Archive for the ‘General Lunch Time talk’ Category
Where are the Bowlers
Posted on: March 28, 2012
- In: Cricket | Cricket and Sports | General | General Lunch Time talk | India | ODI | ODI | postaweek2011 | Sports | Teams | Test | test cricket | Test match
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It is funny how time remains static in Indian cricket. This was my post in 2009 and still remains relevant. I know that Ravi Ashwin, Pujara, Tyagi Chawla have been tried since I wrote this article but still we are in the hunt for good bowlers. The emergence of Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav has for sure spiced up the attack, but will they sustain? We need to wait and see.
India is almost out of the champions Trophy and barring a miracle, they will pack their bags and head home tomorrow. As I wrote earlier India’s bowling problem hurt their chances in the Champions Trophy. The Indian bowlers were pathetic against Pakistan in their first game allowed them to escape from a precarious 65/3 to 302 which in the end proved too much for the depleted Indian batting lineup. This has been the problem with the Indian team for the past 1 year or so.
The batting strength was able to shield this weakness but with the absence of couple of key players it was exposed even further against the Pakistanis in the Champions Trophy. So the perennial question is where are the bowlers? So much of domestic cricket being played, so much of talent but why do we keep hearing the same names again and again? Are the selectors…
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Virat Kohli is definitely the toast of the nation at the moment. The last few ODI innings of his has for sure cemented his status as one of the premier ODI batsmen in the world. Virat has had brilliant last couple of years in ODI cricket and his elevation to vice-captaincy status at a very young age shows that the selectors see him as a future Indian captain.
My first look of Virat was in 2008 Sri Lankan ODI series. The test series for India was absolute dampener and the series was more famous for the emergence of another mystery spinner from Sri Lanka Ajanta Mendis. India was missing experience in the batting order and in the absence of Sachin and Sehwag, Virat was sent to open the innings. Virat showed great grit and stuck to his task admirably well. His stats weren’t earth shattering but it did show the fighting spirit of the youngster. He handled some difficult conditions pretty well and helped India win the ODI series.
It was surprising to see that India ignored Virat after that series for almost a year but the youngster took the break into his stride and came back stronger. The break also meant that Virat travelled to Australia to take part in the Emerging players trophy where he was the top scorer for India. Since he made his comeback to the team in 2009, he has been an indispensable member of the Indian squad. With exceptional technique and great concentration Virat Kohli has established himself as one of the finest young players in the world. He has already won lots of ODI games for India batting second and has an enviable average doing so.
He has 11 hundreds in just 82 ODI innings, making him the youngest to get to 10 ODI hundred at an impressive average of 50.56. Virat has everything going for him in ODI cricket. Virat Kohli though did not have a smooth sailing in test cricket. In spite of having everything going for him as a player, he did struggle at the test level though. He did not have a great start to his test career but by the end of Australian tour he did find his groove. He was the only Indian to score a test hundred in the Australian series and proved that he did belong at the bigger stage. His two fifties at Perth and a brilliant hundred in Adelaide should give him lots of confidence for more challenges ahead later this year.
Even though he has had a great start to his career, his aggressive celebrations and use of expletives too often has got him into trouble with the experts and the media alike. Even though I personally feel that being an aggressive cricketer playing with lots of passion, he does get little carried away which is fine with me. Virat has the talent and performances to pull off such behavior as a brash youngster, similar to another great Ricky Ponting. But Virat needs to keep one thing in mind as such behavior will for sure look great when the team is doing well but will look ugly when the team is struggling. I guess he for sure will learn as he gets older.
For now let’s enjoy the success of the genial superstar, India has unearthed once again. I hope that he continues to scale more peaks and helps India to get to the top once again in world cricket.
- In: Cricket | Cricket and Sports | General | General Lunch Time talk | India | Legends | ODI | postaweek2011 | Rahul Dravid | Sachin tendulkar | Teams | Test | test cricket | Test match | Twenty20
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Rahul Dravid is all set to announce his retirement from test cricket on Friday.
It was 1996 and India was touring England. This was the first time I got to see “The Wall” Dravid bat for India. The media coverage those days wasn’t so great for domestic cricket so knowing a player before debut was not that easy. The series did not start well for India as they lost the first test in Edgbaston and as with the case in the 90’s Sachin was the standout performer with a hundred. India decided to go with 2 debutants for the Lord’s test. The 90’s wasn’t a great decade for debutants for India until that point and considering the criticism vented on Ganguly at the start of the tour I wasn’t hoping too much from either Dravid or Ganguly on their debut. How wrong was I?
After dismissing England for 344 in the first Innings, India found themselves in early trouble as usual at 59/2. After few partnerships and brilliant innings by the debutant in the match Sourav Ganguly, India were 202/5 still 142 runs behind the English total. Rahul Dravid the other debutant for India walked in to join Sourav in the middle. It was a great moment for Rahul and like Sourav he did not want to let this opportunity slip. Rahul Dravid even in his first innings at the international level showed great composure and calmness at the wicket. He was a perfect foil for the flamboyant Sourav Ganguly who went on to make a brilliant hundred on debut at Lord’s. Rahul though missed the mark by 5 runs.
In spite of him missing his hundred we all then sensed that we had witnessed something special. For the next 15 years along with Sachin, Sourav and Laxman he has been the vital cog in the Indian middle order. Coming in at number three he has been the India’s most important player overseas and has played quite a few memorable match winning knocks. A player par excellence was named the “The Wall” for his amazing appetite for runs and his watertight defense which is almost impossible to breach when he is settled at the crease. He has been a perfect team man often doing what is required of him in the team. He has been pushed around in the batting order even though he has been India’s best number 3 by a distance. He has batted in all positions in the batting order and has also opened when required for his team. He also donned the keeping gloves for a while when India were looking for balance in the ODI squad. Rahul will be always known for his brilliant hundreds in Indian overseas victories over the past decade. Rahul also made India proud with his brilliant speech at the Sir Bradman oration late last year in Australia. He is an articulate speaker and his speech then was like one of his silken cover drives.
Dravid will finish with 13288 test runs at an average of 52.31 with 36 hundreds and 63 fifties. He has been India’s best number 3 by a distance scoring 10524 runs at an impressive average of 52.88 with 28 hundreds and 50 fifties. Rahul Dravid was not a bad ODI player either, he remodeled his game to suit the shorter format and became one of the best middle order bats for India in the late 90’s and better part of last decade. In 344 ODI games he has scored 10889 runs at an impressive average of 39.16 with 12 hundreds and 83 fifties. Not bad for a player called as test specialist.
Rahul as a captain was brilliant too. During his tenure at the helm India had an amazing run in both forms of the game. Under his leadership India won a test series in West Indies and England after a long time. India was also unbeatable at home during the same time in ODI. It was unfortunate that he decided to give up the test captaincy after the English tour. He was player with great cricketing brain and I am sure he would have been an excellent captain had he continued. Rahul captained India in 25 tests, winning 8 and losing 6 with a W/L record of 1.33. His ODI record is impressive too with a W/L record of 1.27.
There is no question that Rahul has been a perfect role model off the pitch too. He is a soft spoken individual who always says the right thing in the media. Rahul has been a great role model and a brilliant player over the years for India and a true legend of the game. He has given us wonderful memories through his batting and the Indian team will for sure miss his presence in the middle order.
Rahul Dravid has finally decided to hang up his boots and it will be very sad to see him go. He has been an integral part of the Indian team over the last 15 years and a player I have seen growing up as a cricket fan during the 90’s. I for sure as a fan will miss Rahul’s calm assurance at the crease when the team is in trouble. He has been a great ambassador for the sport and for sure will be missed in the cricketing circles. I wish the great player an excellent future in whatever he decides to take up after cricket and I hope he remains involved in the development of Indian cricket at some capacity
If I could have any job
Posted on: March 7, 2012
- In: Career | Cricket | Cricket and Sports | Education | General | General Lunch Time talk | Jobs | postaweek2011
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Everyone has a dream job. There are the jobs you want to do and there are the jobs which you have to do for living. There is a huge difference. Most of them grow to love the jobs they are already doing over the course of time. When you are a kid and people come up to you and ask “What do you want to become when you grow older?” the most common answers are Doctor, Engineer etc. Believe me most of the times the kid has no clue what he/she is saying.
Most of these are parents/relatives infused dream career at a very young age. When we grow up a little bit and start getting some sort of perspective about life our interests change. Whatever may be our interests, most of us take the safe option and rightfully so. Chasing your dream is not that easy. There are a…
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It’s not an English writing contest
Posted on: March 7, 2012
- In: Bollywood | Career | Entertainment | General | General Lunch Time talk | Jobs | Movies | Music | postaweek2011 | Reviews | Writers
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In recent times reading some movie reviews has become a tedious exercise. A normal movie buff looks only for certain things in a review, the positives and the negatives, performance of the lead actors and the music. Basically an outline as to whether the movie is to his/her liking or not. This information should as far as I am concerned be expressed in simple understandable language. In the recent times when I read reviews written by certain writers I feel that it’s an essay for an English literature class. The reviews are extremely complicated to understand and for sure is not in simple language.
I sometimes cannot understand what writers are trying to prove by writing such complicated reviews. No one wants to break their head in trying to understand what is written and for sure none of the readers are here to appreciate your command over English. If your…
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Who killed Gandhiji?
Posted on: March 5, 2012
- In: Education | Entertainment | General | General Lunch Time talk | Jackpot | Jaya TV | Real Life | School | Students | teachers
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Yesterday I was watching “Jackpot” on Jaya Tv and there was a video question which played Gandhi movie directed by Richard Attenborough. They showed the scene where Mahatma Gandhi was killed by Nathuram Godse and asked the question “Who killed Gandhiji?” Then the most hilarious thing happened. One of the teams said that they had “No Idea” and the other team said “Mussolini”. It was absolutely hilarious and Simran was shocked. Both the teams had kids studying in the 9th and 10th grades and the funny part was one of the teams History teacher was in the audience. You just had to see it to believe it. Not sure what the kids learn in School these days. I think I knew who killed our “Father of the Nation” by the time I was in 10th grade.
Catch the episode online if you can, it was absolutely hilarious. And we are thinking that the kids are getting great education in schools.
Education, marks and teachers
Posted on: March 2, 2012
- In: College | Education | General | General Lunch Time talk | postaweek2011 | Real Life | School | Students | teachers
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In 2012 we have seen a spate of movies in Tamil targeting the education system. What we have to keep in mind is even though these directors/movie makers have their heart in the right place movies can hardly provide a proper solution. In the end they need to make money and for that they need to be over dramatic and can hardly show reality after a certain point.
Suddenly people have started to take a good notice about our education system. The higher mark equals brilliance concept in our system is one of the most outdated concepts ever. Students (except for a few) hardly learn anything but get the required marks to get over the line. The interesting situation is when the teachers call the parents and complain that their kid isn’t doing well in studies. This is funny because the parents are paying a fortune to put the kid in that school and the fact that they are unable to educate him/her should be a warning signal.
The parents put their kids in a private tuition and voila he starts to pass. Now my question to all the parents is this, if a tuition teacher can make your kids pass (Even though he isn’t imparting any great knowledge) then why does he need the school? Why can’t he just go to 3-4 tuitions and just take his exams, doesn’t that make sense? To be frank the problem is that in a class of 40 about 20 will probably pass in all subjects, the rest will fail at least in one. The teachers are mostly worried about only the top 20 in the class and do not want to take the extra effort on the other 20.
The argument that we are teaching the same way to everyone and why isn’t your kid doing well does not hold water. Kids are different and not everyone is the same. Teachers don’t teach the concepts and just expect the kids to understand what they blabber in the class. Some kids need more than that. When you teach geometry or trigonometry, teach them how the solution comes and what’s the concept behind them. When you do that everyone will get the point not just the bright ones.
This happened to me when I was in standard X1th. That was the year we got introduced to Integral calculus. I had no clue how it worked. Whatever the teacher taught went way over my head, completely clueless I almost failed my exam. Then I went to the tuition, which I hated at that time but could not be thankful to the guy now. The guy who taught me was young and probably just out of college. He taught me the concepts, made me understand how integral calculus works and you know what in the very next exam where the entire paper was on integral calculus I managed to score 90%. The teacher was in absolute shock. Now the point is I am not dumb but the teacher has no clue how to teach. If a guy right out of college can bring out such a performance out of me in my very first exam since I went to him then there is surely something wrong with the school.
The stupid syllabus and 10 chapter’s thing should go and emphasis should be on making the kids understand the concepts better. In that way we aren’t memorizing but understanding what those things in the book mean. When I came to the US I felt that the things we are good at are actually miniscule as we are poor at actual practical implementation of concepts. We keep reading books and vomit it onto the paper and most of us don’t understand what we write. Parents should question the schools when they say your son/daughter don’t cut it as it is not true. The fact is that the teachers and school don’t have the patience to work on your kid. If the tuition teacher is able to get the desired result then you know where is problem is. If India needs to produce quality professionals and not just the quantity then this has to change.
Sports in India have always been synonymous with Cricket. Even though we have had famous personalities in other sports, they hardly get the kind of recognition and press as the cricket personalities do. I have decided to dig some names and personalities who are the future of Indian sports which includes non-cricketing superstars. This article only covers the sports personalities from my home town as Chennai/Tamil Nadu has always been a place which has produced variety of sports personalities. I am just naming few of the current stars.
She is born in Chennai and this 20 year old is a squash champion. She is the highest ranked squash player from India and is currently at 14th in the world. She has three WISPA (Women’s International Squash Players Association) titles and was the first Indian player to make the Quarter finals of world squash open. She also became the youngest Indian player to reach the summit clash of a silver event when she made it to the finals of “Tournament of Champions” Squash event in New York.
Dipika is a very talented squash player and has achieved a lot at a young age. Again Squash is a very low profile sport in India and she does not get too much of press as she should. Congrats to Dipika on a great 2011 where she climbed from 29th in the world to 14th at the end of it, hopefully she will have a better 2012.
Nope he is not the Tamil actor. He is India’s first MotoGP racer in the 125 cc category. He is another racer from Chennai keeping the legacy of the city known for producing 2 formula 1 racers. The 20 year old Indian is the fastest rider in Indian class and was the first to break the 2 minute barrier on an Indian bake at the circuit. Another talented Indian sports personality who only got decent press due to him being the first Indian to ride in Moto GP. I hope he has a great 2012 and does well in the chances he gets.
He is yet another Indian sports personality who hardly gets enough press but is famous enough. Probably he is known the most around India among the names I have already mentioned. He is India’s number one table tennis player and has remained at the top for 4 years now. He won the gold at commonwealth games in 2006 and also has the distinction of being the first Indian to win an ITTF Pro title when he won at the Egypt open. He also captained the Indian team which defeated the English team who were the favorites and 9 time champions at the Egypt open in the same year.
This is one person I found hardly any news about apart from a Chennai tabloid blog. The 2008 women’s world carom champion fought poverty to reach the pinnacle in the sport. She won the title in 2008 in France. The nation which was caught in the euphoria of the IPL completely missed the return of the triumphant Ilavazhagi’s return. The two time SAARC champion finally got the recognition when the State Government announced cash prize of 10 lakhs after her interviews in the media.
People who fight adversity and achieve great things need support of the media and the government. Champions like Ilavazhagi can actually inspire young people to achieve something and also teach them to fight to reach their goals. Kudos to her for the title and hope she goes on to do India proud at the world level once again.
Yet another racer from Chennai following in the footsteps of Narain Karthikeyan, Karun Chandhok and Parthiva Sureshwaran, Armaan is the son of legendary Akbar Ebrahim who is the former British F3 champion. Armaan is a talented racer who competed in the Formula 2 championship in the years 2010 and 2011. He will be racing in the Firestone Indy lights in 2012. He has a great future and has very good reputation on circuit. Hope he has a great 2012 and wins quite a lot of races in the Indy lights. Another sports person who hardly finds any press
Tennis Scene in Chennai
Tennis and Chennai have always been hand in hand. The great father son duo of Ramanathan Krishnan and Ramesh Krishnan were from Chennai and so were the Amritraj brothers. Ramanathan Krishnan was probably the highest seeded Indian in Wimbledon when he was #4 in the 1962 championship. He has had multiple appearances in the Grand Slam Semi-Finals. His son Ramesh Krishnan also was a famous tennis icon in the 80’s. Following in the father’s footsteps, Ramesh also won the junior Wimbledon title in the late 70’s. Ramesh reached the quarter-finals of Wimbledon once and US Open twice in his career. Ramesh reached his highest singles ranking of 23 in the year 1985.
Following in the tennis legacy of Chennai was Vijay Amritraj. Yet another great player from the Chennai shores. Amritraj was the highest ranked Singles player from India in the open era. His highest ranking was 16th in the world. Amritraj also reached the quarter-finals of US Open and Wimbledon and also had an impressive 384-296 W/L record in singles.
The greatness of the tennis scene did not stop with the Krishnan’s and the Amritraj brothers. It is to be noted that Leander Paes and current Indian number 1 Somdev Devvarman learned their trade in Chennai. Leander is the aluminous of the famous Loyola College in Chennai and did his schooling in the famous Madras Christian College. Chennai boasts of the famous Numgambakkam tennis stadium where the prestigious Chennai Open takes place every year. The Krishnan tennis center and the Britannia Amritraj tennis academy train lots of young players in India.
Chennai is also the home for the famous MRF pace foundation which has given the Indian cricket team lots of famous pace bowlers under the tutelage of legendary Dennis Lillie.
Chennai has always had a multi-faceted sporting culture. We have legends from tennis, Chess, Carom, table tennis and off course cricket. Chess champion and world number 1 Viswanathan Anand comes from Chennai and so do lots of Grand Masters following in his footsteps. This article is just the tip of the ice berg, there are number of other young achievers I might have missed. There are for sure lots of other sports achievers throughout the country who are not that well known through India. I just did this for Chennai and I already feel exhausted and I have not even included every young achiever in the city. Just imagine how many would be there throughout the country. Please add to the list if you know of such sports personalities. These stars require as much recognition and press as a cricketer does.
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