The thing that matters

A google chat with a friend.

me: mornin

Friend: jai

me: howz u?

Friend: fine

u

me: i am fine. THank you

so

any opinions on the state of Indian cricket

how do you rate

Friend: this was bound to happen

me: MSDs performance in the last press conference

Friend: i think its all dhoni's fault

me: hmm

should dhoni have been more amenable to

Friend: india had a set batting lineup

me: reporters ideas

?

Friend: with sehwag n gambhir

me: hmm

so

you think

Friend: raini at no. 3

rohit sharma

uv

dhoni

pathan etc

me: DHoni should have stuck to his guns and talked rudely to reporters

Friend: he mingled with batting line up

me: hmm

Friend: by promoting himself to no.3

me: that is true

Friend: raina lost confidence

and his form too

to me raina was the key player in this WC

me: hmm

Friend: he was even more imp than uv

becoz of his form in ipl

me: oh

Friend: once he flopped

things were inevitable

and opening with rohit sharma was a blunder

me: hmm

i think

DHoni

Friend: he was the best no. 6

me: should have shown more tact

especially

after times came out

with the rift story abt sehwa

Friend: but that hardly impacted the performance

me: so

i think

tht set the tone for DHoni's performamcne in the whole tournament

almost all the later press conferences got affected

Friend: performance against SA was the worst

did u see hw pathan got out

me: I dont think pathan was called for any press conference

except

for

the tour defining

group walk out

Friend: r u talking abt press conference performance or on field performance

me: :)

Its all same

SUn

if you allow

can i post this exchange in my blog

Friend: hmm

sounds good

me: good

good part...hamne koi gaali nahi di..so we can post it uncensored

Enjoy :)

End of an era!!

Surely one of these great  feats in modern sports leave alone tennis. Is it going to happen. Nadal has just saved on of the 5 match points..you never know.

Moving on

Go  Mumbai Indians

Gold, Bronze and Counting

What a lovely headline. This olympic performance by India assures me that India is on a growth trajectory. Let us mark the olympic medals won as one of the indicators along with MDGs, HDI etc as signs of India shining.

Go Vijender go

The Debate Starts

If you follow English soccer, football rather, you must be aware of the "club vs country" debates that rages every time the English national team under performs, which btw makes it sort of an annual debate. Now i feel Indians are going to have the taste of the debate big time with the start of IPL.
Also on a serious track, some of the celebrations was off putting for me, its alright for Shahrukh to cheer Mccullum hitting Zaheer as he is the owner, but the odd thing was that nobody mentions the of shifting loyalty from country to club and the implicit transition. It is as if the official policy of the event organisers particularly the commentators is to not to comment on the contradiction and just hope that by pretending that strong Club loyalties exist and behaving as such will make the crowd see it that way. Well i am not convinced and find it difficult to accept that i will ever cheer Zaheer getting hit for a six by Mccullum.

Also for a bit of humorous take, see my cricket fanatic friend and perennial commenter Vibhash's post

The Professional

Rahul Dravid is not my favourite batsman (Sachin is)...He is not my faovurite indian captain (Dada is)..He is not even my favourite cricketer (Sachin again)..but over the years, Dravid has continually risen in my estimation as the truest professional in the Indian team. I mean Md Kaif is also a gud professional but he had to be one. But given Dravid's talent and approach etc, Dravid could have become a prima donna..but he didnt. He accepted that the team is bigger than him.

So..all in all Not only Dravid is gud enough to score 10k in both the forms of the game, he is good enough to be an example for other players and thats what makes him truly great.

The End of an Era

I still feel a bit of a sense of Loss on watching the Hockey segment of the movie Golmaal..here was one part of our heritage that we have lost. Hockey had the potential to be part of our national conscience but it failed or rather we failed hockey

Today, was the definitive hammer blow for Indian Hockey. Today it lost its place as one of the premier games of India. Now Hockey has to fight with other sports to fight for a place in our conscience. Playing in all of the olympics till date was one of the best records in Indian Sports..something you can be proud of..It has come to an end though..and to be fair...we extended as long as we can. India certainly is not one of teams that you can claim should be part of the Olympics. We were just not good enough. But this is not the time to recriminate against Gill, He has been doing his job terribly since long. This is the time to remember the past greats..from Dhyan Chand to KD Singh to Pargat singh..And i take this opprtunity to thank all the past hockey olympians..they made history after all.

Gilly Retires

One of the most important reasons for the Australian cricket team's phenomenal success has been this man. He was one player..who for a long time was the worlds best wicketkeeper and to top it all one of the real match turners coming at no 7, while batting. I am talking about test cricket here ofcourse. Gilchrist i feel was the element that really made the aussies invincible. Other teams had good bowlers, good batters, better captains, but none had a player of the worth of gilchrist's class coming at 7. A truly great player, and one of my favourite players of all times. Have fun in your retirement man..you deserve it

The Perth Story

Two things about yesterdays victory really make me happy.

1. The 16 match winning streak ended by India - The Aussies press's gloat would have been too much. What makes it doubly sweet is the fact that, India has already done it once before. Also in the cricketing sense, I think Steve Waugh's team was much better than the current Aussie team. The opposing teams then also were of a slightly higher standard i feel.

2. I have always marvelled at the Aussies Bench strength - eg Slater retires- Hayden is there..Hussey, Clark, Kasprowicz etc etc..but in this test..Pathan and Sehwag came from the bench for India and Tait and Rogers from Australian bench..and look who did better.

P.S - Also, do check out my friends amusing take on the win yesterday

Zero Sum Game

One of the most underrated of the factors being utilised in decision making is the realisation whether the outcomes are zero sum or n0t. Based on this knowledge, the approach to solving the problem should differ markedly, and failure to recognise this phenomenon makes for improper decision making, and people can be persuaded via wrong analogies.

You want examples, let me give you one. Lets take the example of selection of Indian cricket team.
Only 14 can be selected, so if 1 player on the margin is selected, then 1 player for margin needs to be dropped. (Now suppose both the players are of equal caliber). Thus this makes a zero sum game and the selector has to drop someone. So it doesn't makes sense for the selector to be in good books of every player in the squad. But suppose you are a coach of the same team. Then, if you invest in some players and try to build a team spirit, and that player is dropped to bring another person. This is not a zero sum game and the coach actually loses in this scenario.

So we can see that, for a selector and a coach, the rationale for decision making is not same and both have different incentives. So to come to the point, when Greg Chappell and Kiran More sort of ganged up on Ganguly, it weakened their case that they are a doing it for professional and not personal reasons. So all in all, apart from all the base sentiments coming to Dada's rescue, Dada's supporters were right at some level.

Rafael Nadal Redux

At the start of the match between Nadal and Nalbandian , i got this thought that watching nadal play is like watching a formula 1 car which is ahead of a slightly faster car. The car behind it may be faster , but to overtake it needs to be 2 seconds faster. (Aside: - Not to think that Nadal is not very good, just that Nalbandian is in such a form and Nadal is such a fighter and retriever).
But by the end of the day, it was clear that Nalbandian was 4 seconds a lap faster.

Kimi Raikkonen - F1 WDC 2007

The best result on many levels. Lewis surely winning as a rookie would have sort of understated the charm of WDCs, Alonso being upstaged by a rookie for most of the season didn't deserve the title. That leaves Kimi, with the most wins, potentially the fastest of the lot..and none more deserving the title...and i am so happy for that.

On a side note, the most thrilling portion of the race came through the livetiming, where i could see Rosberg and Kubica fighting for 4th and for 2 consecutive laps, the difference was 0.0 secs and i was hoping like hell that those two don't crash and give the title to Hamilton. Must admit, those two are pretty good racers.

World Championship Week

This just in. I think this result will surely have more weight than the 2000 one. Also it means that Anand is the undisputed number one and the best chess player in the world at the moment, taking over from Kramnik. I just hope he crosses the 2800 mark with this result.
Afetr T20, Chess..Decent sporting week for India

T20

A great game..loved the novelty of a bowl out..and how bad was the ball that bhajji bowled..the one just after afridi holed out

The Roger Slam

So its back to a Roger Slam (defined as Losing to Rafa in French and winning the rest).Of course all this brings us back to the 'Roger-Pete' comparisons...while pete numbers dont look as good as rogers..i absolutely remember people complaining about pete dominating the tour thus making it boring...the same is happening with federer here....

If we continue with the comparisons, Two things come to mind after the last game.

1. Roger is at the peak of his domination,like the 'Pete- Rafter' phase of 97-98, where sampras just managed to hold his own against Rafter.
2. Roger is learning from Pete the ways to prolong his career,His much improved Serve was the main enabler for Rogers title defense. I think on the basis of groundstrokes alone, Nole and Davy'D seemed better.(It wasn't the case earlier).

So if we continue the analogy, we may see Federer strugglingin the next few years against upcming players like djokovic, ala how Sampras struggled with Safin and hewitt. However Federer will continue to win Slams for the next few years though i think the dominating phase is over.
P.S - Mytake on the Roger Pete debate-

I think, overall Roger has the better game, primarily due to his ability and results on clay. Pete though has the better career as of now. Remember Pete won his first slam when he was about 20 and the last when he was 31. Thats a long time.

Nurburgring

Some observations
1. Best race of the season by far..
2. Hamilton can overtake without a fuss..bit in the montoya mode..unlike say alonso....who can overtake but in the process seems unduly aggressive
3. Alonso can drive in the wet..(like we have seen in the past races also)
4. Ferrari seem more comfortable in the race than qualy.
5. Wet races are better(signal: introduce more driver inputs in the races)
6. Good to see the needle between Massa and Alonso

Sports Week II

Yaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Sports Week

Could you believe it..we were made to watch Damm Paes and then Mirza peer doubles while Federer Safin match was going on in wimby...what a joke..

Then i was having a haircut while Rossi came through the field..apparently making up a 5 sec gap of Stoner to win in Assen...

Course everything will be alright ...if Kimi manages to win at magny cours..also will be fun if it rains..and alonso surely will b praying for it.....

Indian Cricket Team Dynamics

Things are looking very bad. I am very ambivalent on Sachin as of now. Maybe as he says, he still has cricket left in him, asses his physical level, ask him to play a season of county and ranji and then assess on his physical level and performance. If its gud enuf do select him for the team. Ofcourse sadly, this means that for the first time in 14-15 years, i am indifferent towards Sachin's presence in the team. (Aside: I am sure he can hold his place even at current level of performance, but even if he is replaced i dont think the team will suffer much.) One of the factors has been the baggage that Sachin has brought into the team. By speaking against the current coach in public, you cross a line, no matter how warranted your intervention was.

My solution:
1) Chappell Out
2) Whatmore, Sandeep Patil, Anshuman Gaewkward (In this order) be the new coach. (Woolmer wood have topped the list)
3) Saurav Sachin Bhajji Agarkar out
4) Raina, Pathan, Uthappa, Dhoni, Sreesanth, Zaheer, Patel, Dravid, Sehwag, uv, Powar, karthik to be the core tam contracted
5) Get a bowling and fielding coach
6) Implement performance based contracts ( Experience doesnt holds much water - If you are experienced, it shud translate into performance) - However since experience gets you some know how , there are some positive externalities from experience. A small 20% component weight may be given for experience

The Tragedy

Its only true for the Indian Cricket team that a well thought out strategy looks more like a gamble.
Still its a sign of a good captain that he knows the team's ability well and Dravid should have known that batting first with seam movement for India is always a gamble, not a strategy. Irrespective of the fact that the opposing team is bangladesh