Month: January 2006

Press, Records and Viru

The press and the cricket loving public are the first to fault any cricketer who is even remotely “record” sensitive. Yet notice that most of the major news outlets were so hard pressed for cricket news on the last day of the Lahore Test that most of them lead their new reports with the fact that the opening partnership record was missed. Its a little unfair to expect the players to be insensitive to records when at the slightest opportunity the media and the press are displaying records of all types all over the place. Poke around the leading cricket website and you’ll be amazed the kind of stats and data mining you can do there.

Btw, Ganguly claims his record is good! Maybe that’s why the selected him:-)

The most interesting piece I read was the news that Viru had never heard of Pankaj Roy or Vinoo Mankad! I hope this piece is authentic because it has quotes from Dilip Vengsarkar. (Normally I don’t trust this site because of the kind of stuff they publish!)

Change of leadership at Autodesk

Carol Bartz quit as Autodesk CEO after 14 years at the helm. She handed over charge to her number 2 executive, who has been with the company for 10 years. Its nice to see smooth corporate transitions as opposed to the frequent power struggles (Disney, HP, for instance) or fraud cases like Enron, that we frequently read about. I guess smooth transitions such as these don’t generate big news or stock crashes. The ability to walk away without creating a vacuum (a crash of the stock etc) is also a sign of her true leadership.

Hats off to her for quitting when on top!

Sell your movie on Google

I guess its only a matter of time before selling movies on Google becomes more mainstream. You don’t need all the middlemen to sell your movies. Make it and sell it through Google. The entire planet is your potential customer (provided they have Internet access and a broadband connection). Remember to give a few good interviews 🙂

While you are at it, enjoy a couple of freebies from Google video:

Kumble’s 10 wickets:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8182091342582596264&q=Kumble

Sachin in 1996 world cup:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4332247053575109902&q=Sachin

Impressive victory by SL

Finally, the Sri Lankan cricket team managed to win a match! What’s better is that they did it in style. I still think that the batting order is badly flawed. Considering the good start they should have crossed 300. Unfortunately, they were left with big hitters towards the end. Mubarak clicked partly because he had so many lives. He could be useful in the last 10 overs instead.

Sangakkara is still their mainstay. He clicks and they have a good chance. Attapattu must just open the batting with him on permanent bass in ODIs.

SL in bad shape

Sri Lanka’s performance of late has been pathetic. If this trend continues Tom Moody’s job as coach should be on the line pretty soon!

I simply don’t understand their batting order. Wasn’t Attapattu opening or going in at number 3 for so many years? He has played the anchor role while Jayasurya and others build their innings around him. Why is he running scared these days? He seems to be droppping down the order with every match! The batting order in my opinion should be as follows:

  1. Attapattu
  2. Sangakkara
  3. Jayawardene
  4. Tharanga
  5. Dilshan
  6. Arnold
  7. Mubarak
  8. Vaas
  9. Perrera
  10. Fernando
  11. Murali

First Test: Pak vs. India

Man, what a boring pitch! I wish they would start preparing Test match wickets which have something in it for bowlers! Its sickening to see one team bat first and pile up 600+ runs over two days. The only thing left in this match is a test of Indian batsmens’ ability to stick it out and save the Test. I remember many years back when India was going to play a Test match at Faisalabad, Lala Amarnath had commented, “Even if you play for 7 days on this pitch you won’t get a result!”

Ganguly should play in the first Test

There is a lot of speculation about whether Dada will make it to the playing eleven. Personally, I was not in favor of including Dada in the 15. But having done that, I think it makes sense to include him in the 11 in place of Yuvraj. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Dada can play Danish a lot better than Yuvraj.
2. He did a decent job scoring 144 in Adelaide when critics said the same thing about his weakness for fast bowling.
3. His medium pace could come in handy in the cold conditions.
4. If he flunks badly (scores poorly, gets others run out, field miserably etc.) he can be shown the door at the end of this series.
5. He won’t make the ODI team for sure, so let him have one last shot at redeeming himself. After all he has done a lot for Indian cricket. Many of the current team (ironically, including Yuvraj!) swore by him, at least until the winds changed!

Check out Imran’s excellent comments on the issue.