Saturday, June 27, 2009

How to Embarrass a Cricket Team



I wonder how many Pakistan players would have turned down the money that is being thrown at them by the government if they knew they had to sit through this (via Well Pitched)

0:38: Misbah is congratulated for his rear-guard efforts, which would be true if this was 2007.

1:10: Well Pitched has a great description of Shoaib Malik's intorduction

Its interesting to note what the speaker has to say about Shoaib Malik. He says that Malik's full support to the captain that replaced him is thought of as a change in the camp's culture.

Duly implying that no former captains have supported their successors.


1:52: Shahid Afridi is "well-sung". Either the speaker knows something about Afridi's vocal talents that we are not privy to, or he meant "on-song".

2:37: Do you really want to begin the introduction for Akmal by referring to him as "dimunitive."

3:50: Salman Butt is one of the "few younger younger players confident when expressing himself." Yeah, I can't think of anything positive to say about him either. What I love about these descriptions is how brutally honest they are.

4:22 Poor Rao Iftikhar Anjum. What do you say about a guy who didn't get a single game?

5:02 Fawad Alam, "unlike most of his contemporaries is a brilliant fielder." Hahahha. More honesty.

6:50: Uh, he's meant to praise Mohammed Aamir not Tilkeratne Dilshan.

7:11: And the best one yet. Shahzeb Hasan is described as "ungainly."

7:32: Yasir Arafat "ironically..had fitness problems during the World Cup." Are they admitting we faked his injury so we could fly in Razzaq?

9:44. Restraint from Zardari. This is the only mention of Benazir in his speech.

10 comments:

Ahsan said...

Two questions:

1. What accent is this?
2. Why is the presentation ceremony in English when 90% of our players don't speak the language? I can understand when post-match ceremonies in front of millions of viewers on ESPN or Super Sport or Sky have to be conducted in English, but if this ceremony is done for Pakistanis, by Pakistanis, with an audience of only Pakistanis, on Pakistani television, THEN WHY THE FUCK IS IT NOT IN URDU?

Afridi's grin was priceless, by the way.

Q said...

Thanks for the link Bubs.

U got it spot on abt how strangely interesting the intros were!

Ahsan, agree abt the urdu part as well. Why not?

Besides Afridi's smirk when meeting Zardari, note Afridi whisper something into Malik's ear and laugh when at the end Zardari is asked to say a few words.

Anonymous said...

Usually with these presidential intros, the recipient is required to hand in a blurb of their intro and that is used to come up with the final version.

Not sure where the finger should be pointing in this case.

Anonymous said...

look up the player profiles on cricinfo, everything's copied word for word

Nadir Hassan said...

Ahsan:

1)In Pakistan, that accent is known as "Dawn News".

2) No idea.

Anon442: I seriously doubt Shahzeb knows what "ungainly" means. And if he did I don't think he'd use it to describe himself.

Anon846: Hhahah. That makes a lot of sense.

Ahsan said...

Wow...you're right. I checked the Cricinfo profiles -- no wonder they were so honest. How lazy is our government? They're plagiarizing a website?

Anonymous said...

Geo reported Today that all portraits of Jinnah have been removed from the President House. They have been replaced by portraits of Bi Bi, Bilawal, Zardari and Gilani.

I think this tops Zardari taking Bilawal to Washington.

There's room at the president house for Bilawal but none for Jinnah....

Nadir Hassan said...

Anon825: Geo is wrong. This rumour was spurred by a picture of the Pakistan team posing in the lobby of the President's House with Zardari and Gillani. In the background, there were portraits of BB, Bilawal and ZAB but none of Jinah. This photograph was taken on the same day, but at a different location, as the video above. In the video you can clearly see a portrait of Jinnah. That does not invalidate the point that Zardari has taken dynastic politics to an absurd level but to say that all portraits of Jinnah have been taken down is simply untrue.

karachikhatmal said...

@bubs - wah yaar the express walay have full time desi accents or something? although i suppose no publicity is bad publicity

also who knew afridi's name was nawabzada shahid khan afridi? weerrryy naaaiicceee

Tazeen said...

Nah, they cant even quote cricinfo correctly

The website cites Afridi full name as Sahibzada Mohammad Shahid Khan Afridi but the accent in President's residence made it Nawabzada, and here I was wondering, since when does Khyber Agency has nawabs?