India tour of the Carribean 2011

It is good the tour of Caribbean has so far been a pleasant one for the Indian Cricket team, who are without the regular team this series. After the win in the Jamaica Test, the Indian team was looking to wrap up the series at the Kensington Oval. But play lost due to the rains had effectively tightened up things for both the teams. West Indies slenderly holding on to knocks by Marlon Samuels and Darren Bravo put some resistance to onslaught by Ishant Sharma and co.


The third test starts on July 6th, where both the teams will look to keep things in check rather going all out for a win. Batting has been a cause of worry for West Indies team particularly where both Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul failing to bat out for West Indies on crucial occasions. Sarwan has now been dropped for the third and final test in the series.


Indian team has positives to take from the Tour with performances of Praveen Kuman, Ishant Sharma and Suresh Raina particularly very good. With England Tour to follow the team will now see the return of Sachin, Sehwag( Expected after third test), Zaheer, Yuvraj, Gambhir back into the team. Virat Kohli and Murali Vijay will have to accept some tough decision in their budding careers. And take positives from the Tour into the future.


The umpiring saga involving Daryl Harper and the Indian Team has shown how the game is dependent on technology, and hopefully DRS will ease out some badly needed shortcomings in umpiring. Particularly looking at the decisions with Indian team this series, there's too lot to be desired.


ICC making some calls on batsmen without runners and other issues ought to have looked into some more issues. The umpiring decision involving Raina where the batsman haven't made any contact with the bat or glove was specially very bad. I have noticed that umpires should do away with sun glasses as it definitely blurs vision, some close calls like these could easily change the game.


Umpires should not be allowed to make sunglasses since they are there to make these decisions and wearing sunglasses definitely obscures one's vision in one or the other way and things are not crystal clear. Did we see any batsman wearing sunglasses, we might put a question here, Why not?

Hope fully the England Tour will be free of the Umpiring blunders where a long tour awaits the full strength Indian team. Hopefully the world champions will try and consolidate the World No 1 Rankings.

AG OG Lo G Suno G to 3G/4G

From the famous Bollywood number Ag Og Lo G Suno G, to 3G/4G and further marching towards Long Term Evolution LTE, the technology has traveled places in India with times, enabling remotest of regions in the country. The tricky terrains of the Himalayas in the North to sandy beaches of Kanyakumari in the South. From the ports of Por Bandar in the west to the green Jungles of Sunderbans in the East. Every location has been connected. Thanks to the revolution in the way we communicate. Leaving a clear imprint on the way we lead our daily lives.

Technology is a great enabler, when used with responsibility. There were times when even a land line was hardly around in the villages. And now every farmer is mobile in the country.

Technology is evolving, 3G/4G  translates into a faster, reliable, efficient communication system leading faster pace of life and a faster road to development and prosperity. When the world is besieged with problems galore, technologies enable a common man to achieve his dreams and certainly 3G/4G enhances this ability to communicate faster enormously.

Tata has been a pioneer in communication technologies in India, together with DOCOMO and with the latest 3G launch, we are going to see a new dawn in India. I take this opportunity to congratulate people of India, Tata-DOCOMO for this big leap into the future of communication technologies in the country. Jai ho!

Is Cricket still the Gentleman's game ?

The removal of Pakistani trio of Amir, Asif and Butt doesn't solve the ICC's problems in dealing with match fixing and other related activities. The players can in no way be stopped from meeting strangers no matter even if they are confined in dressing rooms and other places with full restriction to outsiders. There are a million ways to break these rules.

The Gentleman's game is no longer the same as it was in the Golden era of Botham's and Khan's when only true passion for Cricket used to rule the hearts and minds of Cricketers. May be it is the present generational anomaly of making most out of the opportunity.

The explanation I went through in the media by the Pakistani Board, after the interrogation of the charged players seem to indicate that the players are wrongly framed. The players seemed to have presented a creditable explanation, regarding the bundle's of cash found in their dressing rooms.

No matter what the explanation and the outcome, there seems something murky with which Cricket is being played these days, whether it be IPL or Pakistani Tours or Cricket in the Subcontinent.

One thing is for sure the game of Cricket is more increasingly viewed only as a big money spinner and nothing else. No one really any more cares for the drives of Bradman's or the hook shots of Sober's of the past. Of late people are only interested in the rapid fire four's and sixes of Afridi's or Hayden's or Dhoni's.

It's the administrators equally to blame including the ICC, which is jumping the gun in increasing the popularity of the game by putting too much of the emphasis on newly entertainment oriented quick fire Cricket version of T20's and the likes.

ICC should seriously revert back to put more emphasis on traditional forms of Cricket like the Tests and One Dayers and even emphasis should be laid on tour starters like three day or four day formats. Essentially these formats no doubt are boring for the spectators but they are the real formats of Cricket. And can help bring back the prestige to Cricket.

The reason why I have stated these points is nowadays if you see the present crop of Cricketers they are more tilted towards quick money and fame, rather the hard work and grooming real talent.

One used to see innumerable brilliant stints by the likes if Imran Khan's, Laxman's, Tendulkars or Marsh's in the domestic Cricket without them even making a start at the international level.

By the time they played international Cricket they were far more matured than the present crop of the Cricketers, who all of a sudden appear in the T20 formats and then suddenly show up in the national team based on these performances.
 
The money spinning element is being ingrained far too much than could be digested, and this culture is sub consciously damaging the game.

There are more chances than ever, the betting syndicates will try and exploit these hectic cricketing schedules where it's hard to focus on any single issue.

So reverting back to policies and formats of the Cricket's most established formats and times with only a small exposure to newer formats, Cricketing glory could be brought back.

ICC's step of banning the Pakistani players is a cosmetic solution to an ever growing malaise of betting, overshadowing the Gentleman's game of Cricket.

India loses the match and the series at Guwahati in 2009 Honda Cup vs Australia

India went into a shudder at Guwahati today after the loss at Hyderabad on Thursday in the 2009 Honda cup series in India. In the process lost the series to Australia by 4-2 with the final match of the series to be played at Mumbai on Wednesday, and now has no consequence in the series. India will be looking to win this match, to salvage the lost ground.

India never recovered psychologically it seems from the loss at Hyderabad, which dealt a crucial blow to the hosts morale and confidence. The series in fact was decided on that fateful evening in Hyderabad when Australia pulled off a humdinger from the jaws of defeat by a margin of three runs to score a point against the under-performing hosts that International Cricket doesn't lets go off Scot free if you make mistakes on a continuous basis through the series.

Sachin sparkled with a solid 175 only to see his side squandering the opportunity by losing 4 wickets in 18 balls requiring almost the same runs to win the match and give a message to Australia, that they meant business. But the hosts were in a different zone altogether, I felt the Jadeja run out was the crucial one in the closing stages of the game, it seemed that the youngster was picking up instructions from the Sachin at the crease, but instead he ran himself out for no apparent reason. That was the sheer pressure the youngster could not handle at this stage. It makes me recollect about Md Kaif the UP skipper who is a great finisher and had did in fact in the Champions Trophy in England when India surmounted another high scoring game. I wonder Why he is not being considered for selection ?

There should be incentives for players when they finish off things for the team, and likewise should be laid off to set the things right for the team.

With the big win in hand at Hyderabad, the visitors had nothing to loose and came hard on a seaming pitch on a Guwahati morning and quickly opened up the Indian top order with quick wickets, the message here out to the Indian team is, no matter you play a second class team or a number one, you need to commit yourself to bring victories.

India needs to play as a unit to win matches and should be professional enough in carrying out the game plan.

Australia levels 2-2 in 2009 Honda cup series at Mohali

After looking strong to score 300 at Mohali in the 4th one dayer of the seven match Honda cup series, Australia wound up at 250 by losing wickets at regular intervals.
Fortunately for India the partnerships of Ponting,White and Hussey cut short by some good work by India on the field.

India started of well with Virender Sehwag belting Johnson for erring with 3 fours in an over. But Sachin just a few runs short of career 17000 runs was handed lbw with a slight margin of error, obviously Sachin was unhappy with the decision .

Australia was tight and Dhoni trying to capture a quick single tested Ponting's arm at point which left Yuvraj short of crease at the other end. That was a big blow and the pressure was on the India to put up for the quick loss of wickets.

Barring this Indians played onto the Australian game plan and could not come out of the shell. In the end the gettable total of 250 was lost by India by 24 runs and that's a margin which shows the Australia's recovery in this series.

That's what a seasoned campaigner like Ricky Ponting could do on the field if the opposition errs by making silly mistakes. India now have to work hard again to comeback in this series.