da heads bet： Football, tennis, baseball on screen, and some cricket – there’s a welter of games on offer in England in the summer

da dobrowin： Nagraj Gollapudi17-Jun-2009May 27
Warming up has never done any harm. Off to London a week before the main event. Players like to talk about acclimatising in foreign environs. Press people can do it too.Reach the airport about two hours before the flight, brooding about events at the Stadio Olimpico, the venue for the 2009 Champions League final between Manchester United and Barcelona. Didn’t expect TVs at Mumbai airport to telecast the game. Minutes later, am proved wrong. As luck would have it, even get to watch that slippery Cameroon cat Samuel Eto’o sneak through porous Manchester United and open the account with a neat finish. Cristiano Ronaldo stares glumly, chewing gum. Sometimes you are in the right place, at the right time. It just takes effort. And, of course, luck. Isn’t that what sport is all about – making luck?May 28
Newspapers on the tube scream “Barcelona 2-0”. (I missed Lionel Messi’s stunning header).Something doesn’t seem right: after a tube ride lasting a football game, which needs me to change lines three times (there are more train lines here than fingers on both hands) I’m yet to see a sign, placard, poster, advertisement, something, anything, that will tell me that the world’s best cricketers will be here to play in the World Twenty20. The ICC turns 100 in less than a month’s time, but it is truly behind the times when it comes to marketing such a high-profile event.May 29
“Vegetarian – Indian word for ‘lousy hunter’ ” reads a black t-shirt worn by a big, burly, Englishman. I can’t help but agree and smile. Wait for my London office colleagues to pick me up. Turns out one of them is meeting Fidel Edwards. I go along, and once there I ask Fidel to do his John Cena celebration. He obliges without much fuss.May 30
One of the advantages of attending team training sessions is being able to watch and listen to the players have a nice time. The Indian squad, which arrived the previous evening, is still in IPL mode. Dhoni and Co. stream around, taking catches hit by their fielding coach, Robin Singh. Robin hits one past the ring and Ishant Sharma takes off in chase. RP Singh, part of the victorious Deccan Chargers, says to him, “Your fate is bad even here, just like your team’s [Kolkata Knight Riders].” When RP’s Hyderabad team-mate Rohit Sharma scampers to take a high catch, Dhoni chants the Deccan theme song, “Go, Chargers, go, Chargers, go.”Murali Kartik, Ishant’s Kolkata team-mate, who plays for Middlesex, pays the team a visit. Yuvraj Singh, on a high after his two hat-tricks in the IPL, playfully instructs Kartik on how to bowl perfect left-arm spin, and more importantly, how to take a hat-trick.May 31
A day filled with the captains’ press conferences (11 in all). The best moment comes courtesy the cool dude from Jamaica, Chris Gayle. At the end of the press briefing the captains are supposed to pose with the trophy for pictures. As Gayle poses, he says: “Controversy! West Indies beat India.”June 1
On the sidelines of India’s first game, a warm-up against New Zealand which they lose, Lalit Modi blows his trumpet once again. This one to announce a charity game at Lord’s on July 6 between inaugural IPL champions Rajasthan Royals and England’s domestic Twenty20 Cup winners Middlesex. The game is also being marketed as Shane Warne’s final appearance at Lord’s. Former England and Middlesex spinner John Emburey, too, is around, looking dejected after the virtual fall of the ICL, for whom he was a coach. He says he is looking for a job, but before that he plans to go on a sailing trip. Nice.Now you see him, now you don’t: Fidel Edwards does his John Cena impression•Nagraj Gollapudi/ESPNcricinfo LtdJune 2
Travel to Southgate, one of the training grounds for Middlesex, to watch a Pakistan training session. An old English couple are enjoying the sight of Shahid Afridi and gang hit the ball into the car park. The rest of the car owners rush up to check if their bonnets have dents. The husband, who could easily pass for an older, bigger version of Laurel from Laurel and Hardy, reminisces about a certain Glenn McGrath, who “never could do much on his own without the support of Shane Warne”. The Ashes are coming.June 3
Pakistan are handed a nine-wicket defeat by Dhoni’s men. Younis Khan had this to say on the eve of the game “Will it make a difference if we win or they lose?”June 4
Andrew Symonds is back in the news. He is apparently being sent back by Cricket Australia for breaching his customised code of conduct. All plans for the day go for a toss as I set off on a wild goose chase to Heathrow. The most significant piece of information after a six-hour wait comes from a tabloid photographer, who tells a couple of the other media men that this is the second time in the week he has got the airport beat; the first one was snapping Dannii Minogue. June 5
Say hello to Dirk Nannes, who is on his way to Lord’s for the tournament opener. Three hours later he will be seen dancing around with his Dutch mates after pulling the rug out from under England’s feet at the home of cricket.June 6
The view from the press box for the print media at The Oval, located in the Jack Hobbs Stand, is diagonal with respect to the main pitch. So you don’t get a clear picture of the live action and rely on the TV, or go upstairs into the stands, where the views are much better and one is also kept alive by the buzz of the crowds. Scyld Berry, the ‘s cricket writer and current editor of the , informs that Edgbaston has the best press box in England.June 7
Once upon a time, before Facebook and Twitter, in the days when the mind was free, June 7 was marked in the memory as Anna Kournikova’s birthday. She may have had the ability to unleash lethal groundstrokes, but she became more famous as the world’s favourite pin-up. To this day she has the sort of fan following people like Gordon Brown would die for. Anyway, it was Roger Federer I missed seeing as he scripted his 14th Grand Slam while I watched Pakistan lose their way against England. I still have some time left in England. Who knows, I may just run into the genteel Swiss somewhere round the corner.June 8
No games in London, my base, so I go to see this lovely film called , the story of an aspiring baseball star from the Dominican Republic who travels to the USA, where his family wants him to be, though it isn’t what he himself really wants. Life is sometimes about following what one’s heart says. At least that’s what I got out of the movie. Check it out.Tendulkar has a DNA sample taken•Nagraj Gollapudi/ESPNcricinfo LtdJune 9
Am brought face to face with Lord’s notorious etiquette book. Andrew Hall, the former South Africa cricketer, who played in the ICL and will be playing for Worcestershire, is hanging around below the dressing room, waiting for his former mates to board the bus. The stewards politely ask him, and the rest of us, to vacate the area for safety reasons. Hall puts his head down and walks away without a word.June 11
Turn up at a gig where Sachin Tendulkar is promoting a forthcoming book on himself that will weigh more than an airline’s permitted baggage limit (30kg) and will cost a price (3000 pounds) that you could buy a Nano, the world’s cheapest car, with and still have some left over. The book, a collector’s item, has a first to its credit: it will have Tendulkar’s DNA profile mapped and then reproduced in a diagram. Tendulkar recently unveiled a waxwork of him on display in Madame Tussauds, and now this – a perfect immortal.June 12
One image that will always stay from Gideon Haigh’s – his magnificent account of how Kerry Packer changed the face of cricket in the 1970s – is of Ian Chappell’s first meeting with Packer. Chappell arrives in jeans and a country-and-western singer’s shirt. Packer’s first words: “What are you, a f***ing cowboy? Well, who do you want in this team of yours?” Chappell reminds Packer he is no longer captain of Australia. “What do you think this is, son, a f***ing democracy? You’re the f***ing captain.” To this day Chappelli, as Chappell is popularly known, remains a master storyteller himself. I overhear him telling Colin Craft, the menacing former West Indies fast bowler, about who Keith Miller thought was the best batsman in the world. Don Bradman, of course.June 13
A not-so-amused Daniel Vettori, after his team’s defeat to Pakistan at The Oval, wonders how Umar Gul, the match-winner, who lit up the evening with record bowling figures, could get reverse swing as early as the 12th over. He repeats the statement thrice. It is impossible to ignore. Surely, this is not the end of the matter.June 15
Tours are mini adventures. There are bound to be occasional clutch-your-head moments. Mine arrived today. Distracted as I speak to the New Zealand media manager on the mobile phone about Vettori approaching the match officials after the Pakistan game, I get off a train on my way to the game. Little do I realise I’ve left my bag on the train. The rest of the afternoon is spent in futile attempts at getting it back. I’m holding Vettori responsible.