sri lanka cricket
Domestic Cricket T-20 Theme Song
It is only Chandimal and Thirimanne, they say,
Who are the other kids — as kids — who have made a run?
In its third year, the provincial T-20 fiasco they play,
Yet another form takes — a name — from the former one.
Empty stands, ground boys, sight-screens throb to watch
Four hastily blue-clad teams around a flattened pitch.
Pluses there are, though, the skeptic should take a pause,
The circus is yet not too harsh on near-expired clowns
Like Chamara S, Jehan, Kaushalya who — for some holy cause —
Are still collected and returned to the keeper, on the bounce.
How else are we to see their potting bellies cutely bulge
If in their minor feats selectors didn’t our eyes indulge?
The names of teams which only the blessed Mother of Farce
Could think of, as they were used last year without batting an eye,
Were taken off this year, so were the promised super stars:
The rats who made a deal of it found to bend; to shy.
But the money, where it went, with no address to keep
— As the game is called Cricket — after all, makes the gentle weep.
The camera angles dull, from one end you feel
You’re watching the bowler run in from Straight Long On,
And you try your best — you’re polite — but you can’t conceal,
When the egg-shaped commenter speaks, your deep urge to yawn.
Commentators: the grace of Lanka’s game, surely not a curse,
For they persist in our minds that things can get far worse.
2013-08-18
Slingy’s Signature
Retards, I say to them,
As they, today, spit on your staccato name
And your balls they wanna sling
In a bid to unlearn the praises they’d sing
When you used to sing their song. Today, Lasith Slinga
Or Malinga, (to SLC, the
One without any linga)
On post-Gota’s War Paradise Isle
I am the only friend you have
So, you better take me with or
Without a slanted arm; for, the others,
They have deemed you blond. You’ve lost your charm.
They say you give head to IPL
And that you are a non-patriotic deal
Who, at one point, lion-like pretended to yell
Patriotic ‘Yeaaaaaah’s
Every time to a Slinga yoker the middle stump fell.
Should you work, Malinga, — I am serious —
Like a spineless slave who has no
Genius to boot, to a bureaucracy that scrapes off
The good off guys like you, and fuck you without paying
In a three piece suit?
Like, knowing well what a heap of
Walking platinum you are, to look up
The Cricket Board steps at walking trash
Making the players pay for their kicks
While offering us watery, occasional licks?
“Play for the country — country before self”.
“Country first, country second, country third”.
“No greater glory than playing for the nation”.
Bitch please — say it, man, you original, charismatic
Improvising little giant: say it to these
Foolish retards to hang on tight
To their stupid cliches; that geniuses, now at last,
Will be deciding who’s bowling fast.
The news is that the Cricket Board
At the Windies is finally ready
To have a bargain with Gayle.
Moby Dick in fact’s the other name for the whale.
2012-05-16
Your Face is an Open Book, My Lord
To, Tuan Dilshan – Captain, SLC
When the match stops for tea
On the 3rd day, with only
Mathews and Mahela on the way
Of an Australian win,
The camera turns on him, in the pavilion,
Stretching his arms: yawning.
A captain can be guaged from the
Way he plays:
Attapattu and Mahela — cautious,
Hashan — defensive, Arjuna — wily,
Sangakkara — pompous.
But, you?
Chandimal on the 90s, with
Sri Lanka 12 to get in 21 or so.
Mathews trying to save the runs
For the kid to have a go, as
You watch — from the balcony —
Piss shooting from your eyes.
You cut a ball on the line of off stump,
Drive on the up, foot stuck in the crease.
Follow it up with a text book square drive,
And the next — you scoop behind with hurtless ease.
Frown at the bowler from backward of square
Hands on your hips, without a care for the world.
Arms folded, weight on the table,
Post-match media session, telling
Them what’s in the ready made speech:
That you got to re-group and learn the lesson.
You — unpredictable, unschooled bat,
For whom are lessons, then: why don’t you ask the world?
2011-09-07
FISH ON THE SAND 