PBKS & KKR – Two Kinds of Lion Over One Cuppa Chai
Paaji is at the stove.
Ginger — crushed, dropped in with conviction. Cardamom — two pods, no discussion. Saffron — three strands, not four, not two.
Froth rises. He blows it down. Adjusts the flame.
“Paaji. IPL.”
“Talk,” he says. Still facing the stove.
Stove aka The Lab
I tell him about KKR. Highest auction purse — ₹64.30 crore. Cameron Green for ₹25.20 crore, the most expensive foreign player in IPL history. A coalition built to dominate.
Then, before Match 1: Harshit Rana — knee surgery, gone. Pathirana — injured, unavailable. Mustafizur Rahman — released before bowling a single ball. Andre Russell — retired. Jersey number 12, quietly hung on the wall.
What remained was Cameron Green, hunting mostly alone. Nine games later — one win, delivered not by the ₹25.20 crore man but by Rinku Singh, last ball, fine leg, six.
Paaji stirs. Says nothing.
You can’t see me. On the points table!!
“The African lion,” he says finally. “Full mane. Loud roar — travels five miles. Big pride. Big prey. Big theatre.” He glances at me. “Hunt success rate — twenty-five percent.”
The African Lion – Royalty at the hilt of glory!
He lets that land.
“Three out of four hunts. Nothing.”
“KKR built the African lion pride. Then the pride dissolved before the season. And a lion without his coalition—” he taps the pot “—cannot hunt alone.”
He pulls his phone out. Punjab Kings badge. The lion looking back at us.
“This,” he says, “is not an African lion.”
“Asiatic lion. Indian lion. Only in Gir, Gujarat. Smaller mane — you can see the ears. Softer roar. Smaller pride — two, three, tight unit. No open plain. Forest hunting. Terrain. Each other.”
He turns.
“Same animals. Same trees. Season after season. Hunt success rate — higher. Because they don’t waste energy on theatre.”
“Eighteen years Punjab Kings put this lion on their chest and hunted like the African one. Big names. Big auction. Nine different captains in ten seasons. Nine.” He shakes his head slowly. “Every year — new voice, new philosophy, same confused animals.”
Every other franchise passing by the Punjab Kings in the past.
He blows the froth down again.
“You know what the Asiatic lion never does? Changes its forest every season.”
Then Ponting came. Then Iyer. Twenty-one players retained. Same forest. Same family. Second season, same flame.
Currently unbeaten. NRR plus 1.420. Three points clear.
The Lion where it belongs. Top of the food chain called the points table!
“The Indian lion was once down to twenty animals in the whole world.” He pauses. “You know what saved them? Same forest. Same family. Year after year.”
He pours. Two cups. Hands one across without asking.
I sip.
I sip. With Swag.
The ginger hits first. Then cardamom. Then the saffron arrives underneath everything — quiet, deep, inevitable. I open my mouth to say something about it.
Paaji raises one hand.
“If it were truly that great,” he says, “you would have made the sound.”
I look at him.
He sips.
Suddupaaaaaah.
One eyebrow. Back to the cup.
Outside, a points table is being updated. Punjab Kings at the top.
The badge was never wrong.
They just spent eighteen years trying to be the wrong lion.
Finding out why Arsenal has lost all its lead to Manchester City. The hard way.
“Paaji, is it over? Just tell me. Is it over?”
Ballwinder Paaji was in the kitchen. Not metaphorically — actually in the kitchen. He was standing over a pot with the expression of a man conducting a culinary post-mortem. I looked at the pot. It did not look like what he had promised when I arrived.
Me Running towards Biryani
“You said biryani,” I said.
“I said biryani,” he confirmed.
“That is not biryani.”
“No.”
“That looks like khichdi.”
He turned to me with the precise expression of a man who needs you to understand something important.
“It is not khichdi either.”
He carried the pot to the table and set it down with the gravity of a man presenting evidence in court.
“What you are looking at,” said Ballwinder Paaji, “is tahiri.”
I looked at the tahiri. The tahiri looked back at me. It was rice, cooked with vegetables, vaguely fragrant, perfectly acceptable as a midweek meal. It was not, by any definition, the layered, dum-cooked, saffron-breathed, sealed-pot biryani that had been under discussion since morning.
“Paaji,” I said, sitting down slowly. “Are we still talking about the rice dish?”
“Manchester City two,” he said, sitting across from me. “Arsenal one.”
All my hopes up in the steam.
“Tell me about the match,” he said, serving himself a portion with the resignation of a man who has made peace with events.
“Arsenal had 41% possession, Paaji. Two shots on target. Two. City had twelve shots, five on target. The goals — City scored in the 16th minute, Arsenal levelled immediately in the 18th — two minutes, Paaji, they took two minutes to respond — and then silence. Forty-seven minutes of silence. And then City scored again in the sixty-fifth and that, as they say, was dinner.”
“Dinner,” Paaji repeated, with a look at the tahiri that suggested he found the word appropriate.
“4 offsides. 12 fouls. 4 substitutions from half-time onwards, all of them desperate. The midfield of Rice, Zubimendi and Ødegaard — combined — produced almost nothing in the final third. And it is not just yesterday. Arsenal have scored three goals in their last five games across all competitions.”
Paaji nodded slowly, prodding the tahiri.
“You know the tragedy of tahiri?” he said.
I had a feeling this was coming.
“Tahiri begins exactly as biryani begins. Same rice, same pot, same kitchen, same intention. You wash the rice. You soak it. You bloom the spices. For the first twenty minutes, if you close your eyes, you cannot tell the difference — the smell is almost identical. There is a moment — a specific, identifiable moment — when biryani and tahiri diverge. Biryani gets the meat. Biryani gets the layers. Biryani gets sealed — dum — and left alone in total faith that the process will deliver what was promised.”
He gestured at the pot in front of us.
“Tahiri does not get sealed. Tahiri gets stirred. Tahiri gets checked, and adjusted, and worried over, and substituted at half-time. And by the end, you have something that smells like biryani, looks vaguely like biryani from a distance, but is fundamentally a different dish. Nutritious. Acceptable. But not what anyone came to the table for.”
Gooners, on their way back after being served tahiri instead of biryani
“Paaji. I need to ask you specifically about Declan Rice.”
He set down his spoon.
“Of course you do.”
“Last season — Player of the Season. Those two free kicks against Real Madrid in the Champions League. The engine, the heartbeat, the dum in Arsenal’s biryani. This season — four goals, five assists across the league. A seven point six average rating — solid. Competent. But yesterday, at the Etihad, in the biggest game of the season, the man was there in body and largely absent in consequence.”
Rice – pulling up his socks last evening.
Ballwinder Paaji looked at the pot for a long time.
“Here is what you must understand,” he said finally. “In biryani, the rice is not the hero. The rice is the medium. The rice carries the saffron, holds the heat, absorbs the marinade, gives structure to everything layered above and below it. The rice does not show off. But if the rice fails — if it is overcooked, if the grains lose their individual texture and collapse into each other — the biryani collapses with it. There is no separating the two.”
“And Rice is overcooked?”
“Rice,” said Paaji carefully, “has been on a very high flame for a very long time. Two seasons of relentless Premier League football. Champions League. England duty. The weight of being the ingredient everything else depends on. And now, in April, when we need each grain to be separate and distinct and fluent — the grains are sticking. The texture is gone. What was last season the perfect medium has become, in this crucial fortnight, something slightly heavy. Slightly slow to the second ball. Slightly less than what the dish requires.”
He paused.
“That is not a criticism. Overcooked rice is not a failure of the rice. It is a failure of timing. Of knowing when to take it off the heat.”
The kind of pressure on Rice to perform.
“But Paaji — is it Rice specifically, or is it Arsenal as a whole?”
“This is the question,” he said, pointing the spoon at me with the energy he reserves for the second layer of an analogy. “And it is the question that separates biryani-thinking from tahiri-thinking. In biryani-thinking, you understand that every ingredient affects every other ingredient. Rice cannot be separated from the dum, from the meat, from the sealed pot. When Declan Rice — the midfielder — was at his peak, Arsenal’s entire structure derived energy from him. Zubimendi pressed harder. Ødegaard found space earlier. The press was coordinated, the transitions were fast, the dish was sealed and cooking correctly.”
He looked at the tahiri.
“In tahiri, because the pot is never properly sealed, each ingredient sits in its own space. The rice is rice. The vegetables are vegetables. Everything is present. Nothing is unified. Arsenal yesterday had the ingredients of biryani — Ødegaard, Rice, Eze, Havertz, Madueke — in a pot that was never sealed. They equalized in the eighteenth minute and instead of sealing the lid and trusting the process, they opened the pot every five minutes to check. And a pot that is opened every five minutes never, ever becomes biryani.”
Arteta after every 90 minutes, for the next 90 minutes
The numbers confirm the dish
City had 59% possession. Arsenal — the supposed title favourites, the team built on defensive solidity and controlled attacking transitions — had 41%. Arsenal have managed just three goals in their last five matches across all competitions, a run that has coincided with a decisive wobble at the top of the table.
The standings: Arsenal 70 points, City 67 — but City with a game in hand. City face Burnley on Thursday. The models give Guardiola’s side an 83.6% chance of winning that fixture — a team that has won four games all season. If City win, the gap is zero. Arsenal’s nine-point lead from one week ago will have become level. In seven days.
Since the final whistle at the Etihad, 67% of bets placed on the Premier League winner market have gone on Manchester City. Guardiola’s April win rate stands at 71.4% — the finest finisher in the history of this competition, peaking, again, exactly on schedule.
“So is it over, Paaji?”
He considered the tahiri. He served himself a second, smaller portion — the portion of a man who has made peace with what is in front of him.
“Arsenal have five games left. They are three points clear. Their remaining fixtures are largely against the bottom half. They face Newcastle next — sixteenth in the table. Wayne Rooney still has them as slight favourites. Danny Murphy believes it may come down to goal difference. Goal.com’s analysts think City will push all the way but ultimately fall just short. Arsenal still control their own destiny. That is not nothing.”
“But?”
“But they set out to make biryani. Three years of Arteta. Three years of almost. Three years of the pot being assembled, the ingredients being right, the kitchen smelling like something extraordinary was on its way.” He gestured at the table. “What we have is tahiri. Edible. Respectable. A dish many teams would be grateful to serve. But the people of north London did not spend twenty-two years waiting for tahiri.”
He stood up, took the pot back toward the kitchen.
“The rice,” he said, at the doorway, “needed to come off the heat two weeks ago. It did not. And now Arteta must serve whatever is in the pot, at the most important dinner of the year, to the most unforgiving guests in English football.”
He turned off the kitchen light.
“Pray the tahiri is enough.”
Arsenal fans. Five games left. Watching Burnley vs City on Thursday.
The prediction — what the sources say:
The gap is three points. City have a game in hand against Burnley, and Guardiola’s April record of 71.4% wins makes him the most dangerous man in football at this precise moment in the calendar. The title race is likely to go to the final day. The majority of expert opinion still gives Arsenal the edge — but only just, and only if the rot stops immediately. Coral still lists Arsenal as favourites to end a 22-year title drought — though the odds are shortening by the hour.
The biryani is not yet lost. But it is not biryani anymore.
Finding out why Arsenal has lost all its lead to Manchester City. The hard way.
“Paaji, is it over? Just tell me. Is it over?”
Ballwinder Paaji was in the kitchen. Not metaphorically — actually in the kitchen. He was standing over a pot with the expression of a man conducting a culinary post-mortem. I looked at the pot. It did not look like what he had promised when I arrived.
Me Running towards Biryani
“You said biryani,” I said.
“I said biryani,” he confirmed.
“That is not biryani.”
“No.”
“That looks like khichdi.”
He turned to me with the precise expression of a man who needs you to understand something important.
“It is not khichdi either.”
He carried the pot to the table and set it down with the gravity of a man presenting evidence in court.
“What you are looking at,” said Ballwinder Paaji, “is tahiri.”
I looked at the tahiri. The tahiri looked back at me. It was rice, cooked with vegetables, vaguely fragrant, perfectly acceptable as a midweek meal. It was not, by any definition, the layered, dum-cooked, saffron-breathed, sealed-pot biryani that had been under discussion since morning.
“Paaji,” I said, sitting down slowly. “Are we still talking about the rice dish?”
“Manchester City two,” he said, sitting across from me. “Arsenal one.”
All my hopes up in the steam.
“Tell me about the match,” he said, serving himself a portion with the resignation of a man who has made peace with events.
“Arsenal had 41% possession, Paaji. Two shots on target. Two. City had twelve shots, five on target. The goals — City scored in the 16th minute, Arsenal levelled immediately in the 18th — two minutes, Paaji, they took two minutes to respond — and then silence. Forty-seven minutes of silence. And then City scored again in the sixty-fifth and that, as they say, was dinner.”
“Dinner,” Paaji repeated, with a look at the tahiri that suggested he found the word appropriate.
“4 offsides. 12 fouls. 4 substitutions from half-time onwards, all of them desperate. The midfield of Rice, Zubimendi and Ødegaard — combined — produced almost nothing in the final third. And it is not just yesterday. Arsenal have scored three goals in their last five games across all competitions.”
Paaji nodded slowly, prodding the tahiri.
“You know the tragedy of tahiri?” he said.
I had a feeling this was coming.
“Tahiri begins exactly as biryani begins. Same rice, same pot, same kitchen, same intention. You wash the rice. You soak it. You bloom the spices. For the first twenty minutes, if you close your eyes, you cannot tell the difference — the smell is almost identical. There is a moment — a specific, identifiable moment — when biryani and tahiri diverge. Biryani gets the meat. Biryani gets the layers. Biryani gets sealed — dum — and left alone in total faith that the process will deliver what was promised.”
He gestured at the pot in front of us.
“Tahiri does not get sealed. Tahiri gets stirred. Tahiri gets checked, and adjusted, and worried over, and substituted at half-time. And by the end, you have something that smells like biryani, looks vaguely like biryani from a distance, but is fundamentally a different dish. Nutritious. Acceptable. But not what anyone came to the table for.”
Gooners, on their way back after being served tahiri instead of biryani
“Paaji. I need to ask you specifically about Declan Rice.”
He set down his spoon.
“Of course you do.”
“Last season — Player of the Season. Those two free kicks against Real Madrid in the Champions League. The engine, the heartbeat, the dum in Arsenal’s biryani. This season — four goals, five assists across the league. A seven point six average rating — solid. Competent. But yesterday, at the Etihad, in the biggest game of the season, the man was there in body and largely absent in consequence.”
Rice – pulling up his socks last evening.
Ballwinder Paaji looked at the pot for a long time.
“Here is what you must understand,” he said finally. “In biryani, the rice is not the hero. The rice is the medium. The rice carries the saffron, holds the heat, absorbs the marinade, gives structure to everything layered above and below it. The rice does not show off. But if the rice fails — if it is overcooked, if the grains lose their individual texture and collapse into each other — the biryani collapses with it. There is no separating the two.”
“And Rice is overcooked?”
“Rice,” said Paaji carefully, “has been on a very high flame for a very long time. Two seasons of relentless Premier League football. Champions League. England duty. The weight of being the ingredient everything else depends on. And now, in April, when we need each grain to be separate and distinct and fluent — the grains are sticking. The texture is gone. What was last season the perfect medium has become, in this crucial fortnight, something slightly heavy. Slightly slow to the second ball. Slightly less than what the dish requires.”
He paused.
“That is not a criticism. Overcooked rice is not a failure of the rice. It is a failure of timing. Of knowing when to take it off the heat.”
The kind of pressure on Rice to perform.
“But Paaji — is it Rice specifically, or is it Arsenal as a whole?”
“This is the question,” he said, pointing the spoon at me with the energy he reserves for the second layer of an analogy. “And it is the question that separates biryani-thinking from tahiri-thinking. In biryani-thinking, you understand that every ingredient affects every other ingredient. Rice cannot be separated from the dum, from the meat, from the sealed pot. When Declan Rice — the midfielder — was at his peak, Arsenal’s entire structure derived energy from him. Zubimendi pressed harder. Ødegaard found space earlier. The press was coordinated, the transitions were fast, the dish was sealed and cooking correctly.”
He looked at the tahiri.
“In tahiri, because the pot is never properly sealed, each ingredient sits in its own space. The rice is rice. The vegetables are vegetables. Everything is present. Nothing is unified. Arsenal yesterday had the ingredients of biryani — Ødegaard, Rice, Eze, Havertz, Madueke — in a pot that was never sealed. They equalized in the eighteenth minute and instead of sealing the lid and trusting the process, they opened the pot every five minutes to check. And a pot that is opened every five minutes never, ever becomes biryani.”
Arteta after every 90 minutes, for the next 90 minutes
The numbers confirm the dish
City had 59% possession. Arsenal — the supposed title favourites, the team built on defensive solidity and controlled attacking transitions — had 41%. Arsenal have managed just three goals in their last five matches across all competitions, a run that has coincided with a decisive wobble at the top of the table.
The standings: Arsenal 70 points, City 67 — but City with a game in hand. City face Burnley on Thursday. The models give Guardiola’s side an 83.6% chance of winning that fixture — a team that has won four games all season. If City win, the gap is zero. Arsenal’s nine-point lead from one week ago will have become level. In seven days.
Since the final whistle at the Etihad, 67% of bets placed on the Premier League winner market have gone on Manchester City. Guardiola’s April win rate stands at 71.4% — the finest finisher in the history of this competition, peaking, again, exactly on schedule.
“So is it over, Paaji?”
He considered the tahiri. He served himself a second, smaller portion — the portion of a man who has made peace with what is in front of him.
“Arsenal have five games left. They are three points clear. Their remaining fixtures are largely against the bottom half. They face Newcastle next — sixteenth in the table. Wayne Rooney still has them as slight favourites. Danny Murphy believes it may come down to goal difference. Goal.com’s analysts think City will push all the way but ultimately fall just short. Arsenal still control their own destiny. That is not nothing.”
“But?”
“But they set out to make biryani. Three years of Arteta. Three years of almost. Three years of the pot being assembled, the ingredients being right, the kitchen smelling like something extraordinary was on its way.” He gestured at the table. “What we have is tahiri. Edible. Respectable. A dish many teams would be grateful to serve. But the people of north London did not spend twenty-two years waiting for tahiri.”
He stood up, took the pot back toward the kitchen.
“The rice,” he said, at the doorway, “needed to come off the heat two weeks ago. It did not. And now Arteta must serve whatever is in the pot, at the most important dinner of the year, to the most unforgiving guests in English football.”
He turned off the kitchen light.
“Pray the tahiri is enough.”
Arsenal fans. Five games left. Watching Burnley vs City on Thursday.
The prediction — what the sources say:
The gap is three points. City have a game in hand against Burnley, and Guardiola’s April record of 71.4% wins makes him the most dangerous man in football at this precise moment in the calendar. The title race is likely to go to the final day. The majority of expert opinion still gives Arsenal the edge — but only just, and only if the rot stops immediately. Coral still lists Arsenal as favourites to end a 22-year title drought — though the odds are shortening by the hour.
The biryani is not yet lost. But it is not biryani anymore.
Documentaries are about bringing a true event and the story around it in the words of those who have witnessed it. That is a broad enough definition and on such a definition, usually a documentary is not consumed. The just released docuseries- “The greatest rivalry-India vs Pakistan” has left us in the lurch of what could have been an intense experience of witnessing the emotions and an exploration of the feelings or impact of those feelings. The feeling was akin to an India Pakistan match drawn by rain- all the emotions and nerves going down the drain.
Growing up as an Indian Punjabi migrant who is overtly patriotic and even more when it is against Pakistan, the docuseries does not capture well the emotion behind it. The story is not about the hospitality that Indians and Pakistanis display for each other. The story should rather have been that despite the hospitality, how intense is the rivalry. Unfortunately, this theme did not reflect well enough throughout the series. If you remember watching the Indian tour of Pakistan 2004 live, (which was incidentally called the “Friendship Series”), there was a very famous ad campaign shot by Pepsi around the series. In one of those ads, Ganguly is directing Md. Kaif and Zaheer Khan to pick and place the Friendship series board and Kaif hammers down the bottle of Pepsi that displaces the “Friendship” from the board. You feel like wanting to repeat the hammering down gesture quite a few times while watching the docuseries.
In fact, the most interesting bit that was more intriguing was the story of the Reverse-swing and its impact in the world of cricket. Ironically, as a fan of the greatest rivalry, I was bowled on a “reverse swing” delivered by the docuseries, which was somehow mixed with a “slower-one”, and I just wished I could have read it from a distance to respect it with a quintessential “leave”.
Unfortunately, the magnitude of the rivalry could not be justified completely. Neither from the Indian nor the Pakistani side in terms of politics, economics, engagement when it comes to the greatest rivalry of the sporting history. Ashes was mentioned, but there was no clear representation as to how and when the Ashes were a thing of the past and this rivalry especially with humongous diaspora and no love lost between the sparring nuclear nations could succeed to a houseful match anywhere in the world. The toss of an India and Pakistan match alongwith the pitch report and the opening remarks of ex-cricketers has more content than the documentary itself.
If the mission of this docuseries is to give a primer to the neutral viewers across the world who are oblivious to the world of cricket and what goes on in making a rivalry, then some better context is required in terms of explaining the scale with comparisons to perhaps a political Greece-Turkey, Serbia-Bosnia, Armenia-Azarbaijaan, Iran-Iraq examples. Some outside context of either the politics or the “arch” in the arch rivalry needs further elaboration. Otherwise, it feels like a stereotype to anybody who watches the series about the sport or its greatest rivalry. They would end up thinking this rivalry is about an Indian batsman crowned as the Sultan of Multan and a particular fast Pakistani bowler Shoiab Akhtar who got the batting greats like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid out at the Eden Gardens in his debut test series.
The documentary should have called itself “The last tours of India Pakistan” or “Sehwag and Akhtar – The greatest modern day rivalry” (It was not even that much of an individual rivalry comparable to Sachin and Shane Warne or Sachin and Mcgrath but nevertheless). It was refreshing to have the perspective of Inzamam ul haq and Miandad. However, there was an overall lack of energy. There seemed a sort of haste to get the docuseries out which left more to the imagination than what the viewer should have actually witnessed. Exactly, like this review.
Ballwinder Paaji explains in his quirky way, what exactly did Klopp’s Liverpool do different this season to break the thirty year drought. Do read.
“Paaji!!!”, I exclaimed, “Liverpool finally won the Premier League! Can you believe it?! Who would have imagined that one day Liverpool will win the Premier league! Look at their fans, they are the ones who are in a state of absolute disbelief. Three decades it took them!” It was a hysterical moment. You wanted to share their happiness, except of course you wouldn’t, if you were a Manchester United fan.
Why would someone say something so crude in another club’s time of joy? A joy that has evaded them for the last 30 years! “Are you a Manchester United fan?”
“Liverpool, in this decade finished a couple of seasons as runners up. They came close to win but just could not.”
“Yeah. I know. Does that mean they don’t deserve to win this season?”
“Well, they did. The table speaks for itself. Seven games in advance. What do you think happened back then that they could not win despite coming so close?”, Ballwinder asked
“Ummm…I don’t know. I don’t remember..”, replied while still thinking why did they not make it despite coming so close. I could start feeling that I am just about to topple from the moral horse that I was riding…for a couple of minutes.
“When the season came down to the wire, Liverpool buckled under pressure.”
“Liverpool surged from below the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City under the SAS partnership – Suarez and Sturridge – the highest goalscorers of the league that season. The last few games of the season were left. They were at the pole position to win the league. Or as they say in England – ‘It was theirs to lose’. You know then what happened? Steven Gerrard slipped in an all crucial game against Chelsea, who went on to defeat them two-nil. At Anfield.”
“And in the penultimate game they threw away their 3 goal lead to Crystal Palace. Manchester City were home and won the league on the final day by 2 points.”
“Liverpool had a seven point lead on the table in January 2019. Seven points ahead, they lose to Manchester City in that month and then falter with some draws in relatively easier fixtures. They scored 97 points. No club that has finished runners up has scored those many points! Yet Liverpool did!”
“When the league goes down to the wire, Liverpool has had a problem to succumb under pressure. And to eventually top a table of what many might regard as one of the toughest league in the world and perhaps the most unpredictable too; makes it even more difficult. For Liverpool to win something this big required them to have so much more nerves through out the year. Which the players don’t have.”
“So what do you think happened this year?”, I sheepishly ask Ballwinder Paaji.
Even Klopp did not trust Liverpool to win the league if it went down the wire. His club played every game with a virtue that this would be that game which gives them that one extra point from the last season. Klopp did not leave anything to chance or mathematics.
“From the very first game, Klopp pushed the peddle so hard that you would have probably got exhausted watching Liverpool’s intensity on the pitch. They played every game as if to extract 4 points from it.”
“So you if you look at the table, Liverpool did not leave anything to the probability of permutations and combinations in the league. They played every game to win the league. Liverpool has lost only one match and drawn only two. That’s when Chelsea defeated Manchester City a couple of nights ago which made it “Mathematically” impossible for anybody else to win the league.”
India lost yet another test cricket series abroad. Ballwinder explains elephant and its tail over a cup of Black Ivory Coffee.
“And yet again Indian Cricket team loses a test series abroad”, I said with a quick glance towards Ballwinder Paaji while swapping the sports channel to the one where Premier League was on.
“How can you claim to be the best batting line up in the world when you collapse before such low totals?”, I looked again at Ballwinder paaji. “Who is responsible for such performances?”, I was on a rant, hoping for some response. It had been long, I did not realise what exactly was I asking for. Ballwinder paaji was busy burning the fresh Arabica beans for his double/triple shot espresso. But he was listening.
“You sire, are in for a ride. Perhaps an elephant ride”, I said to myself. The most exciting thing about an elephant is its size, its trunk, its tusk. Why would anybody even think about its tail. Who has ever even thought about its tail.
Then there is Ballwinder. Ballwinder would tell me not only the significance of an elephant’s tail, but also its relevance in the context of Indian cricket team losing yet another cricket series abroad. Now I don’t even bother asking the obvious question like “Ballwinder Paaji, What on earth just happened? I just commented on the consistent claims of Indian team to be the best in the world despite losing abroad, series after series??”. But I did not ask. I just patiently waited for Ballwinder to address the “elephant” in the room. He knew what I was thinking. He looked at me with a slight smile and only broke eye contact when his coffee did the magic for him.
“Elephant is such a majestic animal. You are in its absolute awe. That trunk, the tusk, you are blown away. A creature of magnanimity, true class. And then there is its tail. A tail which does not go with its size, style, trunk or tusk. Something that is there to give it acceptance in the jungle. Everybody’s got one. Well, elephant should also have it. What’s its purpose. For example, look at a cheetah, its tail helps as rudder when it attacks. Look at a crocodile, its tail gives a torpedo effect in water. We, homo sapiens, did not have any use of it, so it vanished. Poor elephant is stuck with this tail. Just as a part of nature’s contract. Quite a price to pay, must I say.
“That’s interesting, Ballwinder Paaji”, I said with intrigue. I actually was. Useless, elephant’s tail. As enlightening as it sounded, I still sought an answer to my question. “I understand this much, that you are referring to the Indian cricket team as an elephant. Its character can be compared to the class that an elephant belongs to. But what’s with the tail? Who is the tail? Why is the Indian team losing series after series”, I had to address the “elephant” in the room.
“The tail end of the Indian batting is the elephant’s tail”, said Ballwinder in a firm voice. A voice that sounded as if coffee was still somewhere there in the throat. I was shocked. I was taken aback. Not as much by the voice as by his reply. “The tail end of Indian batting, you mean the bowlers? They are not supposed to be batsmen”, I was enraged. At the tip of being offended.
“Indian bowlers are not tail end batsmen Ballu Paaji, they are bowlers. We have to play them else the English would never have gotten out. In fact, Ballu Paaji, they got the England batting limited to such low scores! Here (England) as well as against South Africa! They did their job!”, I said, now officially being offended.
Ballwinder was unmoved. He was not at all moved by my reaction. Somewhere he knew that truth is as bitter as coffee. Not everybody can handle it bitterness the first time they sip it. One has to get used to such bitterness called the truth to relish its flavour and slowly come to terms with one’s mind and soul. He continued to sip his coffee, while my blood boiled in ignorance.
“I understand your angst”, said Ballwinder Paaji while trying to patronise me. “But this is the bitter truth. Indian batting is as majestic as an elephant. You have to, have to admire it. You don’t have any choice. You just can’t criticise. Someday you might admire its trunk (Kohli), someday its tusk might stand out (Pujara), maybe never as a whole, but you can never condemn the elephant in its totality (The “grand” top order batting performance). Because you just cannot question the beauty of the elephant. Everybody ends up disgusted with the tail, never with the elephant. Who is acknowledging the fact that the Indian bowling performance has been unprecedented, that they have been successful in limiting the opposition batting to such low scores in the recent test matches? If the bowlers themselves cannot fend the challengers’ bowling attack, play between the gaps, keep rotating the strike, hit the odd one out for a boundary, and reduce the bat-pad gap, well then, they are as efficient as an elephant’s tail.”
Although I could not even raise them, Ballwinder Paaji opened my eyes. I wish I never had to find out the truth. Not at least this way.
Group stages done. Look at who has emerged out to be the real game changer so far.
FIFA has seemingly turned a page in the history book of footballing entertainment. This page in the history book was quite into the turning for almost the whole decade, with the events like awarding of the world cup to new hosts like Russia and Qatar, the sitting president coming under the scanner, and perhaps the most debated refereeing system. With this world cup in action one can safely assume that the page has hence turned for the better.
The balance of upsets in the group stages and the first day of knockouts has been quite as expected. The previous world cup winners exiting at the group stages has been the unsaid norm for a quite a few world cups now and hence this time too the tradition continues.
The real twist in the tale of this world cup which many people were cautioning about has instead swiped us all like the penultimate episode of every Game of Thrones season. The game changer so far:
VAR- Very Angry Response
Congratulations to the International Football Association Board (IFAB) for making the game even more entertaining. I also personally condole all the Foot-draggers and the naysayers who had written the epitaph of the beautiful game with the advent of a TV review system. Video Assistant Referee (VAR) has come out to be the best surprise and has hardly failed anyone in getting entertained.
About 50 matches have been played as yet in the World Cup and the VAR has come into action for about a couple of dozen times. The biggest complaint that the critics had was the slowing down of the game due to over indulgence in the review. The other vehemence in the argument was that any outside intervention at a crucial moment in the game would affect the sanctity of the arbitrariness or uncertainty in decision making. The joy of such arbitrariness was being defended as the real excitement of the game and the advent of technology as a corrosion of pure entertainment.
The VAR has done nothing short of impressing the viewers, perhaps even more the neutrals like you and me who want to see the controversial decisions being taken and then either being confirmed or being reversed by the VAR. The suspense that looms for that time period and you sitting at home and judging with the referee is the unprecedented excitement that has taken us by surprise. The probability of its fairness has also increased. The apparent penalty that Neymar won against the Costa Ricans that was later confirmed to be the step of Neo-dodging-bullets that caught the referee’s imagination and was later overturned after VAR review is the whole reason that this review system is a success. More than anything, it is the FIFA that has gained any goodwill for not only making the game fairer but even more exciting.
The sense of grief that arises from injustice is only put to rest when you vindicate yourself in the future. The joy of vengeance perhaps leaves a deeper scar on the minds and hearts of the ones being perished, even more when such vengeance is attained at the cost of injustice. Because then two injustices added up to make one justice. A great approach to life, this, in the medieval times. Today you would have only tightened the noose on the neck of the beautiful game had the use of adequate technology not been put to test.
Has the VAR actually changed the fate of the game so far? Yes! one at least. Spain getting back the goal that was ruled offside right at the brink of the game against Morocco. Just one game, is this worth it then? Of course! Imagine the sense of injustice had Spain not qualified due to the wrong decision.
Ballwinder goes technical. Happiness in England and Sadness across two continents.
“Paaji, where have you been?”, I asked,”I have been looking for you since the Kroos rescue.”
Ballwinder was indifferent to my question, rather more focused in dressing his nachos with diverse toppings. He replies ” I was busy.” Clearly, one could see doing what..
“Either ways Paaji, 6-1! 6 goals by England in a World Cup finals! Where the first match nearly gave everybody jitters and now just look at them. Hell! even the English cannot believe this! Must be the happiest day in their lives after a very long time”, I said with a little sense of rejoice.
Ballwinder smiles, without breaking any concentration of arranging his plate of nachos “It was a true depiction of Zero Sum game. Do you know what a Zero-Sum game is? ”
Wait a second. “6-1=5 ; How is it sum zero?” I realized while rechecking the score of England Panama. I asked while gulping my fear of the known..”But ….How…?”
Ballwinder sits down with his platter of Nachos, picks up a Nacho and sweeps it across the dip and starts munching. He then ordains,
“When you win against someone. You are happy. The one who loses is sad. Thereby maintaining the overall balance of happiness and sadness. Your happiness and your opponent’s sadness when added gives you a Zero-Sum. English fans were deprived of this happiness and pleasure for ages. They would always witness the opponents celebrating on their loss. Imagine the amount of grief and sorrow they must have been bearing for all this while and just today, they have virtually given it all back with compounding interest. Countries from two continents were taken down by the English. The magic number being 5”
“What exactly does that have to do with English fans who were surprised by their enormous victory in the World Cup last evening!? And two continents? Which two continents? North America and Central America?? And what is this magic number 5”, I won’t surrender this time. I will clarify all my existential doubts.
“Not only the football fans, but even the cricket fans of England were happy. Then there were people who were double happy for winning at both the sports thereby transferring their age old sorrows of losing, to the two continents which are diagonally opposite to each other. And these victories came at the margin of 5 each. Therefore maintaining the Zero-Sum game in the global context.”
“But Ballwinder Paaji, do you really think that just this one day can balance all the disappointment and heart breaks of English fans for all these years? I am sure it can compensate the last decade but what about the decade before that?” I again asked in my innocence.
Horse, donkey, Argentina, Croatia. Ballwinder speaks over a bowl of museli.
“Paaji, goodness gracious me!”, I shouted after watching the latest drubbing of Argentina by Croatia.”What a marvelous game to witness as a neutral. But how can a team of that individual stature struggle?”.”It is unfathomable to see arguably the best footballer in the world just might not qualify to the knock out stages”, I was on a rant.
“What was the main difference between the two teams tonight?”, I demanded an explanation while Ballwinder was pouring chilled milk over the museli.
I had said enough. My job was to quietly wait for Ballwinder to speak and enlighten me, yet again.
“Have you seen a stud farm? I grew up next to one”, claimed Ballwinder while crunching his delicious looking dish. I was quiet. I was waiting for the genius to start the game. I would then play catch up.
They keep the farm safe from coyotes and other kind of canines. They are considered as a good friend by the horses”, Ballwinder added. “A very basic, simple job for a donkey. Nothing complicated. Nothing like what the horses have to do.”
This is it. Fasten your seat belts, Ballwinder will now take you through the journey of life. Riding on a horse. Or maybe a donkey.
“The Argentinian goalkeeper was the donkey among the stallions. His only job was to protect the goal, by being a donkey. He started getting a feeling that he is a horse too. He thought his master will like what he sees and perhaps someday parade him with the horses.”
“Always remember”, Ballwinder concluded, “If God has made you a donkey and kept you in a stud farm. You are very lucky to be there. Your job is the simplest. Do not try to be a horse. Just be a donkey and earn your respect by protecting the farm”
I could not hold my tears. I was smitten by this basic lesson of life.
I took a deep breath, and asked ” Ballwinder paaji, just out of curiousity, are donkeys and horses from the same family?”, while Ballwinder slurped his way to the peace of infinity.
What ruins the dish? Butter, Chicken or the Cook?
Ballwinder tells us all after watching Tunisia vs England
“Paaji!”, I said with a sense of relief, ” finally the balance has been restored. A jail break Ballwinder paaji. England finally won an opening game of a major tournament. I don’t remember the last time this happened”.
Ballwinder looking pensive, replied,” How hard can the Chicken or the Butter try to ruin the dish?”. “Meaning?”, I asked, as usual being confused by this ever so anecdotal pondering of the great Ballwinder. England won. England lost. Ballwinder would have had Butter Chicken either ways.
“If somebody wants to ruin the Butter Chicken, what should he ruin, the butter or the chicken?”, asked Ballwinder.
“Paaji, it should be both, or either…”, I replied in utter innocence, confiding in bare minimum confidence of slight common sense. I am a student, I need to learn from Ballwinder Paaji.
Very unimpressed by my response, doubting over my existence, flexing all the possible facial muscles that are visible which aren’t really covered by any form of hair, he said, “It is the chicken that can ruin the dish, even if butter tries to save it, it cannot.”
“ohh, like that, isn’t it a bloody given”, I said it in my head. But my head and soul had already surrendered to Ballwinder.
” Now tell me, even if the chicken is stale or has not been properly marinated, and is therefore cut out to ruin the dish and the cook, who like you thinks, butter can save the day and keeps adding butter incessantly, to make it a success, will he succeed?”, asked Ballwinder.
I took my time for this one. I thought hard. I don’t know what I was thinking but I thought real hard and replied” If the dish still succeeds, it will be a fluke. No chance otherwise”.
My response led to Ballwinder’s face breaking into a smile of I-told-you-so, with eyes semi shut filled with the air of vindication, head moving in small circles, beard being carressed, came out the word, “Exactly.”
I cracked the code but I did not understand what just happened here. Ballwinder then elaborates, ” The three lions wanted to win, but their formation was stale, having three centre backs was the case of stale chicken, but their manager like the cook, just kept sticking to his bad basics of changing a midfielder with a midfielder and going flank to flank, similar to adding more and more butter in search for a perfect cross. The dish somehow survived this time, but not always.”
Awestruck by this analogy, I nodded my head in refusal to accept the reality of being in the great company of such an intelligent human being.
” So what should Gareth Southgate do?” I asked like a child, mesmerized by the rays of enlightenment shining upon me.
“Add a different flavour, heat it for longer on the sim, take chances, because remember while the dish is still on the stove, the ball is in your court”, Ballwinder replied while examining the leg piece he held in his hand through out this conversation.
“But Ballwinder Paaji, how would you save the actual Butter Chicken recipe?”, intrigued I was.
Ballwinder while remaining unmoved and unfazed, said ” I will serve it with alcohol”.
Ballwinder 
