp, distinct, almost teary-eyed pleasure one can imagine would only be comparable to a man being raped, waking up from shock the next day, walking over to the home of his assaulter, finding them in their sleep, placing their balls on splintering...
c Prior b Flintoff / it's gonna be a long summer →
Blimey. Peter English wrote an entire article on the one wicket to fall on Day 2 in Cardiff. It chronicles how Freddie Flintoff called upon every ounce of his experience, intelligence, pace and control to knock over young upstart Phil Hughes…
Good job Freddy; oh by the way, have you met my friends Ricky and Simon? Oh you have? Great.
Notes on The Ashes
Dear Reader,
One-half of SouLBW is awake in the mountains to the sounds of the Ashes. Good stuff yesterday, not so much today. And as I write, the Aussies stand at 220 for 1 with the Krab looking even crabbier, and Captain-sahib well on his way to a mandatory Ashes century. Here are our thoughts (in no particular order):
So a solid start by England yesterday, with the whole appearing greater...
Belated Birthday wishes to Dada+Dhoni. Oh, and... →
Austrlians construct, get this, an entire STATUE... →
Makes everyone in Madame Tussauds look like a salami-biting queer.
Indians Living Vicariously Through Pakistanis →
It seems that no one gets more euphoric and more frustrated by Pakistani cricket than India’s best cricket writer, Dileep Premachandaran. His last few post betray more excitement an more disappointment about Pakistan’s cricketing fortunes than most Pakistanis I know. Then again, maybe Dileep’s a recent convert—we’re used to it.
“Ok, I go to the red carpet in Tokyo and thousands of girls scream at me…...”
– Daniel Radcliffe
Aren’t Japanese into that kinda shit?
good ol' fashioned
Well it might not be such a terrible thing that Pakistan lost—they were getting well ahead of themselves in this game. A win might have papered over some of the serious problems in the team:
1. Salman Butt is Pakistan’s best opener, and he’s god awful. On the Test opener’s checklist of must-haves—straight-bat in defense, shots around the wagon-wheel,...
107-8, 61 required required to win
anyone still watching? Cause we are :)
a few thoughts
Well we’re seated now on our bed after a day of sweaty errands and household chores, about 15 minutes before the start of play on day four of the first Test match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. We must’ve dozed off halfway through the second session on day three, immediately after the euphoria of watching a toothy teenager from tehseel Gujjar Khan knife through the rock of Sri...
Bhajji Made Me An Alcoholic: Symonds →
Didn’t even have to make that one up.
Screw New York, Cricket Hits the West Coast →
“And in Sunnyvale, 70 gleeful Pakistani-Americans celebrated a recent championship victory by team Pakistan with a pizza and biryani picnic at Baylands Park organized by the Pakistani-American Culture Center.
The cricket-crazed residents — Indians and Pakistanis have a long-standing rivalry that has crossed the ocean — underscored how traditions from Asia are being knitted into the...
Excerpt from a speech given by SouLBW at Villa La...
“What I most surely know in the long run about morality and the obligations of men, I owe to sport.” Albert Camus.
“I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth.” Harold Pinter.
Tonight in Firenze
For the citizens of the terror-troubled land of Pakistan, tonight is a time to laugh and a time to heal. For on the 21st of June 2009, their cricket team lifted the...
YES!!!! Another 7 match India Australia ODI... →
Sikkimese Kids Make Strong Case for Session from... →
SouLBW’s Indian half has much explaining to do.
T20 redeemed
In 2007 we pondered: how could an ill-advised swipe to short-fine leg be the difference between heroes and zeros? Silly. Even in 2009— how could a team so lacking in direction and will, so completely pathetic, win the whole fucking thing? Not only that, but beat teams of such organized professionalism (South Africa) and such scintillating talent (Sri Lanka) to do it? Silly. So when we...
The Gospel of Shahid
“But a fortnight had passed since Holy Battle ensued on the fields of London and Nottingham. The Twelve nations of bat and ball tore bone and sinew for the pride of their nations. Verily, triumphant were they that were righteous and pure, and opponents saw the mercy of their ways. As destiny was fulfilled and the warriors, at last, had brought salvation to their people, a new age had dawned,...
June 2009
49 posts
Seventeen Seconds of The Don Here →
“Transformers 2 has a shot at the title Worst Movie of the Decade.”
– Rolling Stone
C’mon, South Africa wasn’t THAT bad (ooohhh SNAP).
(We realize this quote has nothing to do with cricket—the South Africa-is-robotic thing was the best link we could come up with. But really, Transformers sucks. I mean, don’t get us wrong, we’re all...
Team Pakistan Fundo No More →
Nadeem Farooq Paracha has been writing crappily about anything and everything in Pakistan for decades now. But occasionally, he’s on the money. Scroll about half way down this blog post (the first half is a trite “expose” of the country’s flirtation with religious orthodoxy—wow Nadeem, no one’s ever written about that before), but the bit about the Pakistani...
"I tend to think that cricket is the greatest... →
“DIL DIL PAKISTAN!
SOULBW’S INDIAN HALF SALUTES HIS PAKISTANI...”
The Jesus of Suburbia
Woken at 8am by Z—at whose suburban apartment we spent the night—we were soggy eyed and grouchy. We hadn’t brushed our teeth the night before, and we weren’t about to do so this morning.
We got to S’s at 9.15am, roused now by coffee and our tardiness. But even at S’s suburban dwelling, things were curiously mellow—we wondered why David Lloyd’s...
“I would frankly rather watch two guinea pigs wrestle in a bucket than sit...”
– British guy who has no friends.
To come up with this comparison, this guy must have actually watched two guinea pigs wrestle in a bucket. Which makes you wonder: under what circumstances, through what chain of events, under what divine Providence, would a guinea pig be placed into a bucket for...
Online Cricket Lacks Dynamic Gameplay: Area Nerds →
Australians getting their asses kicked on and off... →
BREAKING NEWS: Sexy Indian Men Like Sexy Indian... →