The Ass found it hard to keep awake while clocking an average of 12 hours a day watching the aptly-named Asses Series on Sports Ten recently. Cricket is a game that you can watch in your sleep. But as the live coverage of the series progressed, the donkey’s uncolonised mind couldn’t make head or tail of the game. Hope is at hand, however, since some of the intricacies of the game have rubbed off even on the Ass and made me somewhat of a pro, if I may say so myself. Now, finally, I can explain the game to our valued customers.
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Cricket just looks complicated, actually it is a very simple game. All you need to do is throw a ball at about 550 mph at a guy holding a bat and try to knock off both his tentacles from a distance of 50 ft. But, like in all sports, there are some simple precautions that need to be taken so no one gets hurt, therefore all cricketers who value their crown jewels wear body armour to prevent themselves from being inadvertently castrated by a Mach 3 beamer.
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Ever since cricket was invented by Genghis Khan, people have tried to make the game a little more exciting. Once, an entire stadium was knocked unconscious by an exceptionally boring Australia vs England match, so in India they came up with the idea of the IPL T20 to add a little more zing to the game. They even brought in Uzbek cheerleaders wearing just knickers. But the game is still slow and dull, so the Ass feels it is its duty to come up with some tips on how to inject some excitement into cricket:
** Redefine ‘Break leg’ to actually mean breaking legs of batters and fielders and (sometimes) umpires.
** Live tv cameras so far zoom in only on wives, mistresses and GFs of players in the spectator stand. Allow them into the batting lineup to liven up the game.
** So no one has unfair advantage, outlaw leg pads, helmets, groin guards and the Pepsimobile.
** Get the Chinese hooked to cricket so we can have real Chinamen.
** Replace leather balls with steel ones with titanium coating and booster rockets.
** Aside from four and six, add eight runs to boundary scores if ball passes over the stands to the stadium parking lot without bouncing
** Replace grass on pitch with slippery wet surface so players can make spectacular slides at silly point
** Allow unisex teams
** Rain or hailstorms never stop play
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Asia is divided into two types of countries: those that play cricket and those that eat them. The Line of Control between these two eco-biological domains passes along 118 degrees East meridian in the vicinity of the Andaman Sea. There is also a third type of country in Asia, which is the one that likes to play with crickets by tying pieces of string on their hind legs, and gambling on cricket races. But in general, it would be safe to say that west of the Abdomen Sea, cricket is a sport, and to the east, it is a meal. Many people think cricket is the most boring sport on earth. They’re wrong. It is the most boring sport in the known universe.
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We in Nepal have to thank our lucky stars our country was never colonised by leg breakers, and therefore did not inherit a sport with a scoreboard that looks like the results of a general election. In fact, it is matter of national pride and a symbol of our national sovereignty and territorial integrity that that we do not play cricket, and we must doubly redouble our efforts to uphold this glorious tradition so that we can continue to claim that we were never under a colonial-imperialist yoke. We will fight tooth-and-nail to foil the grand design of the foreign hand that tries to force us to play cricket.
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But we have, over the years, paid a heavy price for our independence. We will never, for instance, know the pleasures of hanging out with the Third Empire in our jodhpurs on the gymkhana veranda, sipping ginger beer to applaud the home side juggernaut, and running in our cummerbunds to our dak bungalows when rain stops play so that we can dip our biscuits in the tea. Fair Play and a Level Playing Field are the hallmarks of cricket, which is why the game is so alien to our value system. We will allow cricket on one condition: if match-fixing is legalised.