Pied Piper of Chennai

-

 

As a child I used to be enamored by the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I don't know how many of you know the story but let me relate to you the story in a nutshell. There was this town called Hamelin  which was infested with rats.  it became a Nightmare for the people residing in the town.  so much so they had to call for meeting of the Council and have a strategy in place to tackle the menace of the rats.  It was then that someone came and said that there is this Pied Piper who has the charm of leading the rats out of town with his music. So they called the Pied Piper and Lo and behold he managed to lure away the rats from the town.  Amazing that he could hold sway over the rats with his beautiful music.

Well this is my 100 blog, and I have decided to dedicate this blog to the pied Piper of Chennai. It has to be someone that Virat Kohli loves to referred as the lege.  Ladies and Gentlemen,  let me now relate to you why I refer to Ashwin as the Pied Piper of Chennai. If you were to take the last four months of cricket and all that transpired, you will be able to understand what I am coming to. India toured Australia in what was perceived as one of the tough tours and not many gave hope to the Indian team

Again let me not veer away from the title of the topic which is all about the Pied Piper of Chennai. Let us look at the dismissals  that Ashwin was a part of.  Be it Matthew Wade or Steve Smith, for that matter even Marnus Labuschagne, it became very evident that Ashwin held sway over them. The batsmen were clearly dancing to his tunes. Pied Piper of Chennai. Well that was the Australian tour .  soon it was to be England's tour to India.  The Pied Piper clearly had his plans in place once again.  this time the players were different but the music was as magical. He continued to hold sway. Joe Root,  Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, and Ollie Pope were all left wondering what hit them.

It only made me realize one thing. Test match is not a easy ball game, quite literally.  Ashwin loves to do his homework and planning before each match. Kind of preparation involved is quite mind boggling. He goes into a Zen like mode,  where there is none but himself looking at hundreds of videos of batsmen, looking closely at their strengths and weaknesses. The music gets built up in his brain. From thereon it is the actual match scenario where the magical tunes get played.  Now to do this time and over again successfully 400 times over, requires herculean effort.  Even a  musician plays false notes sometimes. In a professional sport like cricket a player can ill afford too many false strokes.  That is the beauty of a champion player like R Ashwin.

He gives it all for the game. Cricket for him is life.  I would like to draw another parallel over here.  I think it was one of the movies,  Karate Kid where The Monk is  taught to understand the moves of a snake. While initially The Monk moves as per the moves of the snake, slowly The Game Changes,  unknowingly  the snake starts swaying Like The Monk.  need I say more about what the pied Piper of Chennai does to the unwary batsmen, slowly and unknowing to them, trapping them in his musical charm called off spin. that is the guile  and masterstroke of our Chennai champ, Ashwin.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mango Diaries-Page Four-Times of Covid and a Tribute to Unknown Soldiers

-
Image
  Mango Diaries continues to evolve and surprise me with its sweetness and ability to charm its audience. I guess more than anything its the positive intent and inspirational real life stories that causes that bell to ring. Anyways in this edition of Mango Diaries, I seek to focus on how I managed to steer this negative mind of mind to something very positive and cheerful. It goes back to the times of Covid-1st Wave, initially the dark times accompanied by an eerie stone like silence and nothing but the shrill and occasional sound of the passing Ambulance could be heard. It was at the same time I had also lost my beloved father. Barely had i consigned my fathers mortal remains to the flames, within the next few days, I found myself in the ICU ward of a Hospital battling Covid myself. Such tough times, no one was allowed to visit me, surrounded by other patients, it was extremely depressing. It had come to an extent where I even contemplated running away from the hospital but guess ...
Read more

How to Earn Money By Blogging, Get your basics right

-
Image
On a daily basis I keep seeing a number of blogs online and have been impressed by a vast majority of them while a few leave that sour feeling . If you search on Google with the keywords " How To Blog" you will come across a huge number of links that will give you access to a plenty of literature on how you could blog and how you can actually make a fortune by blogging. My take on blogging is that it is a very simple art from with no rocket science behind it. It is so simple that even a novice can take to it without any training . However there are a few prerequisites for blogging. You would need a good command over the language that you are blogging in. Here I am not talking about rich vocabulary but simple sentences without any grammatical/spelling errors. No Flowery language is required, rather easy to understand and comprehend language will do. You would need lots of patience to get to the top. Blogging is not a reach the summit types with your first blog. It i...
Read more

An Ode to The City of Joy and My Dear Departed Father 1.0

-
Image
  As I try to revive my  tryst with blogging, I ponder over what could be the best way to pen a few words. While blogging might be out of vogue, and out of fashion, I realize that my love for words will continue unabated. I commit to writing more, and loving each bit of it, the best way of doing a Sri Ganesh is to write an ode to the City of Joy and my dear departed father, both inseparable parts of me. In fact my late father Shri K. Subramanian was a true Bengali, even his last days his eyes would light up and shine bright at the mention of Kolkata or a Bengal Sweet Delicacy. When he was into his last few days, and it became increasingly difficult for us to make him have his food, my wife Hema asked him if he would like to have Mishti Doi, immediately the hundred watts bulb in the pupil of his eyes lit up and he repeated "Mishti Doi, Mishti Doi". I would want to admit a hard truth here. In the early days of his passing away, I was downcast, depressed, buckets into tears, my ...
Read more