This week in Cricket (9/7/2008-19/12/2008)

ICC annual awards 2007

Chanderpaul getting recognized as the premier cricketer of the year was the highlight of these awards for me; he has been veryconsistent over last few years amidst heavily inconsistent Westindies batting line up. Dhoni's stocks in world cricket are soaring by every passing day, one day cricketer of the year award is another step in the right direction. It is hearting to see a bowler (Dale Steyn) get test crickter of the year award;Dale Steyn at full flight is a sight to behold; his performances with the ball over last year have been phenomenal.

Australian team for Indian tour

Leaving out Symonds from the team was a statement from Cricket Australia to rest of the team and aspiring Australian players that discipline is top most priority irrespective of the stakes involved. Another point to note is the eagerness of Aussies to start the tour early with an extra practice match. This kind of attitude to game and team is what makes Australians the great team that they are irrespective of the individuals.

I have Blackberry 8320 Curve now

Yesterday I received 8320 curve model for official usage. It feels very intuitive to use from the outset. I have not explored the phone features of it as yet; I have started to like the keyboard and trackball capabilities.

This Week In Cricket (1/9/2008 - 7/9/2008)

England SA one day series

Last match of the series was abandoned. This allowed SA to stay in 2nd position in ICC rankings. This brings curtains to busy international summer in England. For England, return of Flintoff and Harmison looks promising along with confident start by KP on captaincy front.

For SA, as hinted by their coach, Micky Arthur, it is time for some seniors to give away for youngsters in shorter form of the game. The most likely ones to get the axe seem to be Ntni, Gibss, and Kallis to a certain extent. SA should give chances to Prince as he seems to read situations well and is an excellent runner between wickets.

Australia - Bangladesh one day series

Aussies have completed 3-0 whitewash. I doubt whether these kind of tours help Bangladesh to improve their cricket as they hardly showed any kind of resistance. One clever thing on CA's part is to host smaller teams during off season; this allows them to avoid small teams during their summer calendar and hence helps preserving public interest and money.

EventHandler generic delegate for events

While reading one of dotnetslackers article, I came to know that now we have a framework defined generic delegate for events. This will reduce the need for having delegates for common events that you have to in your code.

This Week In Cricket (8/25/2008- 8/31/2008)

India – Srilanka one day series

India won the one day series against all expectations mainly due to the presence of Dhoni in the middle order and some excellent bowling performances from Zaheer & co. The manner in which India lost the last match drives home the point that ‘toss’ should have been the man of the series. Day/night matches provide lot of advantage to teams winning the toss ; considering the fact all major tournament finals are day/night fixtures, we need a better system to provide equal chances to both the teams even after the toss.

My idea: Allow teams to choose alternately what they want to do in a series and if the last match is an odd number then allow the lowest ranked team to take advantage of the toss. This will make matches/series interesting and evenly contested. Even we can go one step further and have the visiting team start with an advantage in the first match.

England – SA one day series

What a surprise, this is the reason we follow cricket. England’s dominance in the series has been exceptional. KP's dream run with captaincy continues and England are leading the series 4-0 with a chance to climb to second place in ICC one day rankings if they win the last match. KP’s personal batting form has been excellent and makes me seriously wonder what he would achieved by now if he had started playing international cricket when he was 21/22 instead of 26.

On lighter note, main motivation for England players to do well in this one day series may to secure places for the Stanford 20-20 match and stands a chance to earn big money!

This Week In Cricket (18/8/2008 - 24/8/2008)

Champions Trophy
Thanks to situations, this tournament that nobody wanted, has got rescheduled to next year. I dountwhether it will happen next year also as situation will more or less remain same in Pakistan in 2009 and finding time for this tournament during busy year will not be easy.

Cricket in Pakistan is reduced to only Asian teams at this point of time; Indian team is bound to tour without any issues as BCCI needs Pakistan vote in ICC to call it shots.

India - Srilanka one day series
Indian leads the series 2-1; this is a big surprise considering the mismatch of talent that suit Srilankan conditions. So far, Viral kohli and Badrinath have given good account of themselves. In third match (D/N), toss played an important role as batting second was considerably tough. Having said that Dhoni batted well along with Raina and Rohit Sharma.

England - SA one day series
Anybody who has followed KP's career will be least surprised to see him win man of the match in his first match as full time one day captain. England won the first match comfortably with useful contributions from Flintoss and Hanmison along with KP. Till now, KP's biggest achievement as captain is his ability to get 100% from Flintoff and Harmison, two key players for England's fortunes during next Ashes.

This week In Cricket(11/8/2008 - 17/8/2008)

India - Srilanka 3rd test

As expected, India did not score enough runs in their 2nd inning to make it tough for Srilanka. Main difference in the series was Mendis to state the obvious; he just did no let Indian middle and lower orders flourish in any of the matches.

England - SA 4th test

As usual, England performed well in last match of a dead rubber. I am not sure what works for them in these scenarios: less pressure or it takes time to adjust to opposition and conditions. KP, as expected, (based on his fairytale career do far) started spectacularly on captaincy front. His masterstroke was to get Harmison back in England setup and provide him with all the confidence by allowing him to bowl with the new ball.

Champion Trophy

It will be interesting to see how other teams tackle Mendis in Champions Trophy ; at this time, there are serious doubts about this event happening at full strength in Pakistan.

Indian team for Srilanka one day series

Virat Kohli was a surprise selection, considering that he has not done all that well in IPL and subsequent emerging teams series in Australia. Pitches are expected to low and slow in Srilanka; 270-280 seem to be on par score a this point of time. My concern is that every time India will have to bat around 1.5 times better than Srilanka to negate Mendis factor.

My prediction: 4-1 Srilanka.

England - SA T20

This is just a festival match before the one day series.

This Week In Cricket (4/8/2008-10/8/2008)
This week we enter the last matches of excellent test series between SA - England and India-Srilanka. All the test matches have been interesting except for the first one in SA-England series. Last few weeks have been good advertisement for test cricket; this again emphasizes the point that test matches between evenly matched (little difference is also fine) teams and sporting wickets produce good contests.

India-Srilanka 3rd test

Series is evenly poised at 1-1; India and Srilanka made single change to their playing elevens. I am not convinced about India bringing in Parthiv for Karthick, because at least on batting front Karthick has faced Mendis and Murali during last 2 matches and this would have been handy. At the time of writing, Srilanka are well placed to wrap the match on 4th day. Indian batting is too dependent on runs from Sehwag in this series, but this is tough to expect on consistent basis, mainly due to the manner in which he plays. Sangakkara played excellent innings; this should be sufficient to win the test match for Srilanka. On Sunday, it was painful to see Tendulkar struggle again against mendis and Murali.

England - SA 4th Test
England have done well so far with KP scoring century in his first match as captain. England bowling looked good with Harmison looking in good rhythm and Anderson swinging both ways at good pace. England batting looks shaky with 5 batsmen, but may be over a period of time they can manage with Flintoff, Stuart Broad and wicket keeper filling the role of sixth batsmen collectively. England are well placed for a consolation win needing 197 to win on last day, but things could change if SA can remove England top 5 for less than hundred on board.

This week in Cricket 1 (28/7/2008 - 3/8/2008)

India in Srilanka second test match

Coming in to this match Indian chances were written-off(as happens all the time after a defeat) and this was justified to a certain extent. Indian middle order did not have a clue about how to tackle Murali/Mendis combination in first match. Real pace or mystery spin always help teams to remove second half of batting order quickly. This is a great advantage in test matches because a good contribution from the lower end batsmen can dent the confidence of the fielding team and also creates tentitiveness in fielding team's opening as they will be thinking about thier batting for sometime.

India won the toss (it is crucial as both teams are spin heavy) and Sehwag and Gambhir rode their luck in this initial phase to provide good start. Sehwag was his usual self and took every opportunity to score. Personally, I enjoy watching him create shots that can fetch two instead of a single against spinners. His innings was extra special considering the lack of runs from middle order. After this India could exert pressure and win the test match with some excellent bowling from Harbhajan and Ishanth Sharma.

I think result would have been different if Srilanka had won the toss and batted first, often this is the fine line between winning and loosing in cricket;).

South Africa - England 3rd test match

Usual England performance; some solo batting contributions (Cook in first innings and KP ,Collingwood in second) and a bowling burst from Flintoff. In the end SA were better team and won comfortably with Smith playing an excellent knock. During England's second innings Collingwood saved his test career by scoring a fine century. Morne Morkel looks like a good prospect and will be handful on pitches that offer some bounce.

This is week in Cricket
I am planning to write about my take on things happening in the cricket world once a week from now onwards. My sincere endevour over the course of this weekly roundup will be to bring those small things that define a cricket matche to your notice.

Am I qualified to do this?
Dont know; I have been following cricket since the time I can remember ,and also have been playing cricket for last 13 years with few years in state level top division and inter-university competitions.I feel I can offer a combination of player's and follower's take on the events.

Central Government trust vote
While watching trust vote pictures on TV, following things stood out for me.

1. Somnath Chatterjee seems to the most stressed out person in this world. . Every attempt by him to create some order in the house fell on deaf ears. I was left wondering what keeps him engaged in his role
2. BJP trying to project that the member by Congress/SP as new low in Indian politics; this is just few days after the incidents in karnataka.
Finally...
3. Program caption in CNN IBN read "Singh is King"; I am sure movie makers will be happy for the kind of marketing their movie name got from this episode.

on serious note.

Omar Abdullah's speech was hard hitting and fluent. IMO, he looks like one of the leader to watch for in the future. Unfortunately he will not have enough clout like Mayawati or Mulayam due to less number of MPs his party will have in parliament.

I felt blessed

On Wednesday I had to visit a temple deep inside K.R Market area in Bangalore. En route, I happened to pass through small lanes, where I saw people working in completely unhygienic and polluted conditions. At that moment, I felt blessed to have good working conditions for last 10 years.

I thanked almighty and my parents for all the good things bestowed on me.

We were cheated by YMCA and Rajajinagar Colts - 7/6/2008

Sunday was my darkest sporting day. We were cheated by two 3rd division teams YMCA and Rajajinagar Colts (RC ) in state cricket league. This resulted our team (Vijaya cricket club) denied a chance to get promoted to 2nd division, instead YMCA got there by fixing their match with Rajajingar colts.

Let me explain in details.

Scenario before Sunday's match; these were last round of fixtures for this season.

1. If we (Vijaya) beat Young Cricketers(YC) (already confirmed to get demoted), and YMCA loose to RC, then we will go through.
2. If we (Vijaya) beat YC and YMCA/RC match ends in draw, then also we will go through.
3. If we (Vijaya) loose to YC and YMCA loose to RC ,then RC will go through.
4. If YMCA beat RC, they will go through irrespective of result in our match.

How things unfolded on Sunday

1. We won the toss and got YC team all out for 224. We were worried of rain interruptions, and made sure that we got to the target ASAP (in 22 overs); in the hindsight this was our mistake.
2. In the match between YMCA and RC, YMCA batted first , and had to declare around 185 to have a chance of bowling out RC to win their match.
3. When we finished our match, RC 40/0 chasing 186, and reached 130/1 by the time we reached near the ground where their match was being played. In the drinks break YMCA team members, lead by Santosh vadeyaraj (played few matches for Karnataka ranji team) convinced RC team to throw the match by stating that we had fixed our match. After this, RC batsmen threw their wickets and made sure that they lost the match; even score was not updated when ball went for 4 byes.
5. Finally, YMCA won that match; they will play in 2nd division next year. The look on their faces after the match said it all; they were worse than a demoted team.

Request.
If you see any of the YMCA or RC players (listing the prominent ones below for easy identification) anywhere in offices, cricket grounds, or other social gatherings, please let them know that they have let our favourite game down by not playing according to the spirit of the game.
1. YMCA - Santosh vadeyaraj - works and represents Vijaya bank
2. YMCA Jayakumar, Srinath - work and represent karnataka forest department
3. RC- Samarth Hegde - works and represents ANZ IT in corporate cricket. ( I have played quite a bit of cricket with him)
4. RC- Rakshan Rai, Manikant

In the end, cricket was the loser at the hands of manipulative people.

2008 season - my cricket statistics

I have been pursuing an application development to track cricket statistics for some time now. While searching regarding this, I found a website (cricktrack.com) that facilitates maintaining individual's cricket statistics.

You can view my performances this year at http://www.crictrack.com/games/shared/327

I am in Shimoga

This Sunday(6/29), I traveled to Shimoga with my wife and daughter. We were pleasantly surprised to see the road (if we can call it as road) between Birur and Badravathi patched. This reduced our travel time by almost 45 minutes. On the way we stopped by a farm house near Gubbi (taluk in Tumkur)district) to show some of the farm animals to our daughter;she finished her breakfast in 45 minutes, as there were lot of interesting things to see around.

We reached Shimoga by afternoon; it has been drizzling intermittently till Wednesday morning. This weather is execellent to enjoy masala mondakki and menasinikai bajji (Davanagere special).

Euro 2008 was entertaining

Euro 2008 was very entertaining with most of the matches being competitive. This was possible due to fewer weak teams compared to any other tournament of this magnitude (except for Greece and co-hosts). I thouroughly enjoyed the hammering Ronaldo & co (portugal) got from Germany ( I am a Chelsea fan). In the end Spain were the most consistent team in the tournament and deserved to be champions.

2008 Cricket season - 29/6/2008

I represent Vijaya cricket club in 3rd (we got promoted last season) division cricket league coducted by Karnataka state cricket association. This season has been excellent for me. I am the highest wicket taker for our team (26 from 10 matches) , and also have contributed with bat in key matches. Going into last match of the season, we still have a chance to get promoted again if we win our last game, and other YMCA (competing team for other promotion spot) either loose or draw thier last match. I shall keep you updated on what happens next week.

My Hyderabad trip

I had been to Hyderabad for a day on 29/5/2008. I am listing here few of the things that stood out for me.

1. Reluctance by KSRTC (volvo) driver to give me one extra bottle of water when he had many of them lying unused. (delighting the customer)

2. Shared autos in Hyderabad that work very professionally, effectively, and efficiently; probably quality of the vehicles could be better.

3. While coming back, KSRTC bus stopped at a location for dinner where anybody with any sense of hygiene will not eat.

4. It took 11 hours from Bangalore to Hyderabad where as return trip more than 14 hours.

I was happy to see my daughter cry (2008 champions league final)

I stayed up till 3 AM (22/5) to watch my team (Chelsea) loose to MU (team, I hate most) on penalties. Game was excellent with both teams going for it unlike other regular big cup finals. MU could have been 2/3-0 by half time if not for Peter Cech's brilliance and lots of luck. Frank Lampard equalized just before half time with a lucky break. Second half was completely opposite with some excellent football from Chelsea and it was time for MU's share of luck to keep them in the match with Drogba and Lampard hitting the wood work. Finally it all ended with a penalty miss by Mr.Chelsea (John Terry) that would have won them their first European cup.

After the match I was left wondering about the fine line between victory and defeat as one strike from JT would have resulted in Chelsea being the winners instead of MU. I did not watch the presentation as I was heartbroken and was wondering how to forget the match ASAP, fortunately for me, my daughter got up and I had to rush to console her. First time in last year, my daughter has cried when I wanted her to;)..

Indian team's performance in SA is not surprising

Indian team's South African tour is almost half complete. I am not surprised by team's performance at all, I am not sure why whole of nation is surprised this time including our parliamentarians. If at all ever Indian team was real underdogs it was this time with the absence of Yuvaraj , Ganguly and Laxman (initially, well anyway it did not matter when he played) and rawness of our bowling attack. I am not sure how we expect this team to win against SA in their backyard with Dinesh Karthick coming in at number 5 considering the fact he was not even good enough to play for India some time back in the role of wicketkeeper batsman, Ravi Shashtri summed it up well when he said "India need to surprise me to beat SA".

Some people are of the opinion that the surprise and disappointment is due to the fact that team not competing well. I think it is does not matter the manner in which you lose unless you really get close and there are chances for both the teams to win. All these bad performances have definitely made Ganguly's bid for getting back really hard to ignore, if that happens our top order will read the same as it was couple of years back, this after all the talk of experimentations and blooding youngsters.

Among all the ruins there were some bright spots with the strong return of Zaheer with good bowing performances and some batting displays from Dhoni and Dravid.

Test matches will present even tougher challenge with more livelier pitches and no restriction on short stuff, I feel India are better test batting team on these kind of pitches because there will be not be any pressure to score runs at a faster rate, if we look at the dismissals of our batsmen in one day matches, most of the them were out edging the off stump line to either wicket keeper or slips and in test matches there is no need for it.

Test series prediction

There will as usual 2-0 loss with some bright batting performances from Tendulkar and Dravid at some stage with no bearing on results.

Hope there will be some fight in test matches at least for the sake of ESPN TV team, who have to consistently act sad in between all the good life there are having in South Africa…