Category Archives: taking the piss

Where have All the Windies Cricketers Gone ….

Where have All the Flowers Gone, Long Time Passing ….

Where have All the Windies Cricketers Gone,

Caribbean Death-knell Looming ………………….

                                                                     A Ditty from One Thuppahi ….

Pete Seeger 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Have_All_the_Flowers_Gone%3F

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Seeger

The West Indies in their heyday of the early 1980s. Picture: staff photographer…. Continue reading

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Just DESSERTS for India at Cricket World Cup …. & Modi’s Curtness

Tunku Varadarajan, in The Wire, 20 November 2023  where the title reads thus: “Cricket Mata Ki Jai: Jingoism Lost in Ahmedabad on Sunday” ... while highlights in blue have been imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

 

That India lost in the final was karmic payback for the BCCI’s sins against the game, and also for the Ahmedabad crowd’s unwillingness to be sporting and civilised.

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi walking away from Pat Cummins after handing him the trophy. Photo: Screengrab from video Tunku Varadarajan

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Fantastic Predictions: WORLD CUP FORECASTS from Lankan Cricketing Fanatics

A FORECAST by Errol FERNANDO, …. A Piano Player from the Heavens, 19 November 2023

After a long tournament, we reach the final that we all predicted many weeks ago, Lorenz   –   India vs Australia   –   with the obvious prediction that India will win. Millions will back India,of course.

Let me take a different path by predicting a win for the Aussies, especially if they bat first. Head, Marsh and Maxwell are dangerous players who can take the game away from India.

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Sri Lanka’s Cricket in Decline? World Cup 2023

Sanjeewa Jayaweera, in The Island, 12 November 2023, where th title runs thus: “Is our cricket going the same way as West Indies cricket?

Until 1977, when Kerry Packer set up the World Series Cricket (WSC) tournament, Australia and England took turns to hold the mantle of being the world’s top test-playing team; during this period, the West Indies did, on occasions, challenge the order of supremacy but were never able to be consistently good. The Indians and Pakistanis were competitive when playing at home but could not defeat the Australians in Australia. All that changed in 1979 when the Australian and English Boards and the ICC made peace with Kerry Packer.

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Forgetting …. and Remembering

Michael Patrick O’Leary

I do not do much new writing these days but I do a lot of remembering. I have been reading a book about Forgetting by Gabriel Josipovici, but I have forgotten where I put it. Also have Ivan Illich’s  H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness and Lewis Hyde’s A Primer for Forgetting and A Sivanandan’s (met him in 1968) When Memory Dies and Forgetting by Scott A Small.

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Cricket Dirty Cricket

Michael Roberts, reproducing an article written in early December 2003 and presented with the same title in Roberts, Essaying Cricket. Sri Lanka and Beyond, Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publishers, 2006, pp 107-111 …. with the title inspired by Lord Superior aka Andrew Marcano’s famous calypso line in praise of the marvellous West Indian spin-twins Ramadhin and Valentine: viz, “Cricket Luv’ly Cricket” 

In stressing the antithesis to that ditty, I am directed by two awful acts of sportmanshp recently: namely, (A) Mohammed Siraj’s verbal intimidation of Charitha Asalanka with implicit support from skipper Sharma; and (B) skipper Shakib Al Hasan’s position in sticking to the technicalities so as to dismiss Angelo Matthews.

     

 

 

 

 

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Cricket Ugly Cricket! Bangladesh As Arseholes

The title is Thuppahi Coinage; while the report below is the account penned by Andrew Fidel Fernando from the World Cup heartland, 6 November 2023; … while the highlighting and pictorial illustrations are thuppahi vada

In almost certainly the most explosive press conferences of his career, Angelo Mathews called the actions of opposition captain Shakib Al Hasan and the Bangladesh team “obviously disgraceful”. He said he’d “never seen a team or player stoop so low” in his 15 years of playing international cricket. It was “unfortunate” his helmet strap broke in a match against Bangladesh because he doesn’t think “any other team would do that”, he added.

 

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The Unity in A Contradiction Over Time: Top Dog Bullying in Cricket

Michael Roberts in Email Chat with Errol Fernando, 3 November 2023: Indian Cricketers Today Emulate the Aussies of Yesterday”

Mike Roberts:  responding to a cricketing point made by Errol Fernando, on 3 November 2023, re some unplayable balls produced by the Indian pacemen in the World Cup Match at Mumbai on 2nd November 2023

“I agree with you about some of the UNPLAYABLE BALLS, Errol; BUT MY FOCUS HOWEVER IS GOING TO BE on

* Mohmmed Siraj’s threatening verbals.

The failures HERE of captain Sharma …. the umpires …and the commentators.

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Severe Food Insecurity on the Horizon for Sri Lanka because of MONLAR’s Programme

Chandre Dharmawardena,  in The Island, 25 October 2023,  …. with this title Monlar, a force for food insecurity, now blames 70-years of government! 

Image courtesy CGIAR Research Programme on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE

According to newspaper reports (Island 16th October [1]),  the NGO carrying the acronym MONLAR has presented the accusation thatthe agricultural policies of successive governments have rendered millions of Lankans insecure”. It claims that “As of today, 5.3 million people in Sri Lanka are food insecure. This proves that what the government has been doing for more than 70 years to this date to feed its people has failed”.

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Arundhati Roy draws the Indian Government’s Ire

AFP News Item in The GUARDIAN, 11 October 2023

The Booker prize-winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy could be prosecuted for a 2010 speech about Kashmir after a top official signed off on the move, according to reports in India.

Roy, 61, is one of India’s most famous living authors but her writing and activism, including her criticism of the prime minister Narendra Modi’s government, have made her a polarising figure in the country.

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