HKJ loses ( and finds) his keys.

Happened a couple of weeks back.

It was a lazy saturday. I was alone at home, and was getting bored. Went and met my sis, came back, and slept from 3 pm to 6 pm. Got up, and sleepily sent an sms to HKJ asking him what he was doing that evening. Chap was free, and came over to my house. HKJ wanted to test drive my car, so we went out for a drive. Called up SM and TP. Both of them were free, and the four of us decided to meet for dinner. Dropped into HKJ’s house, got his helmet, came to my house, got my helmet and bike, and went to the restaurant.

Dinner was fun. Swapping stories and catching up with the latest news. After dinner, we (me and HKJ) returned to my house. HKJ collected his bike, and returned home. Time : 10.35 pm.

I watched tv for about 10 mins, and got a call from HKJ at 10.45. The dialogue went like this.

Me : Hey, whats up ? Why did you call at this time ?

HKJ : Well.. a lil bit of trouble. I cannot find my house keys.

Me : (Perplexed) What ? You dont have them ?

HKJ : You moron. If I had them, will I say I dont have them ? Check in front of your house, and see if you can find the key.

Me : What does it look like ?

HKJ: It looks like…. a key.. you know.. Its attached to a keychain, and that has a glass pendant. You cant miss it.

Me: Wait, I will go out and look for it.

I go out, and search the front porch of the house. Chap on the phone all this time, impatiently asking for status updates.

(After about 2 mins)

HKJ : You still have not found it ? You cant find a coconut tree in Kerala if you had to. Look carefully… Look inside your car, it might be there.

Me : (After searching inside the car ) No. The key is not here.

HKJ : Where can it be ? I sure had it when I came to your house. Oh no !

Me : What happened ? Everything ok ?

HKJ : Silent

Me : You there ? Whats the problem ?

HKJ : Still silent

Me : Tell me something dude. You ok ?

HKJ : I know where the key is…… In fact, I can see it. Its on a chair…….inside my house.

(Dude has an auto-locking latch on his door. When we dropped into his house to get his helmet, this genius had forgotten his keys inside the house).

He slept in my house that night.

Next morning, HKJ’s neighbours woke up to the sight of what looked like two men attempting to burgle his house. It was just me and him trying to get the keys though a window we managed to open. After struggling for an hour, we got the keys out, and chap was able to get into his house.

Lesson learnt : Do not doubt HKJ’s ability to handle keys carefully. He just cannot.

A Tale of two drivers

Had gone to trivandrum after a gap of almost 5 months,and had to endure two rotten bus journeys (one each way).

Driver A : From BLR to TVM

This chap was either an extremely careful driver or an extremely incompetent one. He set a new record for the travel time from blr to tvm, about 17 hours. He followed all the rules religiously, and refused to overtake anything larger than a maruti 800. On the rare occasion when he (having probably realized he was about 5 hours behind schedule) tried to overtake one, he botched up the attempt so badly that he had to apply sudden brakes to avoid collision with a lorry.

Driver B : From TVM to BLR

I was waiting at a travel agent’s office for the bus from tvm to blr. The bus was scheduled to come there at 4.45 pm, but the said time came and went, and there was no sign of the bus. Then, after about 10 mins, I saw the bus approach (rather fast) from a distance, pass the travel agent’s office without stopping, and continue its journey. The chap did not even slow down. Talk about over enthusiasm ! Well, frantic phone calls resulted in the bus stopping about 4 km from the agency, and the guys at the agency dropped me off near the bus. Otherwise…..
The journey was like sitting in the passenger seat of an F1 race car. Swerves, sudden acceleration, breaking, the works. Not one dull moment till touch-down in bangalore at 8.30 am.

South Africa teach the world to chase..

What a game it was ! It simply rained boundaries in Johannesburg on Sunday, and every bowler in that game must have felt despondent at some stage. Though I dont like batathons per se, I enjoyed this one a lot, particularly because of teams involved in this one.

Since their re-admission into international cricket, SA have been a decent team throughout, and have been a very good team at times (around the ‘99 World cup). Unfortunately, they lose their head at the sight of Australians. So, when Aussies levelled the series 2-2 after the fourth ODI (this, after trailing 0-2), I half expected SA to choke and lose the game.

The best example for that would be the mother-of-all-muck-ups by Klusener and Donald in the semi-finals of WC99. When Ponting smashed the bowlers to all parts of the park and took Oz to 434, my thoughts were “Boy, haven’t they scr3w3d up again ?

If they can avoid a record loss, it would be a good effort”. And i was extremely unhappy with Telemachus who, with his no-balls in the last few overs, conceded about 30 unnecessary runs. Aussies understandably were cocahoop, and they must have already concluded the result of the game. And who would have blamed them ?

If South Africa had abandoned the chase and just settled for a honourable loss, no one would have blamed them. But did they ? Hell no. Gibbs played out of his skin, Smith settled his dues with the Aussie bowlers, and set a platform for the late assault.

Gibbs’ innings must rank as the best ODI innings ever. He simply smashed the bowlers to all corners, and considering the reqd. run rate when he started batting, this is some feat. (Ponting’s task was slightly easier considering he was setting a target, not chasing one).

And then, Boucher played a superb knock, always in control, rotating the strike intelligently, and finishing the game off with a four off Lee.

SA had broken the psychological hold Aus had over them for years, and shed off the “chokers” tag.

As a South African fan, i was in tears after the WC99 semis. This one win has erased a lot of painful memories .

There were plenty of posts in newsgroups saying semis-WC99 was the best ODI ever, and this one is not. Hogwash. People should try and imagine the pressure of

1) Chasing 400+ (no team had ever scored 400 before, and the highest successful chase till then was only 332)

2) The pressure of not mucking the chase up when they got close. Imagine the scenario if Ntini had gotten himself out, with just 2 required for a win.

IMHO, one of the best games ever, in spite of the tonnes of runs scored. And, SA get lots of brownie points. Next time Ponting will think twice (or more ) before sledging a South African.

Compare this with the muck job by India in the chase in the 2003 World cup finals. A decent plan might have taken them close to the target, but what we got instead was slogging from the first over.

The title of this post was originally “South Africa teach the world to chase leather”. . They won, and I had to rename the post . Or probably, should have made the title “Record breakers “