Yes, it’s that time when we, the media, call the people whom we have battered through the year and offer them a Person Of The Year (POTY) nomination or award so that they don’t mind our battering in the following year. This space, however, the beacon of independent reportage that it has been (we have repeatedly snubbed offers of pavilion tickets to exciting matches such as CLT20 quarters or the India-Windies tests made to influence our opinion), has no stake in any upcoming league nor cousins in any existing teams and hence will give these awards with utmost integrity. Our title – POTY – doesn’t stand for anything (we don’t have a sponsor) but just refers to a routine morning activity. Gentlemen and the few lady followers of Indian sport, put your hands together for our winners… The #LikeaBoss Award Foremost, we must give it to the man who led our cricket team to World Cup victory, and beat the pressure of a billion Sachin fans, the foreign ministry, advertisers, Hindi news channels and somewhat of the competing teams. He hit that six and nonchalantly uprooted the stumps that April evening, like a boss. [caption id=“attachment_165086” align=“alignleft” width=“385” caption=“MS Dhoni led India to the World Cup and Chennai Super Kings to the IPL title. AFP”]  [/caption] Later, he won his team another IPL title, like a boss. Soon, when his team was whitewashed, bruised and jaded on an England tour, he admitted that we sucked, like a boss. He hit the winning runs twice in a revenge ‘brownwash’ series and walked away, stump in hand, like a boss. And he skipped a pointless home series and instead got a haircut, visited a temple and signed deals, like a boss. Well of course, he is Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Pointless Stat of the Year We’re still looking for that person who, in a casual outing at Cricinfo’s Sachin Tendulkar page, discovered that if the batman’s ODI and test hundreds were to be added, they would total to 100. Eureka! An utterly pointless ‘record’ was created, leading to a spiked interest in the game, especially with the said batsman failing to reach the 100th century on all awaited big occasions. Governments are till date waiting with bated breath, newly packaged products are paused for a launch and the batsman himself is getting sick of ‘99’ jokes. This has only set a trend of more pointless Sachin records. Like when Sehwag made his epic 219, Sachin was given the record of being the slowest batsman to score an ODI double ton. We bet that after this famous hundred, someone will add up his Ranji and Harris shield hundreds/runs/sixes and come up with another astonishing, soon-to-be-achieved record. For now, give it away to Sachin’s 100th hundred! Longest Walk Back Award This year, an iconic sportsman, a North-Eastern hero and the only guy an average countryman recalls when asked about ‘Indian football’, hung up his boots after an inspiring career. His walk into the sunset, however, was marked with an anxious eight-hour walk he made from his home in Tinkitam village, Sikkim, to reach his pregnant wife in Gangtok after a major earthquake in the region cut off all communication. Although he’s the ‘only sung’ hero of the sport in India, we hope the 34-year-old is sung about once more as he bows out in his farewell match v/s Bayern Munich this January, whose earnings, incidentally, will go to victims of the quake. Well played, Sir Bhaichung Bhutia! Best performance in negative role – the ‘World Series’ villians This year proved that a franchisee-based sports league can only function #likeaboss in India if it’s about a game whose name sounds like that of an insect. All the others, namely World Series Hockey (WSH) and World Series Boxing (WSB) would have to battle a battery of evil forces out to wreck TV rights deals, use contracts to divide players and bring up ‘national duty’ issues at opportune moments. While WSB’s ongoing second edition had a neat debut in a Mumbai mall, its Indian franchise Mumbai Fighters is still without star names such as Vijender Singh and other Olympic hopefuls as they couldn’t cut a deal with their managing companies. The WSH is a bigger muddle. Some astute villian work in Hockey India, International Hockey Federation and apparently even in Pakistan Hockey Federation has postponed the league, enraged the broadcaster and confounded the players. Special mention: The ‘Mumbai Fighters’ Facebook page has 705 fans but is aspiring to reach a quarter of the fans ‘Mumbai Indians’ has: 2,334,421. The ‘Flawless Victory’ Performance Sticking to non-cricket awards (at the risk of you dozing off), this one’s for the organisers, authorities and dreamers behind the first Indian Grand Prix in Noida this year. Maybe it was the Common Wealth Games effect, but almost no stories of scandals, corruption, incompletion or frustration marred the debut of Formula 1 in India; which means that either someone did an incredible job, or someone managed to keep the sh*t from hitting the fan. Best Special Appearance: One dog who famously strayed on to the track on practice day and one Mayawati who strayed on to the podium to award Sebastian Vettel for his flawless victory. [caption id=“attachment_165089” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Bhaichung Bhutia retired after a successful career as India’s football captain. AFP”]  [/caption] ‘Most Sung’ Unsung Cricketer We finish with cricket (so you wake up and leave with a pleasant aftertaste) and give another accolade to The Wall, currently so popular, it is giving Pink Floyd the jitters. This year, he reached 13,000 test runs, made a surprise ODI comeback/retirement in the same series but most importantly, spoke (reportedly) exceedingly well at a Bradman Oration lecture, an event nobody knew existed. (‘Reportedly’ because although his experts and fanboys applauded his shrewd observations, none of them stayed awake till its entirety.) This earned him praise again for being so knowledgeable, hard-working yet so ‘unsung’ because of his luminous contemporary Tendulkar who can’t even get 100 hundreds. That, dear audience, is Rahul Dravid! Although we must mention that VVS Laxman was a close contender for this award. Thanks for attending, you all! With next year scheduled to hold the i1 Super Series, Euro Championships, Olympics and of course, more cricket matches than Virat Kohli’s career runs, we shall be back with some stupendous POTY awards 2012!
Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Bhaichung Bhutia are all part of the Person of the Year (POTY) awards as 2011 comes to an end.
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Written by Malay Desai
Malay Desai is a feature writer with a penchant for travel, food and test cricket. But as none of those pay his credit card bills, he runs the content firm Punchlines.' see more