::: Star Weekend Magazine :::

Chintito

Hut team, A-team, Team

Chintito

A heavy triangular series is going on in Dhaka for the past several weeks; in fact, ever since the tenure of the last 'champions' ended. But still there is no contact between bat and ball. Some are even questioning whether there is any bat and ball left in this country after ex-players are spilling the beans about ocean-thefts, read sagor churi.

The three participating teams are well known. The Hut Team is actually a misnomer because they are housed in a palatial mansion. The A-Team is actually the 'B' team. Team has come to a point where they need no prefix, because legend goes they pre-fix everything.

One considers itself as the largest, another the most popular, yet another the grandest, all of them the cleanest, and only one as the shangbidhan-est. Amen.

The Hut team, in spite of being born with a silver spoon, has its limitations because by its statutes it can have only eleven players, and not a single reserve. What if someone is injured, as is possible in this dangerous game? Although there has been serious lack of advice in the matter with no dearth of advisers, the game must go on.

In addition to constitutional hazards, Hut team seems to be in real trouble. Despite recuperating from a serious ailment and against medical advice, the non-playing (should-not-be playing, few months back almost out-played) manager selected himself as captain. Two of his team members have been charged with match-fixing by Team for trying to emulate the spirit 'Big Boys Play at Night'. It turned out that the manager-cum-captain and other team members had, if truth be told, sent them from outside to get some inside information. Another Hut player has been vocal and wrathful on TV in being critical about the game plan of A-team, and has in effect laid his bias for Team open for criticism. It's getting complicated. Yet another member has been accused of having foreign nationality, and thereby being unfit for team selection, but that allegation has been denied summarily.

In another development Hut team members had a team meeting without the team captain in a new clubhouse. This upset Team more than the captain concerned, because Team claimed that the Hut captain learned the tricks of the game while playing for them not so very long ago.

Also to be noted is that of the eleven players three are women and this is also unheard of in the sporting world, i.e. gender mix in team events. But then, this is another kind of sport, unlikely to get affiliation of any international organisation, although foreigners are visiting them regularly; some in the guise of 'off-servers'

The major problem of the other two teams is team selection. Their respective captains are secure, obviously, but none other is sure of his or her inclusion in a team. This open field, also known as (aka) as democracy, has given rise (aka fall of democracy) to at least ten players per team per position. Team has three other teams in it and A-team has many as fourteen.

The four-team Team has lost a few key players to a new team whose founders claim to be more liberal. As yet unregistered in the league those apparently 'Loathing Dirty Politics' (aka LDP) are eager to make this a four-notion (rpt notion) competition, a proposal under active consideration of the crowd which is supposed to decide everything. But the crowd can't be too sure about their role because of poor umpiring in the past and are certain of being left in the lurch in the near future (aka no future) if the umpires panel is not changed before the match.

The fourteen-team team has been beaten (aka really beaten) in the last five years and are all geared up to take revenge. For this purpose they have some new equipment from the countryside which looks longer and stronger than the normal bats usually used. According to historians this sort of bats were used before the game was invented by the English. The advantage with the new gear is you do not need a ball to play. You become the ball.

To add to the confusion there is our very own (aka disowned) hairless Darrel Hair, aka Elmer Fudd of Looney Tunes fame, aka Kojak of the 1970s television police series, aka bay-haya. A-cheez (aka thing) is supposed to be the main umpire but he has been accused of inefficiency and inconsideration, prejudice and partiality, selfishness and seat-hugging by all the three teams and most importantly by the large crowd. He was also caught lying by the Hut-team. He has wasted sixty crore takas in not preparing a list of the crowd. But, he is determined to carry on as umpire, and that makes him a stiff competitor of the now-in and now-out of four-team, hitherto known as world bay-haya, Error-shad (aka taste of error). Today 'the thingy' is thinking of conducting the game by the heloni of his angul, but in the end he may have to raise more than the one finger. Prediction is he may have to raise both his hands before the game is over; in all likelihood he will be thrown over the boundary line for a six.
All this chaos is bringing out the poet in me:

Hut team, A-team, Team
Lay gold eggs in their dream
Stuck with one khaara shing
They are Hut team, A-team, Team

Hut team, A-team, Team
The crowd may get a dim
If you can't remove 'the thing'
Woe to Hut team, A-team, Team