Last year, the Washington Redskins cheerleaders took a trip to India to help teach aspiring rah-rah girls how to entertain fans of professional cricket. It seems to have been a successful visit, as lovely sideline ladies have become a staple of the Indian Premier League.

And one cricket team owner decided to take cheerleading tryouts one step further by turning the process into a reality TV series. Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood actor & co-owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders (a.k.a. KKR) cricket club, produced the series “Knights & Angels“, where contestants competed to take one of six open slots on the team’s cheerleading squad. The lucky gals were selected in early April, and were all set to peform for KKR during the team’s upcoming trip to South Africa.

Unfortunately, the girls never got the chance.

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Uh-oh. Buffalo doesn’t have much going for it, so reminding every Bills fan of the one time they were a foot and a half from winning the Super Bowl isn’t really a great idea. Ryan Lindell joined Scott Norwood in the “wide right” hall of fame as the Bills lost to the Browns 29-27 on Monday night. It’s not an earth-shattering loss. I don’t think Vincent Gallo’s going to make a movie about shooting Lindell or anything. But it does drop the Bills to 5-5, which is now last place in the AFC East. Remember when they were going to run away with this division? Making all this more painful is the fact that Browns kicker Phil Dawson nailed a 56-yarder a minute earlier to take the lead.

(It was all downhill from here)

Still, it’s tough to pin this all on Lindell. People miss 47-yard field goals all the time, and Lindell isn’t the one who threw three picks in the first quarter (that would be the suddenly terrible Trent Edwards). And while the Browns did win tonight with Brady Quinn at the helm, I’m not ready to call him a difference maker. His completion percentage tonight was lower than Manny Ramirez‘ batting average with the Dodgers.

Get ready, Buffalo, because the Sabres are probably losing their next game on a goal with like four people standing in the crease.

College basketball always just comes out of nowhere, doesn’t it? ESPN is in the midst of a season-opening marathon of games. As you read this, Penn is preparing to play Drexel (tipoff at 10 a.m. Eastern). Earlier this morning, Saint Mary’s beat Fresno State 99-85 in a game that started at 11 p.m. on the west coast (2:00 in the east), followed by Hawaii’s 67-64 overtime win over Idaho State that tipped off at just after 4:00 a.m. in the east (11:00 Hawaii time). I don’t know if I’m supposed be proud of the fact that I watched both games in their entirety. ESPN is continuing to show games live all day today, culminating in Kentucky-North Carolina. I figure that since UK can’t beat VMI, they’ll be lucky to stay within 40 of the Heels.

The best game of the day should be Davidson’s matchup with Oklahoma. Each team has a pre-season first-team All-American (Stephen Curry and Blake Griffin, respectively).

Don’t tell Donovan McNabb (he’s already too confused), but they don’t have ties in college football anymore. That means that somebody has to win this weekend’s Apple Cup debacle between Washington and Washington State, who are a combined 0-20 against FBS teams this year. And the line is set: Washington by 8 1/2, according to the SEATTLE TIMES. Yes, a winless team with a lame duck coach is an 8 1/2-point road favorite in a conference game. The Cougars have been outscored 440-61 in eight Pac-10 losses (that’s an average loss of 55-7).

It’s the harvest season, so think of today’s links as being delivered to you in a cornucopia:

• Utah has a lot on the line in Saturday’s game against BYU. Win, and they’re in the BCS. Lose, and they’re probably going to the Poinsettia Bowl. The SALT LAKE TRIBUNE examines the situation, and the financial windfall that would come from the BCS bid, not just for Utah but for the entire Mountain West. In all honesty, it would be better for BYU as a university to lose the game.

• Things aren’t so rosy up the road at Utah State. They’ve fired their coach, Brent Guy, effective at the end of the season (what ever happened to just cutting a guy loose and going interim?) THE SPORTS NETWORK has the details.

• Oh yeah, baby. Cricket cheerleaders! But it’s India, so they can’t wear skimpy outfits. And it looks like there’s some dudes too. LION IN OIL shares our disappointment.

• BUFFZONE says five Colorado players had stuff stolen from their lockers during Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma State.  The game was in Boulder. Way to rob the wrong team, there, thief guys.

•  NJIT (that’s the New Jersey Institute of Technology) lost its 35th consecutive game last night, a Division I record. The Highlanders (because nothing says rugged terrain like Newark) might not technically go in the record books, though, since they are a “transition” member of Division I. The AP has the game story.

• Citigroup is laying off 53,000 workers, but BIZ OF BASEBALL says the Mets informed him that they will still be getting $20 million a year from the company for naming rights to the new Mets’ stadium.

• We have a double-feature from  TAMPA BAY’S 10. First we have the story of a lady who’s being told that she can’t say “Ref you suck” at Buccaneers games anymore because it violates some code of conduct bullcrap. Because there’s nobody in NFL stadiums saying worse things than that. Here’s a picture of the woman:

Yeah, she’s a real threat to society.

In other Tampa Bay news, a 21-year-old woman decided it would be a good idea to stab five people at a high school football game.

•  HOME RUN DERBY points out that, by his own criteria, Albert Pujols should not be accepting the NL MVP award. Seems Al said in 2006 that players who don’t take their team to the playoffs shouldn’t win the award.

•  The Yankees sold Darrell Rasner to a team in Japan for $1 million, writes the NY DAILY NEWS. At that price, Hank just needs to sell 27 more guys to make up for Kei Igawa.

• The SAN JOSE MERCURY-NEWS’ Andrew Baggarly wildly claims that the Giants are almost assuredly going to win the World Series next year because they’ve signed Jeremy Affeldt to a two-year deal at $4 million per. If you’re scoring at home, that’s approximately 10 times more than Tim Lincecum made this year. And Baggarly actually doesn’t think the Giants are going to be any good.

• The “Heidi” game was 40 years ago yesterday. If you don’t know how it all went down, here’s some video. Particularly brutal is the scene where a girl is shown falling out of a wheelchair and attempting to walk while the final score of the game scrolls at the bottom:

The Washington Redskins cheerleaders are taking their act overseas, as the pom-pom girls of the NFL have been over in India, introducing their sideline entertainment to fans of cricket.

But as Michael David Smith of AOL FANHOUSE points out, some of the locals are seeing red, while others like seeing the skin.

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