Everyone is born an off spin bowler
(Left-arm Jadejas are off spinners too)
That flailing baby, trapped in its stroller,
Has flighted one that’s spun and beaten you.|
Leg breaks come later, a learnt perversion,
Seam bowlers trade in their birthright for speed,
Selectors reward this coarse conversion:
Slow maestros starve as brisk journeymen feed.
Why, in England, do we Mankad Ashwin?
Can’t cricket allow a spinner to scheme?
Must a genius with more tunes than Gershwin,
Be subbed out in favour of one-note seam?
By Sunny G, why play a bloody Test,
If you’re too spooked to even field your best?
Reading
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1
Centre changes election conduct rules days after HC tells EC to provide poll documents to petitioner
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2
Shirish Patel: The urban planner who looked beyond the vanity of Mumbai’s privileged
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3
2024 Jawad Memorial Prize for Urdu-English Translation: Read the winning poems
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4
1971 surrender photo removed from Army chief’s office, replaced by Mahabharata-inspired painting
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5
Backstory 2024: When I trekked two hours in Himachal for an interview
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6
Why has the number of Hajj pilgrims from Jammu and Kashmir fallen sharply?
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7
Interview: East India Company to Big Tech – how corporations think about knowledge
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8
What a meeting with a woman entrepreneur in Kolkata taught a German diplomat about women in India
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9
Expelled for non-vegetarian tiffin: Why a mother went to court against her son’s school
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10
Hindi poetry: An excerpt from 2024 Sahitya Akademi winner Gagan Gill’s ‘Main Jab Tak Aayi Bahar’