On Sticking Ones' Neck Out

Never have I felt so good, after having gotten something so horribly wrong.

So I will attempt to take my chances once again:

• Ponting is due a big score. He will come good in Adelaide.


• Brad Hogg -- who, in the light of Shaun Tait's inept showing, seems like a much better bowler -- will return and do a good job.


• Hayden's return would ensure a hundred plus opening stand, denting India's hopes for bowling Australia out cheaply.


• Australia, after having had a long hard look at themselves, will bounce back and thump India to win the series 3-1.


• Bonus Prediction: An irate fan would somehow enter the ESPN-Star studio in Adelaide and give a nice little whack on Gavaskar's mouth. Seriously, I haven't seen more shit flow so freely from the mouth of a legend than I have seen from the supposed little master, over the past few weeks. Someone, quick, bite his head off.

Mark my words.

That is all.

Brief Comment on the Cricket

Few things have emerged, and will emerge, during the next couple of weeks. But let's assume the following:

• Bhajji doesn't get banned. As a matter of fact, he is not banned; the ICC have caved in to BCCI's demands. But after the proposed hearing let us assume he is free to play the rest of the series; or the Perth test, at least.


• Brad Hogg does/does not get banned. The irrelevance of this assumption will be discussed in detail later.


• Bucknor is removed (which has already happened), and we have error free umpiring for the rest of the series.

Now, here is a prediction of events that will unfold from the next test match. This isn't a wild prediction, but one would tend to agree, upon reading this, that it is certainly possible.

• The third test at Perth, having the quickest and bounciest wicket in Australia and, arguably, the world, would render Harbhajan's presence in the side unnecessary. He gets dropped from the Perth test.


• Brad Hogg's place in the side would similarly be surplus to requirements. A new monster, in Shaun Tait, whose pace could at times make Brett Lee look like a Venkatesh Prasad, is unleashed -- much like Lee was in 1999.


• Umpiring decisions would be largely irrelevant, as the Aussies would not even break sweat had they been asked to pick 15 Indian wickets per innings. The pace and movement would be just too much for us Indians. (May I suggest an innings defeat?) In hindsight, I am surprised how the last two tours to Australia never saw us play in Perth.

The only way India could have done anything to gain respectability in this tour would have been to have won in Sydney, accepted defeats in Perth and Melbourne, and tried to draw in Adelaide. Ideally, they could have batted sensibly in Melbourne but that is asking for too much.

Easier said than done, but surely, a repeat of 2003 was asking for too much anyway.

Which is why I was really keen on BCCI calling off the tour on the pretext of Harbhajan's 'racial abuse' situation -- in a damage limitation exercise. That way, we could say, we lost the first test and didn't really lose the second. In fact, some would lay claim to a 1-1 result. Heads held high, moral victory -- rhetoric that normally means more to us than actual wins.

Of Lakshmi Mittal and Football Clubs

I am expecting this piece of news to make it big in the Indian media. Lakshmi Mittal (yeah that steel guy) is apparently linked with a possible takeover of English Premier League football club Birmingham. I remember the frenzy when Baichung Bhutia moved to third division side Bury.

For those who don't follow football that much and have heard only names like Chelsea and Manchester United, Chelsea were a mediocre club before a Russian billionaire bought the club. Now they are a world power in football. He was worth around 9 billion pounds. Mittal is worth double at around 19.25 billion!

Although Mittal's decision to buy the club would be from a purely personal and a business standpoint, expect the media to start talking about how that is going to improve Indian football. Or better, "Does that mean football following is on the rise in India?" Or rather the usual, "Will we qualify for the next World Cup?"

What fun, no? I can't wait for it. (Please TOI, NDTV, Aaj Tak and co. Don't disappoint me!)

Subhash Chandra and Twenty20 Get Serious

Just yesterday when I saw this article on Cricinfo, it got me really interested in the whole thing about Subhash Chandra's plans of emulating Kerry Packer.

Brian Lara, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and "more big names to follow" are being linked to a breakaway Twenty20 competition taking place in India this October, according to the latest issue of Spin magazine. There is expected to be a formal announcement on the same on May 14.

Getting top level stars of the quality of McGrath and Lara mean many things apart from just the excitement it would generate.

United Clinch Premiership Title, Spidey disappoints

At long last. After waiting three years it must be said, the result is satisfying to say the least. Chelsea needed to beat Arsenal to stay in the hunt for the league title, but they only managed a draw, after being down to ten men.

So now I will celebrate in the quiet confines of my apartment and get back to regular blogging later.

By the way, Spider-Man 3 is a major let down after the high standards set by its predecessors. The ending fight sequence was reduced to a circus act with public cheering and reporters covering it with inane remarks. Although, I suppose a dubbed Spider Man 3 will do well in the Hindi Heartland. Trust me, it's got plenty of Sunny Deol moments!

Kaka Blows United's Treble Dreams

I fleetingly mentioned United's clinical demolition of Roma in the Champions' League quarterfinal. I wrote a preview to the first leg of the semi final against Milan on Soccerlens. However yesterday, in the second leg of the semi final, was when I saw some past masters of the game systematically take apart a team that had till now played breathtaking football. Kaka, a player that I admire a lot (as long as he is in the colours of Brazil) and company, showed how to keep the ball and play a team that looked terribly sluggish and out of sorts. It was heartbreaking.

I did my share of post-match analysis on Soccerlens. Go ahead and read it. On the subject of soccer and Man Utd, I suggest you read this excellent post by the Decayed Canine. Echoes a lot of similar sentiments about being a Man Utd fan (or even being a fan in general), but written much better than what I could ever manage.

Lionel Messi - Maradona Comparisons Resurface

This is for those football 'fans' who wake up once in four years for the World Cup and lapse into deep football insulation after that. Although it becomes harder to ignore feats such a this [refer Youtube video]. Plenty has been said about Messi's potential to fulfill the prophecies that burden a lot of Argentinian child prodigies - the inevitable comparisons with the great Maradona. As much as it has been difficult for most of the 'prodigies' to live up to such standards, the more I watch Messi, the more I am compelled to believe that he might after all be the real deal. This clip thats in the news these days comes closest to Maradona's famous goal against England. Watch this, as he skins four Getafe players on his way to glory. Notice the low center of gravity as he turns ever so quickly leaving other players dazed, and the acceleration as he runs towards the box. The fact that he's just 19 makes for scary viewing/reading.

Twenty20 in India

Okay, I had to break my silence on this. It's terribly galling to know that a tournament of such significance to Indian cricket gets such treatment from the media, the fans and the board. I find it hard to believe that a format that brought the crowds back into the stadiums in England and South Africa finds it hard to bring in people in the 'Mecca' of Indian cricket - Mumbai. And this is when the big 'stars' are playing. (Those people who bring up the topic of Ranji trophy having sparse crowds, kindly read up material online on the Challenger trophy.) This article on Cricinfo was particularly interesting, to quote:

Of Sepp Blatter and Indian sport

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has urged India to focus more on football than cricket.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Monday urged cricket-mad India to embrace football, saying the sport had a great future in the land of one billion people."At present we are working on Vision Asia and our plan for India is big. We are saying 'win in India with India'," Blatter told Reuters in an interview. "We want to wake up the sleeping giant. In the 1960s, the national team was good, but India has probably lost its way."

Treble Dreams Still Alive

It's been a feature of United's performance throughout this season, with all their attacking verve and flair, demolishing teams at will. But to do such a feat in Europe was going to take something special. Today's UEFA Champions' League quarterfinal against Roma was one such example of pure footballing masterclass. A team that was trailing by two goals to one in the first leg, and on the back of a limp defeat to Portsmouth three days ago, such a revival was totally out of the blue. We have seen Arsenal's famed artistry fade away due to their profligacy in front of goal, Chelsea's clinical efficiency overshadowed by their mechanical play. But today was a demonstration of poetry in motion (to borrow a beaten to death cliche) that combined clinical efficiency to a ruthless level.

In the Premiership they are ahead of Chelsea by a slender three points and play lowly Watford in the FA Cup where they could in all certainty meet Chelsea in the final. Highly improbable though it may seem, the heady 'Treble' year of 1999 still come to mind. It's still a long way off. But today's masterful performance was a day to remember and enough to let other teams shudder at the thought of playing United.

In case you have missed Manchester United's 7-1 demolition of AS Roma, here is where you can see the goal videos. [via Soccerlens]

India shown the door

Didn't we see it coming? No how could we? After all... all those companies that sponsored the Cup are Indian, aren't they? (At least they all have major Indian market presence)

In a brilliant exhibition of bird brained batting, the Men in Blue (or should we say the Blue Man Group) hit balls perfectly aimed down inviting Sri Lankan throats. The gleeful Lankans lapped up every offering and, even in case of minor slip-ups, like a dropped catch off Dravid's sweep, the Indians made sure they got another chance.The happiest people in the ground were of course Dav Whatmore's bongs congratulating each other for a job well done.

Now that they are out I can rest in peaceful knowledge and get back to more meaningful stuff like regular blogging. Unless of course the shady people who got to Woolmer attempt something of the kind in requesting Bangladesh to lose against Bermuda. Because, seriously there is probably no one in their right minds who would actually lose to Bermuda. Or is there a chance? Ah well! Hope springs eternal!

Of course now that they are out early, they could spend the time playing some Twenty20 and preparing for the next event, given they have the least experience playing that form of cricket. Like experience counted this time round anyway.

The Juggernaut Finally Awakens… but Alarm Bells still Ringing

The Team finally performed to what they were famed for. Although, you have to feel sorry for poor little Bermuda. Surely they were not going to put up much of a fight. This performance however proves that the Indians (and Greg Chappell) value their lives as well as their property, as Dhoni had to find out the other day. Now I am sure by the end of the day, the media and the Indian public will have forgotten the Bangladesh game. Agreed, the batting today was mostly flawless (save for certain frailties which I will not go into). But what stirs my ire has got to do with the team selection. Sehwag played well today but the team were taking a huge risk banking on a player who hadn't scored a century in over two years before this. He is terribly destructive on his day, but his inconsistency has been cause for a lot of concern. While Sehwag's continued selection could be largely attributed to his being good bed-chums with Dravid, Dinesh Karthik must be cursing the lack of bed-space. The guy has done little wrong over the past few months. Consistent with the bat and a brilliant fielder - something that's lacking in the team at the moment - he might be wondering what he needs to do to even have a sniff in the batting order. Sending Sachin to open with Ganguly and bringing in Karthik in place of Uthappa would best serve the batting as it would lend solidity in the middle among mindless sloggers like Sehwag and Dhoni. Of course, going by the way Yuvraj is playing, he is going to be beyond anyone's reproach for a long time. He is in a different zone altogether along with, maybe, Gibbs. Ganguly has become Mr. Responsible and Dependable and he will be the key player come Sri Lanka and Murali.

But batting apart, the cracks that actually appeared in this game were really in the bowling department. Munaf Patel has been economical, and the bowling in general did the job required of them with the kind of opposition they had today, but it is worrying if seen closely. Hemp the only batsman to have shown some resistance of any kind was unbeaten at the end and he's had a pretty good first class average while playing for Glamorgan in the English county. So my reasoning (at the risk of appearing slightly specious) is that, presented with half a decent batting order, we would struggle to bowl teams out/restrict them to low scores. I am not a great fan of Sreesanth, who despite good energy and variety tends to fall short in terms of temperament, and Pathan's bowling seems to be nose-diving with each passing day. I am not going to talk about Ajit Agarkar because people have better described him. Call me alarmist, spoil sport or whatever expletive that might spring to mind, but I wonder if the bowling and fielding (things which were mostly faultless in '03) can really hold up together this time round.

As mentioned earlier, there will be little by way of match reports or analysis and more of personal rants and opinions on the World Cup, from my side. For actual reports you could move over to the nice blokes who have taken such pains to keep you well informed.

Sometimes I wish, for my own semester's sake, that India get knocked out early! I know, I know. It's just a wish. Don't crucify me.

World Cup ‘Fever’

It's a strange feeling. Just when you resign yourself to the truth that the Americans couldn't (and would never) care less about football (soccer), you have another sporting event that most of them will never ever hear of in their lifetimes. Quite understandable, their hatred for Britishness. Baseball and American football were invented out of a need to play sports that were not British, during the freedom movement. While soccer keeps flitting, albeit briefly, in and out of the American consciousness - once in four years like the Olympics - due to the sizeable Hispanic influence, cricket would mean no more than either the insect or this. So for desis living in the American heartland, things could feel strange and lonely during the World Cup.

I feel sorry for those desis who had come to the US about 10 years ago. Must have been some sacrifice, missing the biggest sporting event of the homeland. Those were the days of the dial-up and the odd broadband service, when cable companies might have charged a graduate student's yearly salary for a World Cup package. Thanks to hi-speed internet, as I have said earlier in connection with Joost and online TV shows, live sporting events are cheap (and *whisper*... even free!). I have been doing some savage searching on the net, looking for decent world cup packages. For those of you looking for legal options, Dish network has the rights in the Americas and offers it for a measly sum of $199!

But I am not here to talk about the TV option. There are a whole lot of sites that have good paid coverage which are much cheaper. cric20 promises the entire package for $100 and if you use Google Checkout by March 10th to buy it, you can get it for $70. They have another package where you get the matches of a particular team plus semis plus final for $60 and individual games for $2. But if you are bent upon not spending a penny, then there is the Sopcast option, which is the P2P software for streaming television. Neither legal nor illegal, it is in the gray zone where much of modern internet technology falls. Sopcast which can be downloaded from here, has a whole bunch of preloaded channels that can be selected and watched. But it is highly unlikely there will be a cricket channel. So there lies the challenge. Of looking for links that can be used with the software. So my random surfing brought me to www.tnlcricket.com. It has a lot of Google ads among others cluttering up the site, but the focal point is the small chat box in the middle of the page where people give out links to matches that can be used either with Sopcast or with IE7. Highly unreliable, but that is the price for free streams. If people get any other sites with free streams, let me know. I'll be grateful.

Back to the cricket, it is good in a way that I am not in the middle of the media madness that descends in India during the world cup. The frenzy that gets drummed up makes one feel that this is THE world cup for India. I have a rather more detached view this time round. Funnily, I am more concerned about Manchester United lasting the distance (and regaining the EPL title) with all their sudden spurt of injuries than with the Indian team that just cantered to a win against WI the other day. The main challenge is to make it past the Super 8, and after that I might start getting real serious.

Somehow, I am more excited about the Twenty20 World Cup later this year. India has hardly played any Twenty20.

Back to school… and some other things

Like they say, "Stuff happens". Or, was it stuff or something other word that starts with 's'?

Nevermind.

Just as I begin to get rid of the indolence that characterized the sleepy month, that was December (and early January), I wake up to the rudeness of a mid term test this week. I use the word 'rudeness' due to its ruthless timing. And it doesn't exactly begin or end with the test. The forewarning was there. But it was not your usual lull - before - the - mild - storm thing. More like a sensuous - kiss - followed - by - brutal - murder (murderer's face glowing with enormous pride and satisfaction). The murder of the kind we have been accustomed to on the increasingly tired looking Saw series of movies. Anyway, that would also be the end of my use of analogies due to them being generally rubbish. It's something like George Bush consciously attempting standup comedy. (Ah damn! I'm sorry, I'll stop it. No more of it. I assure you, so read on.)

Talking of Bush, reminds me... I read about Barack Obama making his speech in Chicago today, officially declaring his decision to run for Presidency. I have been reading quite a bit about him these days and having seen Hillary's speech a couple of weeks ago felt tempted to watch his speech. Now I am not a sucker for political speeches, nor am I even well versed in the American political system (apart from the knowledge that they have a bi-party system and they have the Congress and the Senate) to pass judgements. But there was some level of honesty when he spoke about a lot of things that made Hillary's speech seem hollow. From what I've read and seen about him, he strikes me as extremely knowledgeable and intelligent and his biggest test would come from the conservative strongholds and the fact that he's African-American. Of course, he is still the second popular candidate from the Democrats, after Hillary at the moment. I guess either of them might be better than the half-wit that currently runs things.

Getting back to my life - however uneventful but nonetheless, the central theme of this blog - there were quite a few firsts for me over the past 6 months here. More recently was the experience of watching Superbowl XLI (on the telly of course!) and the ads that dot the Superbowl, both of which were underwhelming to say the least. Save for an ad or two they were generally ones that would force you to go to the kitchen to grab a drink or chips. Oh, I forgot, American ads are not very different in terms of quality from our Desi ones. The difference is that they screw up trying to look smart. I was also disappointed watching a lop-sided Super Bowl in general. The team I supported (Indianapolis Colts) did win but I expected a certain level of thrill that I have become accustomed to while watching (American) football. My interest in the game of course stretches way back to September 2006! So with that kind of understanding of the game, my loyalties to NFL clubs will remain fickle for a long time to come. But as far as college football (or college sports in general) is concerned, my loyalties are firmly with the Aggies and I've never been more pleased than with their recent win over the Longhorns (in both football and basketball). The football win was more satisfying given the Longhorns' apparent superiority as far as the dodgy BCS ranking system goes.

American football will always remain low in my favorite sports list that is currently led by the football I grew up watching followed by cricket that is fast becoming a distant second. Which is shocking, what was once at the very top of my list. I rememeber the days when I turned on the T.V over an hour before the coin toss to see Ravi Shastri say the Indian batting order are the best and turned off the T.V only after the post game show where (after a thumping loss) Mr Expert Shastri say the batsman aren't good enough. There were also days where I would read The Hindu's elaborate coverage on the Ranji trophy, players that I would read about and hope they would one day make it big at the international level. Coming to America and the obvious lack of coverage in the media to the game were not my major excuses. I just got sick of the game. I'm sure the World Cup would have lots of fires to rekindle.

I have a mid term test to study for and an avalanche of assignments to tackle. Will cut this post short.

And yeah, I am sure I wouldn't be able to cut out the analogies in the future. Be warned.

Some badly outdated observations

 

A couple of days back I got to learn something that that went like a dart through my heart.

It would need another 15 days before I can reunite with my hard disk. I have already spent more than two weeks without it, now that I fail to realize how I actually managed all that. But the prospect of facing another fortnight without my best ‘friend’ seems grimmer than anything else. So, the last movie that I watched seemed an eternity ago when I desperately went to watch not one, but four movies in a row. This included a three-hour-plus docu/movie called ‘Munich’ and a two-hour plus (and what I can safely term, over-hyped) movie called ‘Leon’. Yes, they are pretty old flicks. But so is the length of the gap between my two posts, though I may be excused this time for the lack of a hard disk.

 

Getting back to where I intend to take this rant, ‘Munich’ has only helped affirm my faith in Speilberg as a cinematic giant when it comes to handling movies of as large a scale as this, or a sensitive, controversy ridden subject as explosive as either this or ‘Schindler’s List’ for that matter. While at the hands of lesser directors, Schindler’s List could have very easily sunk into oblivion, due to the monumental task one might be up against at the editing table, while Munich would have been no less intimidating. A task that is more about the direction and screenplay rather than the other relatively minor detail called editing. It could have so easily been reduced to a mere commercial revenge flick that could have made the majority cross-section of people remark: Wow! These Mossad guys rock! But we learn as Stevie reveals to us during the course of his magnum opus through the expressions of the Israeli-accented-ever-improving Eric Bana (though I had a feeling he let his American accent slip in from time to time.), that there are underlying elements far more important than just one-upmanship and revenge. After the aberration that was The War of the Worlds, he seems to have found his touch handling the subject of his heart - Jews and Israel. Leon, unfortunately does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath of Munich so I’ll leave it at that. You could watch it for the cute face of Natalie Portman, who by the way is a 12 year old girl in the movie.

 

On to other affairs, one of the most unnecessary and self defeating feature of Orkut is that a user is allowed to edit his name field. Agreed, when you search for your friend XYZ without knowing his new name his profile will still show up, but my question is why on earth would someone want to change his name unless he has REALLY changed his name such as our very own SuniEl Shetty or RitEIsh Deshmukh. An example of what I am trying to drive at is that of a guy with a pretty good name of his own changing to something like “I m a Rebel (Loose Control)”. Yes that is his new name on Orkut. Not only does it look bad, it also displays his inability to differentiate between ‘Loose’ and ‘Lose’

 

The other irritating thing that came on view over the past month is Hindi commentary in football matches. It is the latest thing in ESPN-Star’s long line of products of idea droughts witnessed in recent years. The droughts it seems is increasing with every passing year. One of the early cases in point being the infamous Shaz and Waz shows and Waz Akram hosting fooball locker room. The least of the problems with the commentator is his uncanny ability to confuse one player (as little known as Raul of Real Madrid) with another. Pray the Hindi commentary does not haunt the World Cup.

 

That would be the end of what has been a progressively negative post. Would retire for now, to return with brighter things to say, some other day.