Adios, wise man

Quite a few interesting words have been mouthed by cricketers during the past fortnight, none better than Sujith Somasundar's excellent parting shot appearing in 'cricinfo quotes':

"It was a tough decision, but to quote Confucius, you need to change your profession every 15 years to retain your passion, motivation and commitment."
Sujith Somasundar sets the standard for retirement speeches

I remember Somasundar getting sporadic opportunities in ODI's during the mid 90's but was dumped soon after. The wisdom of those words tells a poignant tale; essentially that life to him is, was and will be about more than just cricket.

There's another one to keep you busy for some time, for altogether different reasons. I will have a difficult sleep unless I confess that my general ignorance about non-World-Cup football made me search for FIFA rankings to enjoy this one to the fullest:

"For us to beat Australia would be like the Faroes beating Brazil at football. In fact it might even be bigger than that - more like us beating Brazil when Berti Vogts was in charge."
Scotland batsman Majid Haq on his country's prospects in their World Cup opener next month

For others like me: Scotland are ranked a respectable 20th in the latest rankings while Faroe Islands, as expected, are nowhere to be seen on the scrolldown until we reach the 183rd spot, ages after we pass the mighty Indians (20,000 times more populous, no less) at 157.


Here were some of the other juicy verbal volleys:

"I got some pretty funny text messages from him after every one of the games - 'how are you ... are you on the next flight over?' and 'you can have your job back, I don't want it any more'."
Ricky Ponting jokes about the text messages he had been receiving from his stand-in captain, Mike Hussey, during the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy

"My theory is that every time a batsman plays and misses he should be asked to take off one piece of protective clothing of the bowler's choice."
Michael Kasprowicz takes a novel approach in the plan to contain batsmen

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Message to Aussie cricket coach John Buchanan: please take your team home as the Black Caps are missing out on valuable practice for the World Cup."
A pithy letter to the editor in Christchurch's The Press

"I actually don't think we did too badly with the ball and in the field."
Michael Hussey shows he is slipping comfortably into the captaincy role of trying to find positives in defeat

"Look what's happened to the West Indies since we stopped having them as overseas players, their game has gone downhill."
John Emburey believes he knows the real reason for cricket's decline in the Caribbean

And to end with Brazil again,

"I'm probably the best Brazilian cricketer in the world because no-one has actually heard anything in Brazil about cricket."
Adelaide United footballer Fernando Rech