You know, I don’t understand politics at all. Politicians do things that don’t make sense from any angle. Take the recent Deve Gowda adventure, for example.
Here’s my understanding of the political situation in Karnataka:
1) Deve Gowda’s son wants to be CM, so he makes a deal with the BJP.
2) He says I’ll be CM for 20 months, then BJP can put their CM for 20 months.
3) BJP falls for it, Kumaraswamy becomes CM
4) 20 months later, Kumaraswamy asks the BJP to go jump in a well.
What a beautiful political maneuver! Who would have seen it coming? I mean – A politician makes a promise and doesn’t keep up to it? Who would have thought? How cunning of Deve Gowda! Deve Gowda is my favoritest politician. I mean, he’s got style.
This kind of behavior of the politicians reminds me of a similar incident when I was little. Back when I was in 3rd-4th standard, we used to play cricket on the street in front of our house. We used to play with cheap tennis balls and pieces of wood that passed off as bats. Then one day, this kid got a real cricket bat. He became an instant celebrity! At last, we could finally play cricket like real grown-ups.
We started playing. The kid with the bat got to be captain. His team decided to bat first, and since he was the captain, he got to go and play first too. The match started.
First ball. The kid with the bat decided to go for a six, but got bowled! As the bowling team celebrated, the kid decided he was in fact, not out.
Bowler: “What? You were clean bowled”
Kid with the bat: “I was not ready”
Fielders: “Of course you were ready, you took your stance”
Kid with the bat: “Fine! I’m going home, and I’m taking my bat with me”
There was a stunned silence. Everyone wanted to play with the new bat, but this kid was threatening to take it away from us. And so, reluctantly, he was declared not out, and the game continued. As we proceeded with the game that day, the kid with the bat made up several arbitrary rules to suit him.
- Full toss into the house next door was out, but it was a four if it bounced and went into the house.
- one-hand-pitch-catch was allowed. That is, it was out if the fielder caught the ball with one hand after one bounce.
- Tree-catches were allowed.
- “Current Out” was allowed for run-outs. That is, the wicket-keeper only needed to keep his foot on the “wicket” (i.e., stone) and catch the ball. That would be counted as a direct-hit to the wicket.
This cricket game between the 9-year olds pretty much sums up politics. Someone in power has something everyone else wants, so he gets to make up the rules of the game. Everyone else has to be nice to him if they want to play the game. Else, you can just go home.
just a similar analogy
After the batting team is done with batting it says lets go home.
its like
We said we will hand over the power so ?
You always seem to evoke some kind of childhood memory, in this case ‘current out’ and ‘one hand pitch catch’….all the cricket experts put together won’t be able to tell what the hell that means…..and I thought we were the only ones who came up with the new ‘revolutionary rules’…..turns out theyre universal :-p
You had these “innovative” rules too? What are the chances of that?
Hey PK,
you should probably rename the title as “Twenty20 tournament”
What say?
PK, we had those rules too. I think “current” run out was the post popular..
I guess these are some unwritten rules of gully cricket (atleast in India).
A few other “specialities” of our street cricket are:
- Having a “joker” in case of odd number of people. (who ever plays bad gets to be the joker)
- Have 3 stones for 3 imaginary wickets. The bowler, keeper and the batsman decide whether the ball hit the imaginary wickets. This always led to fights.
- 1-dic, 2-dic, and 3-dic if the ball hits the compound of nearby house, far house or goes to the end of the road respectively.
you really reminded me of those daz when we too had all these cricket rules. We used to always wonder if ICC could have these rules for international cricket
.. what would be the game then…??? still wondering 
Wow. I had no idea that these rules were so universal. We should appeal to the ICC to get them included in the T20.
one-hand-pitch-catch is my favorite
I follow ur Blog Aditya whenever I can.
This is the first time I comment.
Some of the rules you said are popular everywhere. I have played with the Current Out but called it Connect out
We also had chances 3 or 5 or 7 chances.If u miss hitting the ball with the bat ,it is counted as a chance. We had consecutive and non-consecutive chances
how abt getting out when for “single pitch double hand catch, and double pitch single hand catch’????? this was coz cricket was a batsman’s game, and we had to support the bowlers to some extent too!!
@Vinay: they were 1 dec, 2 dec and 3 dec… dec = short for declared!! lol!!!!
You know, for the longest time, I didn’t know that 1-dic 2-dic etc… stood for “declared”. I thought something else.
He He, Nice pic of Deve Gowda, which came first? deve gowda-ism or aditya-ism?
Which came first? Hmmm….This is like the Chicken and Egg?
I think the Chicken came first. No?