The parallel of fantasy and reality meld together at a keyboard on my couch, its surreal realism at it’s finest

I have been asked to join a fantasy cricket league for this India V Australia series.

And picking a team was damn tough.

The rules are what do it.

You need to pick no more than 6 players from each team, and you have a salary cap of 1000,000 and no player is worth more than 100,000.

This would be fine if the players were priced according to form, not all time records.

95,000 for Tendulkar, what is that, the 2003 price? Although I should be happy they didn’t price him at his 1998 price of 100,000.

100,000 for Ponting when he doesn’t make runs In India, against Bhaji and hasn’t been in top form for how long.

Dravid is 95,000 as well, has he taken up bowling?

Jason Krejza is 80,000, surely his price should be a rotting banana and two packets of out of date biscuits.

Anil Kumble at 95,000, please, the way he has been bowling he should be the get one free in the ‘buy one and get one free’.

How are you supposed to pick a team based on this?

And once you get past the overpriced fruit you have to pick XI players that you can afford.

Now I know why I don’t think either team can win, I can’t even pick an XI between them.

India have two inform batsman, Gotham City Gambhir and Sehwag (who is listed as an allrounder just to force you not to pick Shane Watson), and one inform Bowler in Harbhajan.

Australia have two inform batsman, one of which is the krab katich, and the other is King Probot Mike Hussey, and two inform bowlers in Lee & Clark.

Ofcourse these are the expensive players, so fitting them in is not even that easy.

I managed to get all of them in except Clark and Hussey.

But that is when the real fun starts.

You have to pick from the rabble.

I decided not to pick anyone recently injured, or in shocking form, so there wasn’t much left.

I picked Michael Clarke, because I figured he might as well be an allrounder for this trip.

Picked Haddin cause I couldn’t afford Dhoni, and I still don’t trust him.

Took RP Singh and Mitchell Johnson because they both have good records against this opposition, and cause I could afford them.

I took VVS because he plays like God against Australia, and at 90,000 he is a bargain basement special compared to Dravid or Tendulkar, both of which I could have afforded in the end.

And Badrinath was selected because the only other Indian batsman I could afford was Ganguly.

And fuck that.

So my team is:

Clarke
Badrinath
Laxman
Gambhir
Katich
Sehwag
Haddin
Harbhajan
Lee
RP Singh
Johnson

I feel so dirty for picking Katich, but at 90,000 bucks, he is a pretty good buy.

Dammit.

The team is called the giant adams apple XI, and I expect mediocre things from them.

The unofficial coach is Slug Jordan.www.cricketwithballs.com... Aussie Haiku straight to your box