The game theory

A new podcast features three comedians dissecting different sports results in a humorous way

Go back to last Sunday, to the Cricket World Cup and men's singles final at Wimbledon. If you watched both matches, recreate the surroundings you were in. There's a high chance that you weren't alone. There were either friends or family with whom you dissected the proceedings in detail. Was the ball missing the stumps when New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor was declared out? Should that game-changing overthrow have yielded five runs, or six? Is it right for the final set in a tennis Grand Slam to be decided on a tiebreaker? All these questions are the subjects of heated debate, and even people who did watch the matches alone would have possibly discussed them with, say, their colleagues the next day. And the simple reason is that sports, as much as it is a physical activity, is also a talking point that people love to engage in.

(From left to right) Siddharth Dudeja, Mikhail Almeida, Aakash Mehta

That's what drove Mumbai-based comedians Aakash Mehta, Mikhail Almeida and Siddharth Dudeja to start a new podcast called Waddaplayah. It began initially with Mehta and Dudeja getting together to discuss games like cricket, football and badminton, with Almeida coming on board later to enlarge the bouquet of sports analysis they present to listeners, given his love for more unusual games like darts. Each episode involves talking about particular sporting events with a healthy dash of humour thrown in. For example, Mehta says in the latest episode on the World Cup semi-finals, "I feel that New Zealand made it this far because they have an extra player, called the rain. First, it made them avoid playing India [in the group stage], and this time, it turned their match into a two-day international."

He tells us, "Podcasts are the least threatening way in which the Internet can permeate your life nowadays. It's the least aggressive medium. There's no comments section in the bottom, it's not being shoved in your face in any way, and even if you skip it, nobody cares," before Almeida adds, "It's essentially a sitcom without a laugh track in the background." They also inform us that a new episode is out every Wednesday, which makes today the ideal time for you to tune in and spend about 40 minutes listening to sports analysis that can also invoke chuckles.

Log on to: ivmpodcasts.com

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