Worth Watching The Champions League For

You might have been feeling disillusioned by it all. That's why I'm here. When you feel like you might give the Champions League a miss this year, I remind you that a very special player will be in it this year.

Pause for thought.

Guess who.

Keep guessing.

I'm giving you a whole lot of time to guess who's playing.

Hint: it's not Napoleon Einstein.

Maybe some of you got it if you're clever chooks. Anyway, folks, it's Sybrand Engelbrecht. Yes, you'd almost forgotten about him, hadn't you? My ambidextrous saffa friend, one of four best friends of mine. Let me refresh your memory.

So that's Sybrand, and the freakish guy is playing for the Cape Cobras in the Champions League this year. This is exciting news for someone like me. I've seen the Aussie domestic cricketers at home, I've seen as much of the other countries as I want to, but I've never seen Sybrand in action except for that one Test in South Africa where he was a substitute fielder. That was clever of the fuckers. Why not send an ambidextrous fellow on to run every out? I like the way they think.

I'm also out of Sybrand pictures and I need him to play more often. There's nothing like a best friend getting some matches. At the moment, Sybrand is the only one of the four likely to do anything. BRING BACK VAUGHN. And Napoleon. And Abishek Raut. What happened to him, anyway?

I'll be making sure I watch every Cape Cobras match for Sybrand. Can't miss out on supporting a best friend when they finally get a game.

Imgonnagetcha

How Chennai Will Win

A match everyone should be nervous about. Hopefully it'll be better than the Delhi/Mumbai spectacle last night, because these two teams are both in form.

But you've still got to be nervous. Of the matches Chennai and Rajasthan have played in both seasons of the IPL, Chennai has won only one of them, and that was this year. Rajasthan, however, have come back from losing consecutive matches to having won most of their last 5. So in light of the strengths of both teams and the likelihood this will be a close match, I'm going to offer up a take on how Chennai can win this crucial match:

• Out of the awesome foursome of Hayden, Raina, Dhoni and Albie, at least 2 need to fire. Preferably all 4. I should probably mention Badrinath here too, but too bad, I can't be bothered. What good does a duck do you?
• Fuck Chennai's other opener, they can't seem to get it right.
• George Bailey doesn't play (and no, the place he was born has nothing to do with it), and Jacob Oram does something spectacularly good for once.
• Lee Carseldine is swayed by an offer of money and/or sex from George.
• Graeme Smith gets out for less than 10.
• RR play Morne Morkel instead of Dimitri Mascarenhas. This one is vitally important.
• Warnie swigs another pint of beer from a well-meaning Aussie in the crowd, but doesn't realise that Aussie is me until the laxatives in the beer have taken full hold.
• Amit Singh is so terrified by chucker claims he refuses to bend his arm in the slightest while bowling and practically hands the match to Chennai.
• Yusuf Pathan realises he has an excess of motorbikes and so throws his wicket in order to escape the MoM award.
• Abhishek Raut is the one RR batsman who does well. I like to help my best friends along.
• Someone stabs Munaf Patel in the eye.

Okay, so maybe not all of those are needed to help Chennai win. They can do the rest by pure talent alone. Because they won't be so terrible in the field again, will they?

Or will they?

As for the KXIP vs. DC match, I'm gonna go Punjab just for kicks.

Also, I had originally asked whether anyone knew what the Penguin had said to Karthik, but after a bit of digging around, I've found out what it was. Suffice to say, why oh why is that an actual insult? It's like a stupider version of just calling someone a cunt.

Delhi Twats

I have no idea what you're talking about. I never called the Chennai team twats. You must have imagined it.

Jakati spins Chennai to victory by 18 runs. Theoretically, that should be impossible, but it's not. Chennai got their miracle, and the sure Delhi win turned out to be a sure Delhi loss. Great. Too bad about Davo there. He actually had a good knock.

AND NOW CHENNAI ARE 4TH. I take that victory and I rub it in everyone's faces. Of course, Albie had very little to do with it. It's almost getting embarrassing. My pick of the players is failing while people like Jakati who the captain doesn't deem important enough to be named are winning matches for Chennai. Man up, Albie. Man up.

On a lesser note, I'm starting to get really freaked out by Ryan Campbell's obsession/love of Albie. Even I don't work Albie's name into my posts as much as he works it into his speech.

On the Deccan Chargers vs. Rajasthan match:

Just a few things, first and foremost that I have found a new best friend, folks. Really, I have. Abishek Raut, the star of the Rajasthan side. Aside from his splendid knock, did you see that post-match interview? He was so excited, like a little kid who'd just won the first race of their life. Great stuff. Seeing as my best friends are all little kids, in the most loose sense of the word, Raut joins the club. He put a smile on my face, the same kind of smile I get from watching babies from afar when they're not drooling or crying.

"ALRIGHT!!!"

In other news, I feel a little sorry for Yusuf Pathan. He's been delegated the role of slogger and there's no holding back. I think Ryan Campbell made up some dogy stats like "The chances of him coming off are 2/5 at the end, but 4/5 if he comes in early and bats to the end." Not sure where he got those statistics from, but for once Campbell is right. Yusuf is a class batsman, not just a slogger. He could bat up the order, but Rajasthan are relying far too much on him to save their asses late in the innings.

Quote of the day:
"[KKR] who are an absolute shabizzle."
-By the one and only Ryan Campbell

Also, how many motorbikes does Yusuf Pathan have? I hope he's sharing with his brother from another mother. And this time, it's actually Irfan.