The beautiful game is here...

Hello people,

Well, the wait is almost over and the the ‘real’ World Cup is here. 32 nations will compete for the Jules Rimet trophy, better known as the foot ball world cup! I had written earlier that my cable operator was in a deep slumber. Guess what! He is awake and has I guess paid a stop gap measure fee to avail the services from ESPN-STAR!

I am happy and so will be a lot of others for to be able to watch the stars battle it out. That is a bit of a positive I am desperately looking for, in this dull and persistent monsoon rain. The rains this time are on time and are qualitatively normal. That’s good for the farmers around. But I am sure they will find some other reason for their laziness and then ask for the compensation for poor yield. I am talking like a frustrated economist!

Let me come back to cricket now. The tri-series I guess is still not finished and there is a small matter of a final between Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. Even though I have lost interest, whatever little I had, after India lost out, the Zimbabweans are really excited, apparently! They are into a multi-nation tournament final after 7 years and some of them are demanding a half day holiday from work as they got when Brazil played Zimbabwe recently.

There was also Bangladesh playing in England and the matter was by how much. The victory margin for England that is. Tamim Iqbal shone and Shakib had some good moments in yet another disappointment for the Bangladeshis. ICC, in my opinion should really be reconsidering the decision to continue with Bangladesh in tests, at least in the mainstream. They should somehow get the 2-tier structure in place so that some of the lesser nations can be accommodated as well. Instead they are simply trying to mock football and convert cricket to football which is insane and could be disastrous.

Back to the beautiful game to end. My pick is, as always, Brazil!  Dark horses are Argentina and Holland. Spain is also strong and are expected to be in the final.

Rain Rain go away… come again another day!

Later and Thanks!