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By:

Waleed Hussain

4 March 2025 at 2:34:30 pm

When T20 Cricket Finally Admitted It Was Professional Wrestling with Pads

At the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi Capitals committed the ultimate act of sporting arrogance. They racked up 264 for 2, patted themselves on the back, and presumably started drafting victory tweets. KL Rahul delivered a masterclass 152 not out, Nitish Rana chipped in with 91, and the Delhi dugout looked like they had just invented fire. The bowlers? They were already mentally booking spa appointments to recover from the trauma of watching the ball sail into the stands like it owed them money....

When T20 Cricket Finally Admitted It Was Professional Wrestling with Pads

At the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi Capitals committed the ultimate act of sporting arrogance. They racked up 264 for 2, patted themselves on the back, and presumably started drafting victory tweets. KL Rahul delivered a masterclass 152 not out, Nitish Rana chipped in with 91, and the Delhi dugout looked like they had just invented fire. The bowlers? They were already mentally booking spa appointments to recover from the trauma of watching the ball sail into the stands like it owed them money. Enter Punjab Kings — the team that treats every run chase like a personal vendetta against bowlers’ self-esteem. What unfolded wasn’t cricket. It was a carefully orchestrated heist, a stand-up routine where the punchline was delivered in sixes, and the audience (Delhi’s bowling unit) was left questioning every life choice that led them to this moment. Prabhsimran Singh swaggered to the crease like a man who had already won the match in the parking lot. 76 off 26 balls. Nine fours, five sixes. The powerplay? A grotesque 100+ runs of pure, unadulterated violence. Bowlers weren’t just getting hit — they were being publicly shamed, their economy rates dragged through the mud and left there to dry under the Delhi sun. Priyansh Arya joined the carnage, and suddenly the target of 265 started looking as intimidating as a “Wet Floor” sign in a flooded bathroom. Shreyas Iyer, the dignified captain, played the role of “responsible adult” with 71 not out off 36 deliveries. In any other match, this would be carnage. Here, it passed for calm stewardship. While others swung like they were trying to chop down trees, Iyer collected runs with the serene expression of a man wondering if he should order paneer or butter chicken post-match. Punjab polished off the target in 18.5 overs, six wickets intact, seven balls to spare, and the sort of casual swagger usually reserved for people returning overdue library books without a fine. The broader satire writes itself. Modern T20 cricket has become an arms race where the only loser is the concept of a “respectable total.” Bowlers, once proud warriors, are now glorified ball-fetchers in a batting-dominated circus. Pitches are flatter than election promises, boundaries shorter than Gen Z attention spans, and rules so batter-friendly that even the umpires look sympathetic. Delhi built what should have been a monument — a glorious 264 on a road so true it could have doubled as a highway — only for Punjab to drive a monster truck through it while blasting horns and waving at spectators. Cricket purists are in full meltdown mode, huddled in dimly lit rooms, clutching faded copies of Wisden and muttering about “the good old days when maidens existed.” Commentators exhausted every superlative in the English language and resorted to incoherent screaming. Social media, naturally, lost its collective mind. One half celebrated Punjab as gods of the new era; the other half demanded a return to red-ball cricket, preferably with uncovered pitches and bowlers allowed to glare menacingly without fear of a demerit point. This result wasn’t merely a win. It was a cultural reset. Punjab Kings, long the lovable underachievers of the IPL, have now authored the top two highest successful chases in league history. They’re not just winning matches — they’re embarrassing the very idea of defending a total. At this rate, future IPL auctions will see teams bidding for “bowlers who can at least pretend to try” while batters demand appearance fees for showing up. Delhi Capitals deserve a special mention for their contribution to this farce. They provided the perfect setup: a record total, star performances, home advantage, and the quiet confidence that physics and common sense would finally prevail. Instead, they became the straight man in Punjab’s comedy routine. Rahul’s heroics? Reduced to a footnote. The match? Less a contest, more performance art. In the end, this is what we’ve come to love and loathe about T20 cricket. It’s loud, ridiculous, utterly devoid of restraint, and endlessly entertaining. Bowlers may demand hazard pay or form a union. Traditionalists may threaten to boycott. But the crowds will keep coming, the sixes will keep flying, and records will continue to fall like overpriced IPL franchise valuations. Punjab Kings didn’t just chase 265. They chased away any remaining illusion that this sport still resembles the gentleman’s game our grandparents watched. In its place stands a glittering, chaotic, six-hitting machine — and honestly? We’re all better for it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check the points table. Apparently, defending anything above 200 is now considered radical extremism.

The Power of Her

Updated: Mar 7, 2025

‘The Perfect Voice’ celebrates strong, trailblazers in this series with stories of women who brave battles every day that serve as an inspiration to the next generation. We have daughters fulfilling their parent’s dreams, victims of domestic abuse rebuilding their lives and professionals dealing with the famous ‘mom guilt’.


Part - 5


A Recipe for Success

Hemangi Nakwe, Mumbai

Hemangi Nakwe

Her childhood passion for food and cooking helped Hemangi Nakwe, 50, tide over a financial crisis that hit the family in June 2020. Her husband, who was working as a Photo Editor with an English daily newspaper, lost his job, almost overnight. “More than 350 people were laid off and the Mumbai bureau was shut down,” says Nakwe. The looming fear of managing the household, hit the couple. “We had a home loan and the amount was fairly large so that worried us all the more. Sitting idle and worrying wasn’t an option. I had to do something to run my home,” she says.


Nakwe turned to what she knew best—cooking. While growing up with two sisters, their mother made them learn the basics of cooking. “At the age of seven years, I could knead dough; then my mother taught me how to make puris and then moved on to learn how to make perfectly round rotis,” she says. Nakwe, who grew up in Ambernath, studied commerce and then home science where she took up cookery as her subject. Proper and rigorous training at home and in college, instilled in her the skills to cook for people beyond her family. “I loved watching my mother and my aunt cook and learnt the intricacies of cooking from them and subsequently from my mother-in-law,” she says.


Barely a month after her husband lost his job, the couple decided to start cooking for people. It helped that those were times when people were functioning without house-helpers and cooks and restaurants were closed. They started testing their food on friends and acquaintances and sought feedback. Nakwe’s husband was in-charge of cleaning, washing and chopping the vegetables. He’d clean disposable plastic containers thoroughly before filling them with food. With this, Hemas Veg Rasoi was born from their home in Mumbai’s Matunga.


The feedback was encouraging and orders started pouring in. Nakwe went on to launch weekly menus with options of meal subscriptions on a daily basis. “Most of my clients were doctors, working professionals who had no time to cook or elderly people living without help,” she says. Even today, a large chunk of her clients includes the elderly, people living alone or busy corporate professionals. Nakwe, however, keeps the numbers low. “I supply a maximum of 35 meals in a day because I don’t want to compromise on the quality or taste,” she says. Her customers are spread across the city from Andheri to Colaba and her delivery people dispatch the meals.


Just when the business was picking up, Nakwe’s husband had a severe attack of convulsions in November 2020. He fell to the ground with immense force, shattering his shoulder bone. “The doctors said that this was caused by stress. Even though we were running this business, he was under immense stress,” she says. Nakwe nursed him back to health but the recovery took over a year, leaving him without the option of seeking another job. They finally decided to run their business together even as her husband now works with an NGO.


Running a cloud kitchen from home isn’t an easy task. A typical day for Nakwe begins at 6 AM and she finishes cooking lunch by 11.30 AM after which it’s dispatched. At times, she has bulk or party orders or snacks and meals for the evening. She even takes orders for certain special items like puran poli. “My USP is that I customise meals. I remember to not send anything hard or spicy for elderly customers or I replace a sweet with savoury for diabetics,” she says.


Come April, Nakwe will get busy making pickles and masalas for the year ahead, along with her mother and sister. “I don’t use any artificial colours and preservatives in my food,” she says. What began as a desperate attempt to keep the home running has transformed into a successful business that Nakwe and her husband enjoy running. “Now I work without pressure,” she says.

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