Different Day, Same Result!

Yes! You guessed it right...its all about the MEN IN BLUE yet again! On Oct 29th 2006, I was one among the many Indian supporters who woke up early on a Sunday morning; gearing up to see the all-important knock out game against arch rivals Aussies. This was a week long goal/hope/desire to make sure that I get up right in time for the game! The first four hours were absolutely satisfying to see the Indians put up a decent total on the board against some quality seam attack. Also given the behavior of the pitches for the tournament so far, a target of 250 looked like a good contest on the cards. Well......a weeks desire for me, the hope of millions back home....everything ceased in the next hour of play, making a lot of people think twice "is it worth watching and supporting yet another Indian game?"

Lack of penetration from our "young guns" in the bowling department helped by some lazy display of fielding took the game away from us in a couple of overs. It was too late to even make a come back of sorts, especially given the Aussie line up and the fact that a batsmen like Hussey, who holds an average of ~ 78 in ODIs, was set to bat at number 7.Anyway all said and done, yet another painful defeat for India who have now just managed to have 2 victories over the Aussies in the 15 matches played against them after the 2003 World Cup. As Ravi Shastri rightly mentioned out, its high time that the Indian think tank stops taking chances around with the number three slot, though they dint do it on Sunday.

Taking a look at the World Cups so far, you can see that the men who made a difference, Amarnath in 1983, DeanJones in 1987, Inzamam in 1992, DeSilva in 1996 and Ponting over the last 2 world cups, were all the number three batsmen on most of the occasions....It was also disheartening to see all sub continent teams being thrown out of the tournament even before the semifinals. I just happened to see a statistic couple of days back, that among the top 5 leading run scorers in ODIs this year, four are from Srilanka. So it makes things even worse ...does it not??

With the team for South African tour announced today, I hope the bowling department would gel into a strong unit with the likes of Zaheer and experienced Kumble. Also eager to see the top order fire more consistently from now on, given the fact that the World cup countdown has already started. So, I sincerely hope that the team performs well in South Africa and all future series leading to the World Cup. I always feel Cricket is something special and supporting India is all the more special and exciting. How many ever Sundays pass like this, I still would never let my hope die - we would be at the top, one fine day! That's Cricket and that's what it is to support Indian cricket!....Wishing the MEN IN BLUE Good luck!...

First Impressions...

With so much of coverage about the release of new versions of the rival browsers -IE and Firefox, I decided to upgrade both of them over the weekend. I had shifted to Firefox about a year or so back, mainly for the tabbed browsing convenience and though was mainly using the "plain vanilla" version without many extensions, was happy about it.

There are couple of cool things with Firefox 2.0 - the spell check and restore session feature. In case of accidental closure of the browser, the restore session remembers and opens all the tabs that were opened in the previous session. It also remembers recently closed tabs so that you can bring them up again, if you have accidentally closed only a tab.

IE7 has a new lean look with most unused icons hidden. It has introduced tabbed browsing and the quick tabs feature which gives you thumbnail views of all open tabs is cool, may be useful. If you have not been using Firefox, you are bound to be excited with the tabs in IE7.

Go on and upgrade your browsers...am sure that is the application we end up using 80% of the time:)
Happy browsing!

(In fact, Firefox helped me correct a lot of typos in this blog entry and I would have never had Firefox with F capitalized.)

Normalcy returns!
A couple of days back Bob Woolmer had commented that there was a sign that reads "Normal services will be resumed soon" perennially hanging over the Pakistani cricket team. Normal services were in place today, and they were bundled out cheaply to let South Africa grab a semi-final spot.

India also returned to normal services and lost to West Indies, and as I have already written (India can make it happen!), we did compete. and guess who was the inspiration for West Indies victory, according to Lara- -our very own coach 'guru' Greg. He promised to build a team and inspire them to the next level. We assumed it was going to be India. But Greg has kept up his promise, West Indies are certainly improving with every game.

Could we expect normal services when we meet Australia this weekend?

Indraya Thathuvam!
Vazhkaye por kalam, Vazhndhu dhan parkanum
Por kalam maralam, Porgal dhan maruma?

(My) Translation...
(Today's Philosophy!)
Life is a battlefield, you still got to live and fight it out
Battlefields can change, but will the battles ever change?

Credits: I do not know who came up with this first, but I remember Sarath kumar and Sarath babu using this in a Tamil film titled "Vedan".

Digesting Information!
If you have already heard this term "alphabet dosas" before, it means you are a creative (South Indian) parent of a 3-5 year old. I heard this term for the first time yesterday and was curious to know about it. The mom was more than excited to explain that she makes the dosas in different shapes resembling alphabets so that the kid learns the alphabets and also has fun while eating different shapes.

idhuku peru dhan padippa karachi kudikiradha???
(Is this what they mean when they say digesting information???)

I don't have to try hard, all my dosas are alphabet dosas. May be you will have trouble figuring out the alphabet:)

Reconfiguration...this one not for FPGAs!
A 10 minute conversation with a dear old friend can really go a long way in recharging your batteries and getting your system ready for a new set of tasks. May be because this reconfiguration needs no overhead, I should actually increase the frequency of my reconfiguration:)

idhu konjam over dhan(bit too much), I accept it. but you can't help it if you have been thinking about the same research problem for years.

Just do it!
I am the guy who looks before leaping and then looks again. after all, I am a Libran, that too a cautious one. There are times when you(shouldn't it be I) take more time than required to think and weigh the options, that you miss the moment. I was in one such situation and when my internal scales were trying to balance and come up with a decision, my friend took the initiative before it was too late. We ended up doing the right thing. Made me realize that my scales need not start to operate at the slightest opportunity and there are instances which call for spontaneity. Sometimes you got to go with your gut feeling.
Thanx da machan, I will always remember this.

Oh my, the irony is the quote that I posted only yesterday. how true!!

Interesting Quote!

Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.

- Theodore Roosevelt

Triumph in adversity!
The "cornered tigers" did it again. You can count on the Pakistan cricket team to provide drama and they did just that today against Sri Lanka. After weeks, may be months (years...I don't remember a settled and peaceful team) of turmoil, internal conflicts and drug scandals, Pakistan pulled off a tight game quite admirably. Even a neutral follower (am not very neutral;)) would feel happy for this team that always adds that mysterious touch to the game.
Such things makes one believe that "adrenaline" alone can somtimes make up for everything else.
You tend to push yourself over the limits when you are cornered and bounce back with full might.

On another note, the last month of drama culminating with this win could make up for a wonderful masala movie in India. The highlight is the happy ending that everyone wishes to see:)

India can make it happen!
India won the opening tie against England today in the Championship Trophy. We made a match out of what should have been a no contest. Agreed, I did not watch the match to comment on the conditions. But is this the first time that we faulter chasing a mediocre score? I would think we are the most 'competitive' team. We manage to compete against the best-Australia and sometimes even pull off a victory and also 'compete' against a lesser team, making them believe they have a chance and create a contest. Will we ever be ruthless and demoilsh oppositions? Will we ever decimate bowling attacks and instill fear in the minds of opposition teams?
I believe we are very nice people to ever achieve that.

Lateral Thinking
You would not expect to see any logical reasonings in a mass masala Indian movie, least of all some ideas for lateral thinking. But there were quite a few "thinking out of the box" by 'Chiru' in Stalin. The applause and screams said it all. Having been used to watching films under the comfort of my comforter for a long time now, it was a different experience to watch a mass movie in a theater. Oh yeah, it was also different beacuse I dont understand telugu:) and I did manage to finish my pop corn.

Yet another attempt!
My previous blog had two posts, I am pretty sure I will do better this time around.
Thank you guys!
Surprises are always sweet, its even more sweet when its a chocolate cake;)
I already had a long capri, big biceps, and sleeve less t-shirt, and thanx to my friends I also have a new racket today.
I get the hint...its high time I do something about the game:)

"ini vetri meedhu vetri vandhu ennai serum"
(Success is going to follow me)