And cricket it is.

It's been exactly a month. Many topics floated across the mind. None actually made me sit and take notice. Till today, that is. Finally, it's the first love of my life that made me blog again: cricket. It's a wonderful feeling, this.

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Last month has been more exciting than ever. On a personal front, I have never been happier. I took one of the most important steps one could ever take in life. And I'm proud of it. The schedule of the last term seems to have been struck by a meteor. There are more blank spaces than those on Dada's paycheck. Batchmates are getting 'placed' in hordes in the biggest corporate giants. Bollywood finally seems to be finding it's feet at original dark comedy exemplified superbly by 'Phas Gaye Re Obama' and 'Mirch'. Test cricket has regained it's superiority through two nailbiting tournaments: one leading to the most dramatic African tour of the men in blue and the other making a mockery of the Aussie supremacy leaving them in 'ashes'. And God is the peak of form at what seemed like the fag end of a magnificent career.

The ongoing LOIs have been exceptionally nostalgic as well. I seem to have opened the doors the 1999 WC semis, 1996 Titan Cup finals, or for that matter, the 1994 Hero Cup semis. Chokers are back in action. Probably the best Protean side ever is being really incapable of holding onto the nerves when it matters the most.

Today was an exception, though. They didn't choke. It was the might of the Indian batting line up. Those well judged shots disguised as miscues and inside edges took them by a storm. Harbhajan Singh, the cleanest slogger of the cricket ball this world has ever seen, selected shots as accurately as ever. Zaheer Khan seemed like swinging his mace - and missing everytime - at everything that was hurled at him while he was actually leaving the dangerous ones alone, baseball can take a leak. Ashish Nehra - with looks that petrify the opposition - flexed his well toned muscles defending every overpitched delivery with the watchmaker's precision. And the winning shot: what a beauty!

It was our game from the start. We just gave them suckers a little heads up through the worryingly frequent top order collapse. The Proteas didn't leave any stone unturned either. The fielding was A-class, dropping more catches than the number of times Carol Gracias has dropped her dignity. The master strategist Smith's ingenious plan of finishing off Steyn was a masterstroke as well. Botha was just the pace that could drive the tail-enders to their graves.

All's well that ends well. We are leading 2-1. And I've rediscovered my passion for DD National, if it ever existed. I bow to thy blatant disregard towards commercialization, Prasar Bharti. At least more cricketers are seen on the field than off it on advertisements during the telecast! And I could actually watch the first delivery of every over!