Thank God, It Rained .....

ESPN-Star has launched their new channel to the air, very much to our discomfort, only to prevent us from viewing the English Season. Majority of the cable service providers in the city didn't opted the new channel due to its high charges. Anyways, I’ve got the opportunity to view it in my office cafeteria.

In one of my previous blog, I’ve written about the importance of good starts. When India last toured to England, There were two openers, both different in their styles yet complement to each other. Sanjay Bangar was the gritty customer with his lion hearted performance. Sanjay used the time in the crease to take off the polish from the leather. On the other hand Virender Sehvag was brutal on the red cherry. He has his own way of taking off the shine off the ball. Anyways that helped the Batsmen down the order to excel from where the openers left. Rahul, Sachin and Saurav with others made full use of the starts and drew the series 1-1. One test that was drawn was tilted in favor of India. The Lords, where India lost was a Big Match for India’s “Under Performing Allrounder” (whom many doesn’t claim so, but I do) Ajit Agarkar. Ajit scored 109 and was the last man standing to save the match for India. It was his first appearance in tests at “The Lords”. If you rate his century as any ordinary one, then please go by the books of records. India’s biggest batting power house of the modern era hasn’t scored a century in “Lords”. When Ajit was out as the last wicket, the then English Captain Nasser Hussain asked his teammates to stand at the boundary and let the “Indian Gladiator” Ajit first cross the boundary. This is the old English way to acknowledge one’s performance. The incidence itself says all about the importance of Ajit’s innings. There were some other innings which were magnificent. Century from Viru in seaming conditions and gritty fifty by Sanjay, centuries by Sachin and Saurav, especially their slaughter in the dark at Leeds.

Now compare this with current Indian teams starts. Wasim played in 1^st inning Karthik failed and in 2^nd innings Karthik clicked but Jaffer failed. The important thing is India are not getting starts which they need. The conditions get worse as “Mr Dependable” seems to be out of colors these days. Performances in bits and pieces don’t win a match for you.

On the 1^st day England were in pretty good position to put a huge total. But by the end of the day, Indian bowlers got some important breakthroughs. Next day the last six English wicket felt in a span of just 30 runs, giving a ray of hope to Indians. But other than Jaffer (he too was too slow) no other Indian batsmen played to their potential. In their second innings the English came out firing with Pietersen leading the charge with 134. Tremlet(42) and Skipper Vaughan (30) were other major contributors. Indian Seamers, Rudra Pratap Singh (5) and Zaheer Khan(4) bowled with lots of heart and fire. England managed to score 282, posting a possible but improbable target of 380. Indian’s scored a fighting 282/9 with Karthik (60), Ganguly (40) and VVS (39). But leading the charge was the Jharkhandi “MS Dhoni” with his Undefeated 76. Then came the rain. I’ve first time seen the rain protecting a possible Indian defeat J

Sincerely

"Akhil"

Sachin Missed Ton, India Match ………

You can divide the English Cricket Season in two parts. First part is always going to be difficult, especially for the teams from sub continent. The second part is relatively warm. If you go by the history, you can see most of the Asian teams succeeded in later part. When India last toured it was the later one.



Coming to Belfast, In the last match, Sachin showed that he is still among runs but the pace by which he scored was not up to his Standard. Strike rate of 69.23 is an average in test matches now a days. But given the conditions it was a great effort by Master. Dravid showed why he is the best Indian player abroad with his marvelous 74(93). Lower order was unable to excel at death, but we cannot blame. Thou Karthik played a cameo 19(10) but Indians were restricted to 242.



Then came the reply from Cricket Giants Africans. The RSA team proved why they are so dangerous. After a good start, the wickets fell at regular intervals. Relatively young and inexperienced Indian bowling attack did its best to throw the Africans on backfoot, but the Old War Horse Jaquas Kalis pulled RSA out of the blues to give them a last over 4 wickets victory over fighting Indian.

Thou the scorecard suggest a close match, the Zing was missing in the Indian Team. The team is also effected due to many of the players on the tour are having health issues in alien conditions.

If a solution (even not perfect) is working for you, why do we go for ideal solutions. This is an era of innovation. This applies on sports also. The team with innovative ideas are always successful. There are ample examples for that. Newzealand in 1992 WC came up with Mark Greatbatch as an Opener and Deepak Patel Bowling the 1st over for them. They succeeded. In 1996 WC, SriLanka decided to use the deadly combo Jayasuriya-Kaluwitharana , they succeeded. Ganguly’s Indian team has often played with four bowlers and the results are much better than what it is with 5 bowlers. The teams must go by their strength rather than just going by the books. Current Australian team has no Allrounder, all of them are make-shift allrounders. But they dont go with two allrounders just for the sake that they need allrounders. Often we see that even we are playing with Five bowlers in an ODI we are using our 6th and 7th bowlers. The Five Bowler theory is good for Test Cricket, but I'm least convinced with the current team having five bowlers. You must need 5 World Class performers Inform to go in with 5 bowlers. Given the current Indian side which is in search for a replacement of "Sachin", 5 bowlers may not work.



This is probably the last tour of Sachin to England. The pleasure and joy he has offered to us is incomparable. He is a gem of Indian Sports History. It is a privilege that we born in an era when Sachin played. Every good thing comes to an end and so will Sachin's Innings. He may have failed in his later part of career but the commitment and the enthusiasm he plays with is something that infuses energy to others. Playing for 18 years for any team in world means a lot. Criticizing and questioning one’s capabilities by people who know little about game is meaningless. But yes it’s the people who make these Heroes so they too have a part to play. Probably this is the cost Real Life Heroes have to pay.

We at least thank Sachin for the moments he gave us right through his shining career. Sharjah Glory, infact the whole 1998 was truly memorable one. Not only Indians but the World will miss the "Master Blaster" .......



Sincerely
"Akhil"

Viru: The Risky Exclusion

I'm a cricket follower by heart and soul. Thou these days I do not get much time to follow the game, but I do keep an eye on it. Since last two years the Indian cricket team is going through bad phase. Be it be captain controversy, Sehwag's, Tendulkar's or Dravid's issue. Issues will be always there. We can always find a problem or two when team is loosing. However the cricket administrators in India always go for temporary solutions rather than long time effective one.




Being a sportsman I know how it feels, when you are out of form. The more you try in the middle the more you get trapped. Its just like you are in trap of "ANACONDA" the more you try to get out of its grip the more you get in. Similar problem is with Batsmen. This is not an excuse thou, but if we are trying to win matches, we need match winners. We must not loose them or hurt their confidence. In Sehwag's and Irfan Pathan's case similar things happened. They are down in confidence and badly criticized by those who cannot even face one single ball speeding 100 KMPH.



We talk about team game and teams performance, then why the hell we are not taking individual's performance in team's perspective. A quick hit 45 from Sehwag is much better than a 100 ball 67 from any other guy. Sehwag's quality is his free flow hitting, he may or may not succeed on a given day, but if he does match is yours and you get better return of your money. Few years back Akash Chopra- Sehwag Opening pair was doing good for India. Akash was the perfect complement for Sehwag, why he was removed despite of team's success? The reason was he was not able to convert his 40s to 100s. Now this is a dilemma. We force our players to go for records rather than play for team. Now if the same Akash have had made two 100s in 5 games rather than continuous 40s-50s he should have stayed in the team irrespective of team's success or failure. Similarly we are not taking into the account of flashy start of Sehwag as an asset to Indian team. Instead we are looking how many 50s or 100s he is getting under his belt. If we have to make a team rather than combination of individuals, we must stop looking into personal achievements. Rather we should look into who is and where a particular player fits into team’s composition. This may be the reason why the skipper Dravid fought for Sehwag, cuz he found Sehwag fit on top. Also he is handy with the ball which gives India an extra option in field



On the last tour of England, after initial hiccups Sehwag opened up and was instrumental in team's triumph. To win a test match you need to bowl out the opponent twice. And given the penetration power of Indian bowling attack, we need time. Here the batsman like Sehwag comes into picture, who can take away the game in one or two sessions. We can only hope that the new temporary opening pair click in the unfriendly conditions. It will be definitely not a cake walk for them as it was in the neighboring Bangladesh. Last time gritty Sanjay Bangar along with Sehwag provided some Solid starts, which were influential in India’s success.

In India if you succeed in one match you are greatest Star on the earth and if you fail you are not even worthy to live on this planet. These days the way of opposing has become too violent. Players from the Sub-continent have an extra pressure each time they go out there in the middle to perform. Pressure to perform is always okay and one should be able to cope up with these, but the way people have started showing their anger is not doing any good to the favorite Indian Sports.

Lets hope the mix of fresh and experience will do some good to the team. Also lets hope the Coach Controversy will not hinder the team’s morale.
GOOD LUCK TEAM INDIA

"Akhil"

Reality Shows Bites

To be fair or not to be .... These reality shows (in India lots of them are Musical talent hunts) are dragging themselves in news due to wrong reasons these days. Indian TV has an old history of such reality shows. There are many. Channel [V] launched POP stars hunt and they got it ABOB and VIVA, TVS SAREGAMA and later SAREGAMAPA of ZEE has also given Awsome singers (Shreya Ghosal, Kunal Ganjawala and Chitra are few examples). Even Doordarshan has its Product "Sunidhi Chauhan" through Mahendra Kapoor's "Meri Aawaz Suno". But all these Singers came when these programs were completely judged by Talented judges, rather than relatively Biased audiences. These days even Judges seems to be biased. One incident I've observed on SONY's Reality Talent Hunt recentely. A female judge first named a Singer from Dhanbad as consistent performer and her favorite COOL DUDE as relatively down on singing. But when these two were left at bay from where only one can make it, the host asked her whom would you like to see through she replied her fav "COOL Dude". These are the judgement levels these days. That is the reason the singers coming out of such "REALITY TALENT SHOWS" are just like water bubble, dissapearing in no time.



Also there are few judges who copied whole life and tried their best to become a singer too (thou some composers are HIT, I really respect their effort), but when they comments badly on the aspirants it feels bad. You know BIG Stars are Big Stars not only due to their work, but also due to their Public Behaviour. That is why AB and SRK are big SUPER Stars whereas many who were and are equally talented couldn't make to their Stature

Now coming to the STAR WARS within the shows, which adds XTRA spice to the flavour. The top singers, musicians come here with their EGOS in their kitty. Some conversations are the part of the script, but when they turned personal and goes to media complaining and disrespecting each other (like any school kids), its tastes bad. If they can keep their emotions in control, it would be better for them as well.

Anyways these reality shows are getting success and people feels attached with their fav contestents (Whoever watches these shows). As long as people have no complain these shows will continue to be a hit, especially the music shows, cuz "India Moves on Music".

"Akhil"

What to Gain on the cost of Loosing Life?

What to Gain on the cost of Loosing Life?
The hectic schedule of our lives, especially for the people working for corporates, are getting worse. Sometimes I think why and for what we are running here and there, just for few appreciations or few awards or just to cheat ourselves with so called Insearch of JOB SATISFACTION!!! I'm often puzzled by the terms Personal Growth, Fastlife, Going Places etc etc??
I'm still to get exact answers to these questions. One of my good friends, who is working for one of the biggest PRODUCT Based Software company of the world, once was puzzled by one of my question. He always use to say that he wants to live a fast life.. not these boring slow once ..... I just asked him "What is the fast life mate?". He gave me several examples, no one was able to satisfy me. Later I discovered that "Life can niether be Fast nor Slow", It can be as good or bad as you yourself decide to live.
Human by nature are greedy, We live on the MANTRA "Ye Dil Maange More". If we have Thousands in our Kitty we wants millions, if we have Millions, we go for trillions and so on ..... But the greed never ends. That is why our Big Corporate Houses are trying hands in Vending vegetables at your doorsteps these days. (Though I'm not against it, It was just an example of our greed).
In this rush to achieve more and more what we loose is Peace, We loose a sound sleep, we loose friends, we loose every little bit time for ownself , for our dear ones, Infact we loose our lives.
Does the success comes on the cost of lives?