Dhoni, Obama and cricket
“Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the Obama of cricket”. Let it sink in. These are the actual words of Indian medium-pacer, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Praveen-Kumar-c82600.
He compared the Indian skipper with the President of the United States of America, and said that he is as special as Obama.
All-rounder Praveen lauded Dhoni’s calm and composed approach in crucial match situations, similar to Obama when faced with Julian Assange leaking secret diplomatic cables on the World Wide Web.
He stated that Dhoni is “no less influential” than Obama, who is widely seen as an inspirational leader.
This huge comparison has sparked numerous amused giggles all around cricketing circles. But come to think of it, Praveen might have been thinking on the following lines while formulating the mentioned comparison.
They are both leaders of the number one country in the world. But he might have forgotten that being a captain of the number one Test cricket team is different from leading a country. If this is the criteria for being the most influential person in the universe,
then Ponting surely is the Dalai Lama or worse, the Pope.
As Obama find himself in the cross-fire of health care debates, similarly, Dhoni is working to make Yuvraj Singh lose some weight.
The trademark catchphrases might have confused Praveen. Obama’s “yes we can” (complete with the whole finger raising/pointing) and Dhoni’s pet line “Well, of course...” even after http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 loses a game.
The last, but certainly not the least similar circumstances for both “leaders”, is that both replaced a person, who is remarkably similar to George W Bush sr.
So maybe, Praveen was on the same wavelength as the Indian chairman of selectors, Kris Srikkanth, who might have nodded his head in unison as he shared his own thoughts on leaving Sreesanth (he maintains this is his real name) out of the team.
Now Sreesanth has all the time in the world to sing awful songs to a dumbfounded crowd, who thought, they were witnessing a rock concert.
But the thing is, Obama and cricket goes a long way. Just like Sreesanth and break-dancing (read cricket) goes a long way. Obama is an avid baseball player (and not really good at it, given he had surgery for a baseball injury) and still plays basketball
in the White House.
The self-proclaimed sports fanatic took his chance with a cricket bat back in 2009, when he got some expert coaching from, a very smartly dressed, Brian Lara, in Trinidad.
Obama attempted a left-handed cover drive, while Lalit Modi was reportedly tweeting to ban the President from cricket for taking lessons from an ICL player. But Modi had his own problems and he got lost in the Twitterverse.
The first Black President of America, on the other hand, likened Lara as the “Michael Jordan” of cricket. Eat your heart out Praveen!
But cricket enthusiasts will aptly remember that Obama was not the first one try his hand at the gentleman’s sport. Former http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755. It subsequently
helped him in the long run when he successfully ducked Muntadhar al-Zaidi’s shoe.
Centuries before, George Washington was found to be playing cricket back in 1778. Historical records show that “After dinner with General Nox, he did the honour to play Wicket with us”.
So maybe Praveen was right in comparing Obama with Dhoni. Some argued that Dhoni is way better than Obama as America is not really known to love the game. But history shows that cricket is surely liked by American presidents.
While enraged fans were planning to protest against Praveen, Obama, ICC, America, Modi, Sreesanth sings and everyone was left disappointed as the media turned its attention to Egypt and the effigy maker was not available.
The protestors are now moving their protests to Bangalore.
Disclaimer: The writer spawns up fiction and the views expressed above do not reflect bettor.com’s official editorial policy.
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