Warner to take Hindi tutorials

CA to get Warner help in learning Hindi, English
Cricket Australia has decided it has finally had enough of David Warner's repeated overstepping of the bounds of proper conduct, and has taken the step of procuring for the troubled batsman the help he needs to keep his emotions in check.

"We're setting him up with some Hindi lessons," said a spokesman for the board. "This isn't the first time that Davey has been pulled up in this manner, and after thinking long and hard about it, we have decided it would be best if he learned Hindi so that he can understand the names he is being called without having to walk up menacingly to other players and demand they say the same thing in English. Besides, why be insulted in two languages when one is enough?"

The spokesman also revealed that once he had mastered Hindi, Warner would then start receiving lessons in English.

Corey Anderson on de Villiers' record
"Records, they say, are meant to be broken. Did you know that they said that? I'll be honest: I didn't, until very recently. A useful thing to say, isn't it? That's why I tweeted about it rather philosophically as soon as I heard AB de Villiers had broken my record for the fastest hundred in an ODI.

"Yeah, but here's the thing though. What they don't tell you is that it isn't just the record you once held that gets broken. Like Humpty ****ing Dumpty, you end up breaking as well. Makes you wonder what else they don't tell you.

It's okay, though, I'm sure I'll be over it soon enough, that this aching void I feel in the very pit of my being will slowly start to fade with time. I mean, it's only been a few hours since AB broke the record and with it my brittle heart. Seriously, I'm fine.

"In fact, I'd go so far to say that if there was anyone I'd have wanted to break my record and render me a pathetic husk of a man, it would have been AB. Can anyone think of someone more deserving of such an accomplishment? Me neither.

"It isn't fair, if you really think about it. Shaihd Afridi's record held up for what, like decades or something before I upstaged him? And how long did I last? Oh just a few months. Thanks, AB. What an amazing innings.

"So yeah, it bears repeating as many times as possible: records are meant to be broken (100 off 31 balls? Are you ****ing kidding me? Who is ever going to beat that?) and so I shouldn't be so down.

Questions raised about Dravid's suitability for ODI commentary
There have been mixed reactions to Rahul Dravid's ODI commentary debut during the second ODI between India and Australia, with some saying that the veteran Test commentator was not suited for the shorter version of the game, and others contending that it is only a matter of time before Dravid, like all great former cricketers-turned-commentators, adapts to the task at hand.

"Don't get me wrong, he's a great Test commentator," said limited-overs commentary specialist Danny Morrison, "but he takes forever to begin a sentence while working in the shorter format. He just doesn't have the urgency or the pizzazz required for the slam-bang version of the game," he added while doing a series of backflips that culminated in a sort of pirouette. "It took him a whole ten minutes to say 'Shikhar Dhawan will be taking strike', by which time of course Dhawan was already out. I mean, everyone knew that was going to happen, and it did."

Others were more tempered in their critique of Dravid's performance. "The biggest challenge facing Dravid and the broadcasters brave enough to select him for the job in this format was whether he would be able to go for the really big, cliché-ridden sentences when it was needed of him," said Kris Srikkanth. "This, after all, is a man who likes to keep things low-profile, who takes his time settling into his work, or getting his tongue in, as the saying goes. I think in the end, given his limitations, he performed reasonably well."

The colour pink gets a big boost
It has become a matter of course now for teams to show their support for the cause of raising awareness of women's health issues by wearing the colour pink. but this happens only once a year or so. What about the rest of the year? Who supports the wearing of the colour for the remaining 364 days?

AB de Villiers, as it turns out. In one fell swoop, the South Africa star may have done for the oft-derided colour what no one, not even Navjot Singh Sidhu's dress sense, has managed to do to propel it back into the popular consciousness of macho, male-centric team-sport culture.

"It's nothing short of a revolution," says colour theorist and part-time dogwalker Claire Firdousi. "For perhaps the first time, macho men who would otherwise feel squeamish about wearing pink if not connected to some charity can go ahead and feel as manly as they like while wearing it."

Indeed, such an impact has de Villers' innings had that the ramifications are being felt far and wide, beyond the bounds of cricket. The makers of the James Bond franchise have announced that the character will be driving a pink Aston Martin in the next film, while the makers of Barbie dolls, having apparently found pink to be a little too newly aggressive for their tastes, have said their products will now come in clothes and accessories that are predominantly green.