The reification of an ideal

One of this insighnificant one's significant aims in life was to become a culture fart, after noticing that once you start talking about why Hegel and Schlegel are better than Whegel to similarly-minded people, why, your opinion on such mundane questions like, say, the best way to burn a transistor[1] is positively sought after. Your sphere of influence immediately becomes a target needing a radiation-hardened bunker, and you spend the rest of your life wondering why the lambs run away as you approach with the butcher knife hidden safely behind your back.

So naturally, once opportunity knocked with an offer to "improve my cultural horizons", I ended up taking it: Winners of the Palme d'Or (foldly called the "pah! deo!" by those of us who can't pronounce it), screened in a fashion to enlighten uncultured pond scum[2] while still providing wholesome entertainment to the rest of the world.

Naturally, some reputations suffered.

Here's a list, and the recommendations:

• Shadow Warrior(Kagemusha)
  
  

  A secret weapon created to avenge great loss of life, this movie succeeds in what it was created to do. The only doubt remaining is what, exactly, that was. It certainly wasn't to describe how Ieyasu Tokugawa became Shogun after Roman-descended missionaries sold him weaponry capable of converting three cavalry charges into dog meat. It wasn't a story of how one man reforms, discovers a purpose in life, and dies on losing that. This movie is watchable, in spite of possessing the trappings that a pahdeo winning movie seems to need.
  
  

  Of course, the fact still remains: play Total War: Shogun, and you get a much more immersive experience of how to become Shogun. You miss the human interest stuff, though - which might be a bad thing. Or not. The historical details (as much as I know, which isn't much) are very nicely done in the movie, and if you like that sort of thing, and are willing to endure directorial dictatorship. Besides, Kurosawa had no Kensai. No Legendary Geishas, either.
  
  

  Since this is supposed to be a movie that makes you think, don't be disappointed if all you can think is "Sank de Gott! Itt eis der Ower."
  
  




• Underground (Podzemlje)
  
  

  Light relief after shogunnic wars consists of the Wehrmacht rolling into Yugoslavia, the resistance run by a pair of actors, Tito and the Balkan genocide. Watching this, I realised that there is a very simple-minded formula to make a movie that I am almost sure to enjoy:
  
  

  
  
  • crooked heroes
  
  
  
  • crooked villains (who are the villains rather than the heroes through no fault of their own: Maybe they were born under a swastika, maybe Broccoli decided that they needed a hole in the head[3]). Even better, if the villain has no screen time, and just his(her? their?) deeds show.
  
  
  
  • a plot that gets so complicated that keeping it in some sort of order requires a legion of auditors. It needn't make sense, thought that separates the truly great movies from the passing fancies. The Wacky Bros greivously disappoint on this score.
  
  
  
  • Eyecandy. It need not be the Bellucci, even the fires signalling the orc (or whatever) advance (or retreat) in LotR:RotK fits. Bellucci is just more likely to tilt the scale on the "right" side, though...
  
  
  
  • Humour. It need not be black, though that is always a bonus.
  
  
  
  • Only in strict moderation, "social messages". It helps if they're not obvious. Gobbels wanted.
  
  
  
  
  
  And of course, watch out for the chimpanzee.
  
  This is the best movie of the lot, even considering the rosebuttbud. Stolen news footage cleverly juxtaposed with Marko Markovich gives it a sense of immediacy about forty years too late, though the serbian shots make it worthwhile. Add in the wheelchair and the tolling church bell, to get one of the most powerful images of this movie (That the director promptly ruins with
  his own version of heaven. If heaven is like the wedding of the Corleone daughter, we prefer hell.)



• A taste of cherry (Ta'm e guilass)
  
  

  No, it doesn't mean a Tam in a glass - imbibing that particular concoction will leave you lucky if you get off with the bubonic plague.
  
  

  Another of those sensitive movies, this time about a guy who wishes to commit suicide, and yet be buried properly in accordance with his religious beliefs, I presume. What other reason can anyone have to offer people money to bury him? At that - Tehran seems to be a well-behaved and proper city. Try that particular stunt in this hell-hole, and you're likely to get your
  wishes answered rather more quickly than you ever wanted.
  
  

  The ending doesn't tell us whether he dies or lives (I've spoilt the movie for you. Appy Polly Logies.) More seriously: it doesn't tell us why he decides to commit suicide. Now, since I'm an insensitive character, here's my take: Badii the bad is a professional goldfish racer, who races his fishies against those the Smart Set of Iran cultivate. Owing to a sudden shortage of fish at the local Dhaba, the cook breaks into B. the b's place, and steals his thoroughbred racer, which has forty-two generations of careful inbreeding behind it (Cleo, eat dirt. You had what? Seven?) Next thing you know, well, you have a depressed rich maniac running around the industrial wastelands searching for an accomplice to help him die. Technically, they're not accomplices, but his burial duty, for a special consideration.
  
  

  B. the b's even gone to the extent of digging his grave in an out-of-the-way place, so all they have to do is cause a landslide - no infrequent occurence in mud hills - which takes care of the problem nicely. So he finds his victim (accomplice, I mean), a loudmouth, talkative stuffer[4] whom he magically creates out of a stone shoveller, who is supposed to do his best to wake him up. Bad the baddy then goes, takes a sleeping draught[5] and goes to lie down in his makeshift grave.
  
  

  The movie would end there, but then Der Directornaut Kierostami got a sure-fire idea to get his movie the pahdeo. The (now sadly annihilated) Republican Guard invades, and puts B. the baddy into a dilution camp, where he plies his trade. Die End (or is it Der End? No matter.)
  
  

It seems that being a c.f. is a nice thing.

[1] There is a best way.

[2] and coincidentally induce severe spinal disorder in the long term. Not that it matters - the pursuit of liberty, freedom and culture is fraught with hardship to be endured.

[3] Sadly, he wasn't the best villain Bond had to deal with. Bond villains never die, they never say never.

[4] Taxidermist. Refer Sharpe T., "The Throwback".

[5] Water?

Presenting V for Vishesh Tippani

After reading Meghas latest post I decided to internalise a movie that one of my co-bloggers reviewed.

The movies name will be "V for Vishesh Tippani". Its hero will be the lovely person who is the object of Meghas post. The hero in this movie will quote Prabhuji, Chiru and Rajni of course not in that order.

Also his favourite movie will be this one rather than "The Count of Monte Cristo".

Next thing to do is figure out who will play the bald Natalie Portman in my movie, I will of course get Sushma Sworoj to do it since by then Sonia Gandhi would have become our PM.

I would like to ask Neha whether she would kindly agree to play the blood-thirsty-over-ambitious-oh-I-think-I-am-the-next-nobel-winner-doctor who makes VT to veer away from Mom, Aloo ke Parathe and Gajar ka Halwa to "Defend democracy in the holy and historical city of Chennai ruled by a vicious dictator with a scary-fear-inducing title called Bulla" (my tribute to the greatest villain in Indian movie history).

For people who are insane enough to visit our blog heres a sneak preview to one of the scenes as well (Part of a flashback of VTs previous life):
"VT is sitting on a metallic chair and Neha fed up of all heroes liking Aloo ke Parathe and Gajar ka Halwa has decided she going to convert him to liking Karela Juice and Baingan ka Bharta by electrocuting him. She flips on the switch, at the same time we see Nightwatchmen making his special appearance in his own movie a la Subhash Ghai (Hitchcock by reversing time copied these in his movies), start running and they show the blue streak of electricity travelling along the wire and straining his last sinew he throws VT off the chair, but gets himself killed since he comes into contact with the chair. (Of course there will be a whole flashback in a flashback where nightwatchmen is just another flundering poor mongrel on the streets who gets through IIT and then a job in the IT industry all because of VTs large heart.).Cut back to the flashback and VT is emerging out of a stinking Cooum (Bo Derek again copied this by reversing time) and take the pledge that was mentioned in the last paragraph."

And of course I am hoping that Megha would kindly consent to do an item number in the movie.

Now if only I could get someone to play the gay news reader, any ideas Ser Feenix or Mentalbaba ??

Gulliver's Travels, Redux

Or: The One-sided guidebook to the lands of Polemica, Disinformatsya and Rhetorika

Or: How not to stab yourself in the face when you decide to inform the world that
some entity is mutant scum.

Originally inspired by some seriously brilliant writing on Ze Hindoo by an almost-spawned tadpole from Das Mutterland's least greatest Great Technical Institution, this turned into a reasonably good guideline for excitable authors. Kaaawya included.

Zo, liebchen: you haff decided dat I are evil? And you wish to proclaim this fact to the world? Here's how you do it:

• Grab attention. USE CAPITALS. Marx wrote Das Capital, a masterly exposition of this little-known emendation to fast leg theory (not to be confused with the long leg theory of, say, H.Klum[1].)



• Generalise. All generalisation is true, for some particular value of true. If nothing else, it will always confuse the issue



• Adjectives are your friend. When absolutely unnecessarily scatteredly used, analysis will definitely positively require more effort than the reader is prepared to give, thus making your statements true by default.



• Be sure of your facts. Then distort them.



• Innuendo is your friend. When used accurately, it is capable of a lot more damage than a list of long facts that no one reads anyway.



• 
  Conflation and elision are both very valuable tools. (Explanation elided, for various reasons rooted in laziness)
  



• 
  Volume overrules mass. The loudest idiot who shouts the longest is the most valuable supporter any team playing in the forthcoming vorld kup can ever have.
  



• 
  Sensation overrides substance.
  



• 
  Vox Populi always Whacks Dei.
  



• 
  Never underestimate the power of the majority, it can argue for you more coherently than you ever could.
  

Ze master, being Ze German, stated these points better. A link to him might just be included here, but you really should find him for yourself...

[1] I would be tempted to put in a google imagesearch here. Still, do it yourself.

Bericht von München der Film

Spielbergs latest offering Munich is a good movie but not quite there unlike some of his other movies. That Spielberg is very proud of his Jewish roots and Israel is quite apparent from some of his other movies primary among them Schindlers List.

11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped and then murdered by a terrorist group called Black September during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. This movie is about the Mossads retaliation to assassinate Palestinian leaders suspected of planning and carrying out this attack.

A 5 person team lead by Avner (Eric Bana) are recruited and assigned the task of eliminating the Palestinian leaders who are suspected of carrying out the attack. Initially the team does not question about the roles played by the persons they are asked to eliminate and even rejoice when the kill the first guy pn their list.

But soon the disillusionment creeps in when they realise that the persons they kill are being replaced by some one whos probably far worse. And soon they are forced into killing civilians and also start becoming targets of assassinations. The disillusionment is totally captured by a pleading Mathieu Kassovitz when he opts out of a mission where the team plans to kill a Dutch assassin who has killed one of their team: " We are supposed to be righteous. That's a beautiful thing. And we're losing it. If I lose that, that's everything. That's my soul. ".

This is probably one of the highlights of the movie, it does not pass any judgement on either the Jews or the Palestinians. The internal conflicts are brilliantly portrayed by Eric Bana, one of many gripping performances in the movie. What the movie lacks though is a single theme on which the director tries to get through to the audience. There is a superficial handling of a lot of issues but none of them are examined more thoroughly so what one ends up getting is a lot of questions without many answers. But surely the movie is well worth a watch, if for nothing else then for the excellent cinematography and the great performances (I am leaving out Geoffrey Rush and the new James Bond Daniel Craig here since I am too lazy to write anything more).

Zee Perfect Book

Just finished reading A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre. And like most of his other books this one too had me engorssed right till the end.

The book is sort of semi autobiography based on his father who was THE conman. More known for his series on Karla and cold war spy fiction, this book makes for a refreshing change as it flits between the protagonists flashback and the English secret services desparate attempt on trying to locate him when he disappears after his fathers death.

And of course Jack Brotherhood and Axel (dont know whether I spelled that right)are exactly the sort of persons one would encounter in a Le Carre book, totally dysfunctional and anachronistic.

I started reading Le Carre about a year back when I was told to read The Spy who came in from the Cold. Hes the sort of author who grows on you, initially it feels sort of really boring stuff but as one perseveres one really enjoys such spy fiction more than that highly over rated Robert Ludlum stuff. And not too many people read Le Carre, in fact one guy in my alumni group was totally thrilled when he came to know that I read Le Carre but then we were just the two of us. And after that it continued with the Quest for Karla which involved a series of battles between Le Carres greatest creation George Smiley and Karla. Quest for Karla involved three books Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and finally culminating in the masterpice Smileys People (much better than the Bourne series which sort of just dipped in quality after The Bourne Identity). After that I was hooked and finished The Tailor of Panama (yeah the Pierce Brosnan movie), The Night Manager, The Secret Pilgrim, The Constant Gardener (yeah the Rachel Weisz movie), The Little Drummer Girl. Most of the ones mentioned in the last statement are not about the Cold War times. And finally finished The Looking Glass War (which I must say is actually right up there with his best) before reading The Perfect Spy. So if any of you who are reading this do happen to have copies of either Call for The Dead or A Murder of Quality please let me know.

And once I am done with the Salman Rushdie that I am reading right now I will be reading A Small Town in Germany and Absolute Friends next week which I am gonna get from the Alternate Moebyus.

So if you want a break from the James Bond level stunts and spies running against time to save the world and instead want to bite into some real life spy fiction written by a real pro whos seen it all then Le Carre is the man for you.

P.S: The "Zee" in the title has come from watching this movie.

Leander

Heres an article on one of my favourite sportspersons of India and written by one of my favourite writers on sport.

The worst technical PJ ever

Disclaimer: The contents of this post can be extremely harmful to your mental health. You also need to be an electrical engineer to really "appreciate the nuances" of this joke.

Here goes:

The Rowling Stone gathered no MOS
It only gathered BJTS
And hence MAGIC was needed to solve the worlds problems
Once there was MAGIC there was SPICE in everyones life
And people started using Nokias instead of Owls
And HOWLERS got replaced by SCUM who
Had Level 5 Ring Tones of Dhoom Machale

B for Banditry

Here's how Hugo Weaving makes an entry:

"This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V. "

Dorothy Parker once reviewed an actress as "running the whole gamut of emotions, from A to B". Natalie Portman faces the same challenge, rather successfully, in the movie "V for Vendetta". It remains an open question whether emotion was required for her role: if not, she has certainly delivered a superb performance as the exponential e^V, who is tortured by the hero "V", so that she loses the capacity to feel fear. I wonder how he did that: did he threaten to take her logarithm, and make her the same as him?

V is a superhuman morgothian hero straight out of jail, played by Hugo Weaving (Agent Schmidt) who throws knives in slow motion and uses plate mail to dodge bullets the hard way. He dodged bullets better in "Ze Matrix", you know. And don't forget his alliterative approach to actors appearing - which is one of the (actually many) things that prevent me from swearing at the movie. V can actually get away with murder, just because of the special effects. Unfortunately, we don't learn too much of his history. As circumstances turn out though, it doesn't matter. The important thing to note is that V is not his name, or his initial.

We can all be grateful that the Wacky brothers have to make a really convoluted sequel if it is to be believable.

This movie does not deserve to be panned: It deals with the knotty problems of democratic government (the people get what they deserve, good and hard), terrorism (Our freedom fighters, your revolutionaries, their insurgents), and how to remove a dictator from power (Normandy? Schlock and Ow? Superheroes? Take your pick.)

Let's see, what else is there to praise? The camerawork and CG, the postmodern detective who uses Big Brother's original database to do his detecting - very effectively, I must add - he's more believable than Little Tommy Precrime (which is faint praise, but really: he's good. Morse in his younger days without the sense of humour.) We'll leave the plot out, though. 1984 and Deus Ex do the dystopian concept better.

Lessons learned from this movie:

• Nanocameras exist. RFID Dust, eat your heart out! The Wackies put one in a raindrop, and film one of the most spectacular scenes of the movie: The rain falling onto e^V as she tries a (thankfully solitary) Winslet on the sort of balcony Juliet would be tempted to push Romeo off of.
  
  
• The Wacky brothers can get away with anything. Almost.
  
  
• Domino logic is a good alternative to billboards, when it comes to putting up your signature in red and black (Incidentally, anybody has an idea of how far they were from the Guiness record in this?)
  

Overall, I'd suggest watching this movie. Closely. It might get away.

Golden Age of Batting ?

Amit Verma has started a new discussion on Wicket to Wicket a blog run by Cricinfo. The topic being whether the game has become too friendly for batsmen such that matches like this one are happening.

Let me add my two cents worth to the discussion. Amit starts off with a rip van winkle who goes to sleep in the 1980s and wakes up in 2006 to watch the afore mentioned match. Let me slightly change it. Lets say I am a test batsman (yeah yeah I am always dreaming about it) making my debut in 1980. I know I am gonna get screwed. The Windies have a fearsome pace attack, the Aussies have Lilee and Thompson, the English have Botham and co, Indians have Kapil (theres Dhileep Doshi a highly under rated spinner) and the Pakis have Imran and co. . Now the same night a genie appears and tells me I can either give up this chance and instead play in 2004-05 against the strongest bowling attack, the Aussies. Now what would I do.

Lets see the Aussies have Gillespie, McGrath, Lee and Warne (Mr Kasper and McGill will have to bear with me). Now given this choice what would I do, definitely plump for 2004. Gillespie and McGrath are good bowlers mind you but then once the pitch is flat pretty much ineffective and nowhere close in pace to some of the pacers mentioned above. Lee is quick but his bounce is nowhere near close to what "Big Bird" Joel Garner can generate. And Warne has pretty much no variety, only a leg break and more works on a batsmans mind with his reputation

Point I am getting to is that the bowlers after 2000 are just not penetrative enough to cause any batsman to lose sleep(though Mr Glichrist would have something to say about a certain Mr Flintoff). And no there were flat pitches in the 1980s also. There were and thats why lots of conossieurs rate this innings as the best they have seen at Chepauk (even though Sachin scored which in my opinion was the best innings he has ever played in his life in 1999 there against Pakistan). Viswanath did not even score a century only a 97, on a bouncy track. And that merits a full coloumn on it in the newspaper that has easily by a huge margin the best sports journalists writing for them in India.

Think about it Pollock has lost his pace, and a patient man like Boycott will never give his wicket to him, Ntini bowls pretty much inswingers the whole day and Gavaskar will dent with all the effort it takes him to lift the mike he speaks into while doing commentary. McGrath is slightly better but again no pace, and is out of ideas once the batsmen start attacking him, a certain Viv Richards is licking his lips in anticipation. Warne, Murali, Vettori and Kumble good turners(the last name has started doing that off late) and probably cause a few problems but only needs to think of Messrs Bedi, Prasanna and Chandra and what do we get, my dreamy batsman still prefers the newer version. The Windies attack probably wouldnt trouble the Mumbai ranji trophy team forget about some of the great batsmen of the 1980s. Shane Bond, Mohammed Asif, Shoaib, Vaas make such contrasts to names like Garner, Roberts, Holding, Marshall, Lilee, Thompson that I think the Chapell brothers would think it was more competitive playing in their backyard.

My take is simple, as long as we had great bowlers and I mean bowlers who could take wickets on any kind of surface like Wasim (just think of Chennai 1999 and ask Rahul Dravid how he was bowled and I think he must still be searching for an answer), Walsh/Ambrose (as a pair were very deadly giving batsmen no breathing space), and Pollock and McGrath lost their pace theres this void of incisive bowlers that has been left behind.

There might be more to it than meets the eye though. The fast bowlers never want to go flat out since they know they have to play so many matches. Also some of the pitches these days are so flat that Michael Holding talks about "pulling a muscle sort of pitch" in his pitch report. In the case of the spinners though theres another problem, they bowl flatter in ODIs to contain and get wickets and are somehow not able to adapt their flight to the longer version. Harbhajan is a typical case. On the other hand Vettori played a lot of test matches before he played an ODI which meant that he stayed an attacking bowlers and thats the reason that he always seems like getting a wicket. It has helped Anil Kumble as well not playing ODI cricket I mean.

So a combination of a lack of penetrative bowlers, aggressive bowling, far too much ODI cricket, flatter pitches have all contributed to this being a golden age of batting.

Just to make my point I was thinking that if some of the so called "great batsmen" of this era were to be transported 20 years back how many would survive:

1. Hayden --> Would have been worked over in no time by the pace quartet of the Windies since his back foot play is as weak as Sunny Deols dances.

2. Ponting --> The lunge forward would only take him to the hospital before he can even get going in his innings, and Wasim has trapped him so many times in front. On the other hand hes a horrible player of quality spin bowling (Bedi would be salivating at the prospect).

3. Gilchrist --> Couldnt work out Flintoff, cant think of what Kapil, Botham or Hadlee could have done, also not very assured against spin.

4 Kallis --> Is equally at ease against spin and pace and has the required patience. Could have survived in the 1980s.

5. Lara --> I think he would have scored against any attack at any time on any ground IF he has the heart to do it. (Though 400 would have been very tough)

6. Sehwag --> Cant play bouncers of Matthew Hoggard. Holding and Marshall would probably have worked him over much too easily the way a IIT-ian would work out the roots of the equation x^2-x-1=0.

7. Dravid --> Has a great technique probably the best to take on any of the bowling attacks.

8. Sachin --> Combining Laras eye with Dravids technique and loads of concentration, Sachin is a truly great batsman so he would have scored heavily even against the greats of the 80s.

9. Inzy --> Picks length earlier than any other batsman in world cricket right now, though his propensity to stay on the back foot goes against him but then again picking length is whats important. Would have survived I guess.

10. Younis Khan, Mohammed Yusuf, Graeme Smith, Pietersen, Vaughan, Sangakkara, Jayasuriya etc etc these are the ones who are making hay while the sun shines!!! Good for them.....Its a long post and my fingers are paining. So I am stopping here. (The poor New Zealand batsmen dont make runs even now except when they are playing the Windies)

Being Cyrus, or How I stopped listening to my inner voices and wasted a Hundred and Twenty Bucks

By now you must have realised that this post is going to be a review of Being Cyrus. Lets get the story over with. There are 7 characters in the story, 5 of them from the dysfunctional Parsi Sethna family. The movie begins with Cyrus (played by Saif) in Panchgani trying to learn pottery from Dinshaw Sethna (brilliantly played by who else but Naseeruddin Shah) a genius in his own time but now living a life where hes doped most of the time and nothing seems to penetrate his smoke filled world. And of course theres the promiscous, bored and ambitious wife Katy Sethna (Dimple Kapadia).

Soon Cyrus is caught up in a web of trying to patch up the whole family the other three memebers being Dinshaws father Fardounjee Sethna, his younger son Farokh (another awesome performance by Boman Irani) who gives back what he learnt as a child by straving his father and the Farokhs wife Tina played by Simone. The first half intrigues you with hints of something more dark and sinister about the whole Sethna family right from the senile Fardounjee to hints of something dangerous about the "demure young bride" Tina. Just when you refilled your Pepsi and come back and settle down in your seat after the intermission, you see a really vague dream that Cyrus is having and from then on the movie becomes so hopelessly predictable that you want to go back home and watch a re-run of Jaani Dushman.

And if you are wondering who the 7th character was then it is the performer of the movie in Manoj Pahwa who plays Inspector Lovely who does generate a lot of mirth in most of the scenes that he appears in.

"Being Cyrus" stays afloat because of some brilliant performances. Dimple overdoes it towards the end, Simone and Saif give average performances. Being Cyrus is worth watching only if you have nowhere else to be (I am sorry but the cliche was too good to be missed).

Tagged

Stupid enough but I have been tagged by a Confused Mind apparently. Its gonna be another one of those frusth posts.

So here goes.

Five things I can't live without
1. Food
2. Water
3. Shelter
4. My Bonzer
5. And how can I forget this.

Five movies I'd see as many times
1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. Mulholland Drive
3. Jaani Dushman (Before you ask, its the new one)
4. Rainman
5. Remember The Titans

Five places I'd love to go any day
1. Cheddis
2. Corner House
3. Home
4. RRC Grounds where I learnt all my cricket
5. NAL Grounds which has sort of become my home ground now

Five places I'd love to visit
1. SCG
2. Lords
3. The Himalayas
4. Antarctica
5. The Pyramids

Five websites I visit day in and day out
1. http://www.cricinfo.com
2. http://mail.yahoo.com
3. http://indiauncut.blogspot.com
4. http://news.google.com/news?ned=in&btn=Go
5. http://www.cricket.mailliw.com/

Five things I love doing at work
1. Take tea breaks
2. Chew on my pencil
3. Listen to music
4. Chat
5. And writing stupid things since I have been "tagged"

Five books I've loved
1. Lord of the Rings
2. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
3. Lila
4. The Spy who came in from the Cold.
5. English August

Five English songs I'd listen to anyday
1. Time Pink Floyd
2. Romeo and Juliet Dire Straits
3. November Rain Guns N Roses
4. Cats in the Cradle and The Silver Spoon Guns N Roses
5. Blowin in the wind Bob Dylan

Five famous personalities I respect
1. ML Jaisimha
2. Steve Waugh
3. Ayn Rand
4. Ramchandra Guha
5. Adam Smith

Five fictitious characters I like
1. Wilt
2. Inspector Morse
3. George Smiley
4. Don Quixote
5. Who else but Agastya

And no I am not going to put anyone in misery by "tagging" them.

Whither VVS

Read this article on Cricinfo about the future of VVS Laxman. If indeed this turns out to be the last series for VVS then I will be disappointed. There wont be any fun in watching India bat. We have brutal power in the form of Dhoni and Sehwag and some real orthodoxy in Dravid. And with Sachin playing a more defensive role its hard to find a batsman who takes batting into another plane altogether. When Laxman is on song its almost as if the ball is being cajoled to go to the fence and the fielder chasing it thinks he has it covered while he can just look on in agony as the ball keeps getting faster as it goes closer to the boundary.

While Dravid makes you feel that you are listening to something precise like a rendition of one of Beethovens Symphony Laxman on song is like watching a jazz band performing a brilliant number. The brilliance is transient but thats enough to make it worth it.

No Nana, No!

What can you possibly say about a movie where Priyanka Chopra crashing onscreen about three minutes into the end of the movie results in a theater that cheers?

'Taxi No' (as the movie was called rather prominently on one of this hellhole's less-worse theatres) or to give it its full name, "taxi numbah 9/11' is a dramatic vehicle for the exposition of the central theme of "never lie - you have to cook up too many excuses". Johnny Baba is a rich playboy, and some random female imitator plays his mercenary (and bloodthirsty) girlfriend. The next thing you know, Johnny baba injures his poor car on his way home. This paves the way for the entrance of:

Nana!

(Applause customarily given Capone-da on his on-screen entry may, without prejudice, be extended to Nana. He is the best actor this movie has. Which doesn't say much, I must admit.)

Nananono plays an "Insurance agent" who drives a taxi, driving an interesting class of customers, until he meets his match in Johnny Baba. Next follows a dizzying ride through the high- and low-spots of Mumbai (namely, the cophouses and courts) until the ending, which comes far too late to be of any use to the sanity of the audience (fair warning: sweet-tasting sugar substitute involved.)

The movie boasts a surprising number of twists and turns, which is a tribute to the farsighted and pragmatic designers who grew Mumbai from the swamps, and planted a local railway network since they felt the number of places to do battle properly were too less.

To continue a tradition of miseducation, here are the things that a not-so-average viewer[1] ought to take away from this movie:

• Kill off yourself, but ask permission before you kill anybody else
  
  
• Gain a fortune. Lose it. Gain it again. Congratulations! Your name is now SENSEX
  
  
• Taxi drivers drive at thrice their usual speed (i.e. 40km/h) if you pay them at the going rate of a rupee a metre
  
  
• While still on killing: when your victim looks like Nana the Pot, be careful: you're his victim.
  
  
• Invest in the automobile industry. Johnny Baba the penurious heir breaks atleast three cars, and still has more to run around with. (Which begs the question of why he got into a taxi in the first place, but then, I'm not all that curious to know.)
  
  

[1] Statistics: where normal is mean, and deviation standard.

PS: One year, 32 posts. Where does that leave people with a life?

Great Stuff

Heres an article about Damien Martyns innings in the World Cup final. Apparently the index finger injury was career threatening. The articles not real good though, talks of an Indian attack comprising Irfan Pathan for the 2004 WC final.

And heres another article on Muhammad Kaif one of Indias batsmen that I love to watch by Ramchandra Guha one of Indias finest writers on cricket.

Crystal dream

Two multiplications, two additions, two logical nots and entirely too much trouble for each pixel.

Wrong day, Basanti

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
                -- S. Johnson, "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by J. Boswell

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last
resort of the scoundrel.  With all due respect to an enlightened but
inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
                -- Ambrose Bierce

A party is interrupted by the moral police, led by a moral man^*. The partygoers and the moral man later gang up, and go on a spree, while shooting a documentary about freedom fighters and participating in the general rediscovery of India.

Thus goes Aamir Khan's latest movie. He's come a long way, acting in movies that ostensibly deal with the history of India. Let me see, there were these:

• Lawgun: This spoof of that other "patriotic" movie, Topgun, has the heroes playing cricket to reduce taxes, rather than flying tomcats to break the axis of evil. Long, and, if you like cricket, your sort of thing. Heavens help you if you don't.
  


• Mongol Pandey: A lone soldier leads a nation. From being ground under the oppressor's heel, to being ground under the colonial heel, pausing along the way to mess up most of what the history books teach. And no, he wasn't fighting against the hordes of Genghiz.
  (Disclaimer: I've not seen this.)
  


• Any more? All marketable stories get sequels and prequels, sooner or later.

How do you review a movie that has inspired rave reviews all the way from this pensioners hellhole to the capital? And not by calling it names: it's a hit. (In the plexes anyway, which are, after all, the only places that count.) The answer is, you can't: you merely come away with lessons learned from it. In no particular order:

• Once you finish college, continue to live there.


• If you aren't happy with elected officials, do something about them. Something permanent. Like not voting for their party, next time around?


• When you've finished above, an angst-ridden explanation of your motives, your motivations and the various reasons should be broadcast to the public. After all, they have nothing better to do than to listen to you^%, and get inspired.


• There are many versions of the drinking game. Some are more edge-defying than others


• Actors on the cheap may be found in colleges. But you knew that already. Budding filmmakers - go there, unless you're there already.

(Fair disclosure: this is not a balanced review. It may contain forward-looking irrelevant statements.)


^* someone who refuses to get paid for his services to his country. Of all the characters, from the ratty female 'leads' to the delinquent minus-five-point-nobodies, the displaced sainik merits sympathy. Of a sort. He should have been in mumbai, where the moral police do have bettermore things to do.

^% and so, a blog was born. This seems to be an option that the director/scriptor missed, which is a real shame. Just imagine the potentialities, the viral marketing.

Changing Times

This clip sums up cricket, Martyn get castled off a ripper of a delivery from Murali. Last season though Martyn was the prime reason behind the Aussies conquering the "final frontier" India and the Lankans as well.

My Way

The title aptly sums up Jaisimhas cricket. Just finished reading his biography. Its a good gripping read, though I feel that there could have been a bit more on the cricketing front and less on the life outside the field that he led. But definitely worth a buy if you are a fan of him like me. And at 100/- its pretty cheap. Some of the stories in the book are too good to be true. The one about where Laxman first sees Jaisimha recounted in the first page of the book gives one goose bumps.

In fact the reason why he did not play more than he did is also apparent from the book, with his no-nonsense attitude towards the selctors. About how selectors would tinker with the Indian teams composition and actually pick an inferior team just because one particular player did not feed enough fuel to their already bloated egos.

The best lines in the book are when an upcoming young batsman asks Jai about his batting, and Jai says "You lack style, boy". Upon which our tyro proceeds to ask him "And how can I become a stylish player ? " to which Jai in his inimitable style replies "Just try touching Salim Durrani, maybe some of his style might rub off on you!!!". I guess watching Azhar and Laxman bat in full flow, we all know where the inspiration for their styles came from.

Cairns retires

Chris Cairns has decided to retire from international cricket with his last match being the one against the Windies in a 20-20 encounter.

Dont think too many people would pick him in a 90's XI or would call him their favourite player, but he was a unique player. Probably was the most under performing player of the 90's after Carl Hooper (I was a great fan of Hoopers perfectly balanced stance). When I was growing up he was probably the one guy who held my fascination for the single reason that he hit a six with the bottom hand off the bat against the Aussies on one of their grounds which by the way are pretty big.

In an era where cricketers in the name of "being professional" have become more and more uninteresting on and off the field, it was not the case with Cairns. You could always sense the change in the atmosphere when he would walk out to bat. His performance in the 1999-2000 season made him the Wisden cricketer of the year.

And no Indian could forget the century he scored in Nairobi that season to win the ICC champions trophy for the Kiwis, a brutal straight six off Anil Kumble standing out in my memory.

And the sad part is we might not see a player like Cairns again.....

The Preview

India take on Pakistan at Lahore starting on Friday. The first two series have had their share of ups and downs. This time around Pakistan led by Bob Woolmer are a much tougher side and on the upswing with their series win against the English. India on the other hand have just won a series against the Lankans.

The bowling attack of Pakistan has a nice balanced look to it. Akhtar, Sami and Rana make up a formidable pace battery. Rana is your typical swing bowler who will make full use of any juice in the pitch on the other hand Akhtar and Sami will be pacy and their ability to reverse the ball is good as well. Akhtars slower ball has also fetched him lots of wickets against the English. The pace department is well placed to bowl on any sort of track. The spinners are led by Danish Kaneria, who was very impressive in India. Afridi might also bowl if he plays and his pace is well suited for the slower sub continental tracks. Malik and Arshad Khan provide the off spinning options but theres the big question mark over whether they will find a place in the 11 at all.

On the other hand Indias spin bowling is well stocked with Kumble and Harbhajan masters of their art. The pacers are the worry, Pathan is yet to have a bad series, so will be interesting to see how he copes with one. Agarkar, Khan and RP Singh are not bowlers who will make any of the Pakistani batsmen loose sleep. So a lot depends on Bhajji and Kumble for India.

The Pakistani batting is going to be their weaker link, while Yusuf, Inzy, Younis Khan, Butt and Akmal pick themselves, the other 2 slots are going to be a toss up between Farhat, Razzaq, Afridi and Malik. With the pitch supposed to be flat Farhat and Afridi might just get the nod. Inzy is going to be the key and his battle with Kumble will be the most fascinating in the series. But no less interesting than the way Yusuf will play Pathan who last time around would have his head falling over a la tilted smiling Preity Zinta . Apart from Inzy and to an extent Butt none of the other batsmen have the right technique to play accurate swing bowlers, so the Indians should not allow these players to settle down.

The Indian batting looks strong on paper but on recent form most of the batsmen are struggling. Sehwag hasnt scored a 50 in a long time, Dravid is still not back to the form he had in 2003-04, while Sachin is no longer his usual older fluent self. Also who will open with Sehwag and who will be at #6 Yuvraj/Ganguly ? While I would like to play both with Yuvraj opening and Ganguly filling up the third seamers slot, I dont thing there will be such a drastic change in the line up. Lot of responsibility lies on Dravids shoulders.

With Pakistan looking the more settled side and having a shade better bowling attack they will be tipped to hold the upper hand, but all that can change in a session of Sehwag induced brilliance. All in all a great contest in the offing.

Difference between Lara and Tendulkar

The difference ("as i see it") is Lara never defends, like he will always dominates.Doing the same thing for some 16 years is totally awesome.Whereas, Sachin dominates the opposition but not always.Take the case of his double century against Australia where he played one of his slowest innings as he was going thru a rough patch.

Lara if gets a BIG hundred whenever he scores one...whereas Sachin has only three to his name and all of them being below 250.Whereas, Lara has crossed 250 at least three times.

you are most welcome to add to the list of differences between Lara and Sachin.

Interesting story

Such a joy to listen to Ian Chappell and Michael Holding comment on the Aus-WI series.

Got to know 2 funny incidents narrated by Chappell and Holding.

Firstly Chapell was talking about Sir Gary Sobers playing for South Australia at Adelaide. There was a match with New South Wales and Richie Benaud was captain of NSW. As usual Sobers was on the rampage, Benaud turning to Alan Davidson (a great bowler of Australia, a commited cricketer so typical of the Aussies) to "slow Sobers down". Well he got trashed for 4,6,4 and the 6 landed one bounce into the bar just behind the scoreboard. And the straight boundaries at the Adeliade Oval are supposed to be pretty far away.
Davidson though finally got Sobers out and remarked to Benaud "I sure did slow him down!!"

The other one Holding talks about the comments that the crowd in Adelaide keeps passing at the players. Apparently there was this English captain who was trying to swat a fly out of his sight. And pat came a voice from the crowd "Leave em flies alone!!" Well whats so funny, the fact that the English captain answered to the name of Douglas Jardine.

Sandys blog

My friend Sandy has blogged about the Ganguly-Chapell fiasco plus the Eden Gardens match as well here .

He makes some interesting observations :

1. Chappels gesture was a disgrace to Indian people.

2. The booing of the crowd at Eden Gardens.

3. How because of the booing people are after bongs in general asking them to explain something that some stupids have done.

Starting off with the first one the Chapell gesture, the explanation of the BCCI about the injured finger was laughable probably just as much as the inclusion of Ganguly as a "batting all rounder". What has irked me is the fact that Greg Chapell is considered to be a straight talking downright guy. Now then if hes that sort of a guy then he probably should tell us the truth and face the music/consequences. Everyone loses their cool and if this is not acceptable by Indian standards then Chapell must be fired and some one else found. But then the BCCI is never known to take any tough decisions. They always take the compromise path. And Sandy, Dravid is not a wimp of a captain but more about that in aother post.

Secondly the crowd booing the Indian captain off. First of all there are enough cowards in the crowd who know that their anonymity is the biggest weapon and use it to get away with anything that they can think of. Most Indians in general have never played any sport at a serious level and have no idea of the sort of pressure a sportsperson goes through. Even when I played at my hostel I could see the despair in my hostel mates eyes when we would yet again lose our semi final to the same team. The problem comes up when your own mates start abusing you, its almost unbearable. You turn to them for support at times of defeat and when they boo you off its gut wrenching. And finally this new phenomenon of crowds getting more and more fanatical. You could see it in Bangalore when India lost the test to Pakistan. Ganguly was booed off. Same thing happened to Dravid in Eden Gardens as well, probably prompting the gesture of clapping for the crowd at the end of the match in Mumbai. I sort of think that Star News which makes stupid shows like "Match ka Mujrim" would be unhappy each time India wins since it means they can no longer get people like Bishen Singh Bedi to shout whatever they want against Indias selectors the BCCI and the players. I have no idea why crowds bay for blood, it almost seems like people have stopped realising that its just a game and that sometimes you win and sometimes you loose. Thats the end point "ITS JUST A GAME". Passion is all OK but then at the end of it if you have been outclassed you just accept it and then appreciate what the other team has done and hope that there will be a better performance next time around. All one needs to look at is the Chennai (considered to be a unfriendly place for outsiders!!) crowd giving a standing ovation to the Pakistani team in 1999 after Sachin had easily played the best test match innings of his life. And all this talk of doctoring the pitch, well if you want to talk of yourself as the second best team in the world after the Aussies then you should play well on any pitch and not insist on playing only on slow low tracks.

The last point irritates me, why should some one who was not there at the ground be asked to explain something ? Eden Gardens is in Kolkata and you would expect a Metro to have people from all over the country and a fair population of non-bongs who would have booed Dravid as well. Why are bongs asked to explain the booing ? Just the sort of generalisation and regionalism that makes me frusth!!! And Bangaloreans were never asked for explanations for the booing that Dada had to put up with ?

Will blog about Gangulys selections, captaincy etc later on...

Sportsmanship ?

Much has been said and written about Flintoffs extra-ordinary sporting gesture. But I guess its always easier to be sporting when one has ended on the winning side or when you have a strong batting line up that you can walk.

But yesterday one incident took the sheen off Flintoffs impeccable conduct after the Edgbaston test match. Inzy was playing a great innings shepherding the tail very well and was looking to score his century quickly so that he could declare, and what does Mr Flintoff do, take advantage of the wide rules of a test match and spear it down the leg side so that Inzy has no chance of scoring off that ball. And it was not a ball that strayed down leg side because one could see the keeper move down the leg side even before the ball was bowled. It was good to see Darell Hair signalling it a wide while it was even funnier to see Flintoffs expression that looked as though "What!!! how could that be a wide even Geoff Boycotts mum would have hit that ?". So this sort of makes me wonder whether its always easier to be sporting and all that when you are on the winning side, not when you are out in the heat, on the final day of a test match and desparately trying to stem the flow of runs from a batsman who is one of the all time greats that Pakistan has produced.

But then there was one more incident to show that all is not lost. Sami was steaming in and was getting hit for runs, Inzy was looking for wickets when Pietersen drove at one in the air to Sami who did not claim the catch since he felt it did not carry to him, while the rest of the team was sure he had caught it.

Contrast the 2 incidents one a established player whose place in the team is assured and the other a person whos test spot is going to be under scrutiny now that he has had a bad game and could not take wickets on the last day when the team badly needed them. And what a difference in the way they reacted to the situations that they were facing!! It is in adversity I guess that character is revealed rather than in triumph.

Tag virii.

v. tagged, tagging, tags
v.tr.
    To mark or vandalize (a surface) with graffiti

---

I suppose a collablog does lead to unpleasant situations. Ah well, when former cricketers request (very politely, too) that you should do something, you do them. So here goes:

1. I hate cricket. Maybe not the game, but the idea of watching a bunch of walking advertisements chase a piece of processed leather. I'd rather play. Or sleep.
   



2. I read. Though some of my tastes do tend to be too weird for normal consumption, there are others that might be of some interest. Or maybe not.
   



3. 
   A born spectator, with not too much to confess. Apart from a mild dislike for poetry that (thankfully) does not extend to inflicting awful rhymes onto the world.
   



4. 
   My normal state: Inertia. See this, though it tends to be a more pronounced reflection of Newton's law.
   
   Then again, the lack of brain function does indicate something. I wonder what.
   



5. 
   It's been a long time since I sat down and watched tv, apart from the usual gawk at what nature can get up to if you leave things alone long enough. I wonder what I've missed.
   



6. 
   Humour. PJ's - the P'er the J'er, Paresh Rawal. Brit comedy. Rowan Atkinson is god. Seriously. The only art form they've perfected (or are even capable of.)
   
   Further reference: Stuff like Black Adder and Bean, Minister and P.M., Tom Sharpe and some others.
   



7. 
   Food! The regrettable tendency north of the tropic of Cancer to drown it in red oil and smother it in alu usually makes me stick to safer stuff.
   
   That "special" veg food is not paneer must be pounded into some people.
   



8. 
   Curiosity. It might have killed the cat, but they have enough lives to spare a few for this particular vice. Besides, you never know what you don't know until you try.
   



9. 
   I watch movies that make me frust. The other kind runs out of theatres long before I get around to watch them. After all, it is the "way of the future".
   



10. 
    A devout follower of the dictatorial method, particularly in certain things.
    



11. 
    Did I mention that I read? "Speculative fiction" not completely influenced by grampa's Tolkien and Asimov is good, though sometimes finding good ones is difficult.

    
    
    Long-winded series are a particular pet hate, particularly when the author seems likely to leave the endings to his 'spiritual heirs'.Five (three, but why quibble) years to wait for a book, and then get only half of it? Not nice. At all.

    
    
    (Remember: Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but if the person you're imitating is long dead, the only result is a bunch of irritated readers.)
    




12. 
    I tend to get bored rather easily. Therefore:
    



13. 
    I'm lazy.
    



14. 
    I cheat, when I have to.
    



15. 
    Like when the effort is not worth the results.
    



16. 
    I suppose it is worth mentioning that der cricketer might like to blog. I don't. Too many things to do as it is.
    



17. 
    I can't count properly. Very useful, at times.
    



18. 
    A tendency to not complete things...
    
    ;)
    


19. 
    Q.E.D. (see postum scriptum)
    

---

Since I "have" to tag someone, so the two absentee individuals here who might actually contribute stuff are invited. No links to you, so there.

Forecast for the day:
Sunday is close: Carrying a sign that says "will miaou for food" might help.

PS: random thoughts are not usually fit to print. Just enjoyed. Like thoughts of der cricketer getting slowly snowed under by an avalanche of work, too busy to even see what horrors he causes by getting me to post stuff...

Rag-a-Tag

Seems to be I have been tagged by Ranjan . Apparently it means that I have to reveal 20 random things about me.

So here goes:

1. I love cricket as is apparent from the posts. I open the batting for the team that I play for. And recently I took a hat trick while bowling. And when I bowl I bowl reallll slooow.

2. My cover drive is as good as anybodys. Lots of people tell me it has an element of lazy elegance about it.

3. My favourite batsman is Damien Martyn who I am sorry to say Australia have dropped after one bad series of his without thinking that he had won the previous 2 almost single handedly.

4. The bowler whom I most admire is Wasim Akram , the last of the thinking kind, they dont make bowlers like em anymore.

5. When I used to play in school, I would bat at #3 and had a reputation for hitting the ball into the Secunderabad club and in the process having to cough up a lot of money.

6. The stroke that I am working on right now is the pull, I just cant manage to keep it down nor hit it through mid wicket so if you know how please tell me!!!

7. The best innings I have ever seen in my life are the back-to-back centuries scored by Steve Waugh in the Ashes series of 1997, with a split webbing on his right hand in seaming conditions and clutching his bottom hand each time the ball hit the higher part of his bat.

8. The best dismissal I have seen in my life is in the Chennai test between India and Pakistan in 1999. Wasim Akram bowls a ball to "The Wall" Rahul Dravid , ball swerves into him in the air, Dravid totally impeccable with bat pad so close together that even Geoff Boycots's houses mosquitoes cant get through is playing forward and then what do we see, the ball pitches and then LEAVES Rahul Dravid, pegging off stump back. The wall is breached and Sachin plays the innings of his life but sadly India end up losing.

9. The worlds top 5 current batsman who would have survived even against the WI pace attack of the early 80's are Dravid, Sachin, Lara, Kallis and Inzy.

10. My favourite writer on cricket is Ramachandra Guha.

11. According to me the best Hindi movie ever made is Jaani Dushman.

12. I am a great fan of Mithunda and his movies.

13. I am allergic to the following : Shah Rukh Khan, Karan Johar, Yash Chopra, Aditya Chopra and anything beginning with a K.

14. Apart from the aforementioned movies one of the serious Hindi movies that I like is Achanak , the best "serious non entertaining" Hindi movie I have ever watched and which does not seem to be of the "inspired" kind.

15. I admire Nagesh Kukunoor's work. The fact that hes from Hyderabad is a big plus.

16. I read lots of books and have a collection now that has cost me quite a bit. Big fan of Inspector Morse .

17. My most valuable book is Lila though it just cost me 20 bucks.

18. Of course when it comes to humour Tom Sharpe is the best.

19. Also watch a lot of english movies. A movie I like but did not get its due since Forrest Gump was released in the same year is this one .

20. And of course to end it all be sure to watch this movie and get back to me about it.

I guess I need to tag someone so here goes
The Alternate Moebyus


Nightwatchmen.

A Titan

What can you say about a person who inspired a whole genration of players from a city, a person who is still considered to be the best the city has ever produced, and almost everyone who has played cricket in the city considers him to be his GURU.

What can you say about a person whom Cricinfo calls "A stylist in the purest sense", "No-one drove off the front foot - or knotted a tie - like him, it was said".....

I am talking about ML Jaisimha, the greatest batsman without doubt that Hyderabad has produced. VVS Laxman has a special place in my heart if for nothing else but for the fact that where he practices is a stones throw from my house and Azhar will always remain the first international cricketer I bowled to but these people were men, Jai was a legend, a larger than life great.

His test stats pale in comparison to the present lots 71 innings for 3 centuries and 12 50's at an average of 30.68. But then one has to remember that those were the days of unlimited bouncers, uncovered pitches and some of the greatest bowlers that the game has ever produced. His legendary innings at Brisbane of 74 and 101 are still talked about in Hyderabad, the fact that he almost walked off the plane to the match adds the icing to the cake and you can always find some old man telling it with relish at one of the innumerable grounds in Hyderabad. Another one of his performances much talked about is his rear guard batting at Calcutta against Australia where he batted through all 5 days of a test match. (Whats this with Hyderabdadi batsmen in Eden against Australia!!)

According to lot of people including Raju Bharatan and Pataudi he could have been one of Indias greatest captains. I have only read the way he would weave batsmen out and set fields with plans and more often than not how they would go right. Of course the fact that Pataudi was willing to play under him in the Ranji trophy shows the greatness of this man. His knowledge of pitches was legendary and he was the most feared captain in his time in the Ranji trophy.

His biography is being released "My Way" co written by a Hindu journalist A Joseph Antony and his wife Jayanthi. Cant wait to read it.

The only thing that I can remember when I think of "Jai" is "According to Greek mythology, the Titans were greater even than the gods. They ruled their universe with absolute power! Well that fcricket field out there , that was Jais universe. He ruled it like a Titan!" (From Remember the Titans a great movie)

To me he will always be a Titan

Iqbal

Watched Nagesh Kukonoors latest movie Iqbal over the weekend. The beginning was great, the next one third was passable and the ending a bit too sensational.

Starting off with a movie celebrating Indias win in what looked to to be the 1985 world series match, at the end of which Iqbal is born, to the way he names all his buffaloes after the bowlers of the Indian team since he rightly feels that they are never given their due, the movies holds you in rapt attention. His own private 22 yards, the way he closes his eyes and can hear the applause of a crowd cheering him on, the longing glance when he sees the boys at the academy are excellently done. His sister also gives a great performance, introducing him to the academys coach, who later fires him since Iqbal gets provoked once and does what most pace bowlers do.

But the best performance comes from his next coach Naseeruddin Shah. He delivered a superlative performance in "Teen Deewarien", his dialogue where he says that its more enjoyable if one looks at life like a game of chess in response to Juhi Chawlas question about life not being a series of games was excellent. In this movie he plays a player who was not given his due in his playing days and is perenially drunk, till Iqbals sheer persistence makes him coach the raw Iqbal and turn him into more of a finished product. Again Kukonoors class is evident when the Ranji Trophy selections go on and the selector tells Shah "Sir, main aap ka fan tha"...

But of course the best one is "For all the people jo mera bhala chahte hain..I have one advice for them...GO TO HELL"

The ending though seems a bit unbelieveable but then who cares, in the age of item numbers and songs in Swiss locations with a 100 bandis around a top less hero this movies comes as a whiff of fresh air.

All in all a very well made movie. (Though what made it even more nostalgic for me apart from the private pitch, the closing eyes and able to hear the applause of the crowd was the fact that I learnt most of my cricket right at the stadium where the Ranji match at the end of the movie is shown.)

The Beginning of the End

If the Ashes are finally won by England, most cricket fans would start wondering whether this is the beginning of the end ?

But people who have been following cricket would have seen the signs earlier. The 2003-04 series against India was one such series. Both McGrath and Warne were out due to inujuries and a ban. And the bench strength was simply not upto the mark. Gillespie bowled with a lot of fire and spirit in that series but could not make an impression beyond getting Akash Chopra out and a highly debatable decision against Sachin(I personally agree with the umpire, when batsmen dont play shots they dont deserve any benefits).

Brad Williams, Nathan Bracken were decent bowlers who could bowl well if the pitch had something in it for them. Bichel was at the end of his career. In both Adelaide and Sydney the former the best batting track in Australia and the latter the spinning track there they suffered. McGill though he took wickets gave away far too many runs. He would feed off the pressure created by the other bowlers to bowl well which was simply no longer happening.

And then the tours in Sri Lanka and India were won by some excellent batting by Martyn and great bowling by Warne and McGrath. They also found batsmen of class in Katich and Clarke who are fitting replacements to the Waugh brothers. The former gritty like Steve and Clarke the flamboyant, free flowing batsman and a good player of spin to boot.

But they still have many problems as far as the bowling is concerned. Brad Williams is pushing 30, Tait is still a very raw quantity, Kasprowicz and Gillespie are old shadows of what they used to be. And theres still no replacement for Warne, someone who can bowl a tight line and take wickets as well. Lee seems to be the only one who poses a challenege, but he leaks too many runs and is not too good while bowling on flat pitches. Hauritz is nowhere near being international class, and Hogg is a good option but again he is on the wrong side of 30 as well.

The Aussie selectors too seem to have become softer. Hayden would not have played after the 3 matches on the tour. Gillespie would have been dropped but they tried to stick to something that would work but was sadly past its expiry date.

Right now the Aussies have enough batsmen to replace the existing lot in case they decide to drop someone, but the worrying thing is that they dont have any bowlers. And its the bowlers who win you test matches while the batsmen can only set it up.

Where Australian cricket goes from now will largely depend on the manner in which people like McGrath and Warne are phased out of the team giving them enough time to train the tyros the nuances of the dark arts of swing and seam, plus all the treacherous tricks of spin bowling.

Faboulous Fourth

Today is when the most crucial test of the Ashes starts. The rate at which runs are being scored in this series implies that there is a scarce chance of a draw unless there is rain like in the previous test. If England win then they have to make sure they do not lose at the Oval to retain the Ashes. The Aussies win and they retain the Ashes. And of course the Oval is like the SCG a flat track but the spinners come into the picture pretty early on in the game. I remember Phil Tufnell bowling the English to victory on a square turner in the 1997 Ashes.

The English will play the same XI, a record since I think the early 80's when the last time the English played the same XI in four consecutive Ashes test matches. Their batting looks a lot more solid now. Strauss has regained his form with the knock in the second innings at Old Trafford. Trescothick who was a bunny in the 2003 Ashes is now playing very well with an average well above 40 for the series. Vuaghan showed his master class with a great knock in the first innings. And Bell also scored a half century though his manner of dismissal might leave a lot to be desired. Flintoff and Pietersen are just the sort of aggressive batsmen to follow the circumspect Bell. And Jones has also scored when the opportunity presented itself. All in all their batting is firing on all cylinders. In their bowling department Flintoff is bowling really well, he has kept Gilchrist tied down and Gilly does not seem to have any answers as yet. Jones is a fine bowler as I have blogged before as well, I still think in the last test he must have been bowling to Lee since he was the one to have dismissed him at Edgbaston and at Old Trafford in the first innings. And Giles seems to be bowling much quicker on these slower English pitches and is varying his flight and pace very well. He has been helped by the Aussies batsman not willing to take him on and not rotating the strike very well. Harmison also is bowling very well thought he might be a touch worried about not taking more wickets. He certainly deserves more. The only weak link in the bowling seems to be Hoggard who has not bowled as well as was expected. Of course with 5 bowlers Vaughan has not really felt the pinch of this as yet. The gloomy conditions if they prevail at Trent Bridge might just suit him to get back to form. We will have to wait and watch as to whether that might happen. All in all the English have 11 players all fit and in form.

The Aussies look a sorry lot, they have new injury scares almost everyday their body language on the field does not look very positive. It reminds one of the numerous English teams that have lost the Ashes over the past 15 years. Hayden looks a sorry batsman now. His inability to either leave balls wide of off stump or play authoritatively through the covers has been well exploited by the English bowlers. And his getting bowled might have been a further dent to his conifdence. The worst way to get out after a run out is probably bowled since it indicates a serious technical fault somewhere. Langer has been playing well but he needs to get on and score a big hundred if the Aussies have to win this test match. He seems to be having a problem playing Giles early on in the innings and then countering the reverse swing, but he is a fighter and I think we can expect him to play well. Ponting played a fine knock and one thing about Ponting is that once he gets into form he makes the opposition pay, so the English need to be careful about him. He also seems to be able to handle reverse swing pretty well. His only problem might be starting an innings when the ball is seaming around too much or starting against spin, because when he starts he takes a huge front foot movement which is fatal against both the above forms of bowling. Martyn got a raw deal in the last test, was bowled off a beauty in the first innings though he must have moved his right leg across to cover the spin, in the second innings he was given out lbw though he had edged it onto his pads. Clarke is playing very well and must soon start learning to play reverse swing to make sure he does not get out when he is set like in the last match. Katich if he plays which I doubt should become more tighter in defence and try to play himself in, get a bit calmed down before he goes for his strokes. What has not helped his cause is the fact that whenever he has gone to bat the Aussies have been under a considerable amount of pressure. But thats what makes the difference between the really good ones and the also rans. Gilchrist seems to be all tied, should free his arms more and play naturally and try farming the strike with the tail. Warne and McGrath are bowling pretty well and so has Lee. Since Aussies play only 4 bowlers they need all 4 to be in form. They have not been helped by Gillespies display so far, Tait will be playing. He is supposed to be fast, but this series seems to be hinging on reverse swing, and if he can do that then it will be a real bonus to Ponting.

Captaincy wise Ponting needs to trust his instincts more and not be the predictable guy that he has become these days. Vaughan since he has 5 bowlers at his disposal has a slightly easier job. But his bowling changes are good and his captaincy seems to be more inspired and imaginative than his counterparts at present.

Finally this match will all boil down to how well the Aussies play the reverse swing of Jones and Flintoff. And how well they can attack Giles so as to deprive Vaughan of his strategy of Giles wheeling away at one end and rotating his pacemen at the other.

Frustrating Finals

India yet again lost a final to Sri Lanka yesterday. The final margin turned out to be 18 runs. What made it even worse India were in the chase till about 35 overs chasing 282 for victory till panic set in and they lost it.

Any team with a reasonably stong middle order would be expected to win a match when you have to score 76 runs off 67 balls with 7 wickets in hand and the top scorer still on the crease. But not so in Indias case. First of all Yuvraj Singh played a highly irresponsible shot to get himself out. He probably should listen to Geoffrey Boycott who says always add 2 wickets to the present to get a real assessment of the value of your wicket. Yuvraj has done this time and again. In the Natwest Final though he acted very disconsolate he had actually thrown his wicket away. And to repeat the same mistake that too after a couple of years experience at the top level is unpardonable. The Indian selectors should probably take a leaf out of the Aussie selectors to drop him for the next 6 seasons. They did the same thing with Damien Martyn when he played an irresponsible shot in the 1994 series against SA, thus depriving us of watching one of the most graceful batsmen of our times.

And then the Indians panicked. Kaif had no job whatsoever looking at the ball when Dravid called him for a run. He should have shouted an outright "NO" when called if he felt there was no run, but he took 2 steps making Dravid commit and then refused in mid pitch. Dhoni played a forgettable innings. For the first time I think he is facing so much pressure and he came out on the losing side. He needs to tighten up on his defence and look to rotate the strike more. Pathan of course showed us why he will never become the fine batsmen that he can by getting out stumped off the last ball of a Murali over. He could have just knocked it down the ground for a single or just played him out and waited for the next over. As it is the old adage that you dont make any runs from the pavilion still holds good I think.

Zaheer Khan yet again started off by bowling so many wides that India must seriously consider resting him for any big match. He has lost all the pace he had when he made his debut, can no longer bowl the yorker consistently, has lost the ball that curves back in and is a liability on the field plus his fitness is always a question mark. The Indian bowling lacked incisiveness, there was no planning and just went about listlessly through their overs. There just wasnt any inspiration to be found everywhere.

I dont know what Greg Chapell has done to the Indians but for some strange reason they seem to be very angry these days. Look at Nehras reactions on taking wickets, or Yuvraj after scoring his century going be*****od. Or even Pathan. Aggressiveness is fine but if one is not enjoying cricket then they will never be able to perform at the peak. What was entirely avoidable was the spat between Harbhajan and Nehra in the middle of the field. Nothing can account for that sort of behaviour.

And then there were some strategic mistakes as well. Kaif should play at #4 the spot where he played at the world cup, he is a rotator of the strike and India sorely missed such a player in the middle of the innings. Yuvraj whose power hitting would have been more useful in case he had to play the last 13 overs would have been more useful at #6. I think India should play with Sachin,Sehwag,Ganguly,Kaif,Dravid,Raina,Dhoni rather than send in Kaif at #6 and expect him to hit boundaries on a slow,low pitch against the spinners. Further whenever one is trying something new, they always do it in a league match not in a final. I have no idea why they changed the composition for the final, the least they could have done was play this combination agains the Windies before the final.

The final was won by the team which enjoyed the game, had a quiet belief in themselves against an opponent who were listless, had a wrong notion of what constitutes agression, playing an untried line up, panicky led by a capatain whose head was on the line. No prizes for guessing who won.

The Greatest Test Match Ever

I have seen some really great test matches in my life. Some which come to mind are the 1999 test match in Chennai where Sachin played a valiant knock only to end up on the losing side. Another was the third test match of the 1997 Ashes where Steve Waugh scored 2 centuries in the 2 innings even though he had split the webbing on his right hand, I can still recall his grimace after facing every ball. Also there was the series decider in the Frank Worell trophy which the Windies won by one run. Walsh dismissing McDermott with a perfectly pitched outswinger. Of course a Brian Lara inspired Courtney Walsh winning over the Windies by one wicket. There were 2 such matches in the same series where Lara single handedly proved to the rest of the world why he is without any doubt the best test match batsman of our times. Or even the 1987 tied test match where Dean Jones was literally vomitting on the field in his marathon double century. But apart from all these the test match that I watched yesterday must surely rank as the best I have seen.

There is an incredible romance assosciated with any sport whenever you see an old pro taking on the brash new comer. Graf versus Hingis was one of the matches I remember in Tennis. Sachin taking on Qadir in the late 1980's. In this case it was an Oldpro team taking on their challenegers to the title of world champions. England have won series in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies, New Zealand, South Africa. The only places left were India and Australia. In India they were denied victory by rain in Bangalore which would have drawn the series. Australia meanwhile are the hardened professionals who have won series everywhere around the world. And quite recently they had conquered the final frontier India. They were and probably still are the undisputed world champions.

After losing the first test match by a huge margin the English one would have expected would repeat the old story of folding up by going into a shell. There was a lot of stick from the media against the English team. Most of it directed against Giles who reacted to it and again got lot of stick for it.

The beginning of the test match did not lack any drama. Glenn McGrath while playing rugby on the morning of the match stepped onto a cricket ball and injured his ankle. This meant that the Aussie attack lost one of their potent weapons. Kasprowicz who by his own admission looked forward to having cheese cake and tea was slated into replace the injured pigeon. Australia won the toss and Ponting seemed to have been drawn into the groundsmans bluff when he asked the English to bat. (The groundsman of course telling the media that the pitch was undercooked by a couple of days and there would be a lot of moisture. Also Pontings crack on his cheek courtesy Harmison might still have been fresh in his memory).

Out walked Trescothick and Strauss. They got off to a blazing start scoring at more than 6 runs per over. Lee who does not have an in between length was either driven or pulled away with scant respect. They put on 112 in 25 overs before Strauss chose a ball that was too full to cut and was castled just before lunch. After lunch Vaughan and Trescothick resumed, attacking anything that was loose. Kasprowicz then induced an edge from Trescothick and in the same over had Bell caught behind with a beauty of a delivery. And four overs later when Gillespie who was bowling better than anytime on the tour made Vaughan top edge a pull which must have in Sidhus language brought down an air hostess with it was well taken by Lee one began thinking whether England had gotten everything wrong. Out walked Flintoff to join Pietersen and then began one of the best counter attacks in test cricket. In a space of 18 overs more than 100 runs were added as Flintoff hit 5 sixes and 6 hits to the boundary in his 68. Pitersen meanwhile was content to let Flintoff do the bulk of the scoring. After the tea interval though Gillespie again induced an edge off Flintoff and then soon Kasper got Jones out off a peach of a delivery. The pendulum had swung the Aussies way yet again. At 293 for 6 one would have thought that 320-350 would have been what England would end up with. But then Giles also began attacking the bowling and was helped by the sort of fields Ponting was setting. He scored 23 before he was plumb in front to Warne. Meanwhile Pietersen began opening his big huge shoulders. One shot stands out. Lee who was bowling fast came in and bowled a short of good length ball just outside off stump, and Pietersen non chalantly drove it on the up and with a flick of the wrist to ensure that it went wide of the mid on fielder the ball raced away to the mid wicket fence. And then one of his mis hits found Katich who took a good low catch. Harmison meanwhile hit Warne for a couple of boundaried to score 17 before he was deceived in the flight and was castled. The last wicket pair of Jones and Hoggard put on 32 crucial runs before Hoggard was also lbw to Warne. At the end of the first day England was 407 all out. There was a feeling that on the feather bed of this pitch it was 100 runs short of what would test the strong Aussie batting line up.

And in what has become the usual tradition in this series Langer was again hit on the helmet, thighs and what not. Hayden went again playing a casual cover drive to the short cover fielder off his first ball. Ponting and Langer consolidated before Poting who looked set to get a big one was stifled by Giles leg stump line and gave a catch to Vaughan at short fine leg. He was out for 61 and the score was 88 for 2. England got the stroke of luck they needed when Martyn who was playing with ease and had moved onto 20 off 23 balls got run out on the stroke of lunch. He was out by an inch and Vaughan with one stump to aim at had hit. Clarke and Langer then took the score to 194 for 3 and just when you thought the Aussies had it in the bag Giles produced a quick one which Clarke edged through to Jones. Katich was troubled by Flintoff and soon went caught behind. Gilchrist playing a very subdued role compared to his usual flamboyant self took them to 262 before Jones produced a beautiful yorker to dismiss Langer who had produced a doughty knock of 82. Warne swung his bat at everything and was out to Giles bowled. Jones again bowled just the right length to force lee to edge to Flintoff to second slip. Gillespie hung around for quite some time during which Glichrist was happy to let him have the strike and I think this was one of their blunders. Giclhrist should have farmed the strike and tried to score more. Instead Flintoff came back to dismiss Gillespie and Kasper off consecutive balls to dismiss Australia for 308. England had the crucial first innings lead of 99 runs. But the action for the day was not yet over. England had to play out a sticky half hour. And Warne produced a magic delivery to get rid of Strauss in the last over of the day. After taking a long time to set his field, Warne bowled a ball which pitched about 3 feet outside the off stump and Strauss looking to pad it away offered no shot, the ball hit the rough spun past his pads and crashed into the stumps. At the end of the second day England were ahead by 124 runs with 9 wickets in hand.

Next day Lee bowled his spell of the series and accounted for Trescothick (lazy edge to Gilchrist), Vaughan (bowled by a quick straight one again) and Hoggard (caught a gully). England were tottering at 31-4. Bell and Pietersen consolidated and took the score to 72 before Gilchrist took an excellent catch down the leg side to snare Pietersen, though it was doubtful whether the ball hit the glove/bat. And soon enough Bell was making the long walk back to the pavilion again given out caught behind in a doubtful decision. Jones was out next to a snorter from Lee. The score was 101 for 7. England lead by 200 runs and 3 wickets in hand. Yet again it looked like the Aussies had pulled it back. But Flintoff had other ideas. With Giles he added 30 runs. Soon enough Giles was out to Warne edging him to slip. And Harmison went second ball caught at silly point. Flintoff then freed his shoulders and smashed Kasprowicz for 2 sixes in the same over. Kaspers over went for 19 runs. And then followed it up with 2 more in Lees next over who had replaced Kasper. Finally Flintoff and Jones had added 51 runs in less than 8 overs and had changed a target of 230 to one of 282. England now had a slight edge because of the late onslaught. While Flintoff had batted he seemed to have done same damage to his shoulder and looked to be in discomfort but had soon overcome that to hit those huge sixes. Australia began well with both Hayden and Langer playing very safely to take them to 47 in 12 overs. Soon enough Vaughan brought on Flintoff for a wicket and he obliged with his second ball when he bowled Langer through the gate bowling round the wicket. And then the next five balls were the best I have seen in my life. Of course I have read of Holdings over to Boycott but this one was probably up there with that. Three balls at the right length all coming back a long way and all Ponting could do was to either play and miss or edge it. He left the fourth ball which was a wide half volley. And then since there was a no ball the last ball was full and left him, Ponting had to play at it and its a tribute to Pontings class that he could edge it to Jones. Match had swung Englands way again. But Martyn again started off pretty well hitting boundaries in a a manner that suggested that he was born on earth with the sole purpose of batting. Simon Jones was brought back and after being hit for boundaries through square leg and mid off he bowled one at the right length and Hayden yet again paid the price for playing towards covers only mangaing to edge it to trescothick who dived to his right to take a good catch at slip. And then in an inspired piece of captaincy Hoggard was brought back and his first ball got him the wicket of Martyn who played a casual flick which he could not keep down to Bell at mid wicket. England were now 107 for 4, needing another 175 to win with 6 wickets in hand. Katich scored a few boundaries to ease the pressure before he failed to read a straighter one from Giles that he glided into slips hands where Trescothick took it on the second attempt. Out walked Gilchrist and played the most irresponsible shot of the match when with a few minutes to close of play he danced down the track to Giles and gave a dolly to Flintoff at mid on. Next to come was Gillespie and he was promptly sent back first ball by a booming Flintoff inswinging yorker catching him Plumb in front. Clarke and Warne then played pretty well till it was the last over of the day and Harmison was running into bowl the score on 134. His first 3 balls were delivered from the 2nd floor of an apartment as usual and were short incoming delivieries, Clrake went back to all three. The fourth ball was a beautiful slower ball which was a yorker on middle stump, Clarke tried to put it through mid wicket and closed the face of the bat too soon and the ball pitched and left Clarke and crashed into off stump. It was 175 for 8 at the end of the third day with all but an England victory left for the next day.

No body had an inkling of the events to unfold the next day. Flintoff and Harmison started proceedings with both bowling right into the rib cage following it up with yorkers. Lee took many blows one flush on the arm guard. Warne got hit on the padding once but his run was disallowed as he was deemed not to have played a shot. But the runs were coming quick and fast through byes,leg byes shots over third man. Till once Warne who was going a long way across and back to play the bouncers walked onto his stumps. It was 220 for 9 at this stage. Aussies still needed another 62 runs with 1 wicket in hand. One over of Giles went for 13 with Kasper hitting 2 boundaries. Lee playing well to reach 43. In the meantime he was hit on his hands had to had a spray put on and was facing real hostility from the bowlers as well as the crowd. They had taken their team to within 10 runs of victory when Jones dropped a tough chance at third man. Then Lee hit a boundary and got them within 6 runs. 3 singles later all that was required was a boundary to win. Meanwhile Harmison came in and bowled a quick bouncer, Kasper tried to get out of its way hanged his bat at it taking off his hand and the ball hit the glove and Jones took a tumbling catch. England had won by 2 runs. Most of the spectators had their backs to the action such was the agony they were going through. I dont think too many people were left with fingernails at the end of the Match.

What were the turning points. Was it Ponting allowing so many free runs on the first day, was it the careless attitude that the Aussies displayed in the first innings especially from hayden,martyn and katich. Or was it the stubborness of Gilchrist to farm the strike.
To me the main turining points were the blizkreig of Flintoff and the nervousness of the Aussie batsmen. And add to it the careless shots that they played. Hayden, Martyn and Gilchrist all need to hang their heads in shame for the way they gifted away their wickets. They should thank their stars they dont have Ray Jennings for coach or Steve Waugh for captain. The only guys who could come out with their heads held high would be Lee,Warne and Langer who played tough good cricket. The rest need to re look at this match and try to be more commited in the remaining ones. For the English Bell needs to do something about playing Warne else he might become the next Daryll Cullinan. And Vaughan needs to do something about his batting form which at the moment is woeful.

But all in all the greatest test match I have seen in my life. Just because every hour the pendulum would swing in the other teams favour and for the tough cricket that was displayed by players on both sides.

Edgbaston

Apparently what I had predicted did not turn out to tbe true. Giles took 3 wickets. Flintoff anf Pietersen played Warne the way he needed to be played.

Dont allow Warne to settle into a rhythm or he will eventually get you out. Even Rahul Dravid realised this on the 1999-2000 tour to Australia. Ian Bell needs to understand that. Use your feet when playing back play a positive shot rather than defend. I think far too many batsmen play him on reputation now. Match is interestingly poised.

England leads by 194 runs with 4 wickets remaining. In the first innings as well it was the last 4 wickets which put on 100 runs compared to nothing next to zilch for the Aussies that made the difference. I think Aussies will feel the pressure once the required target goes above 300 runs. Till then they will feel they have the upper hand. Right now they need to play out a session and score about another 100 runs or so by loosing only a couple of wickets.

Warne is bowling splendidly. Lets see how Flintoff and Jones handle him. Also it will be interesting to see if Kasper is able to get the same reverse swing that Jones was producing in the post tea session yesterday.

I would think that the Aussies will give the ball to Kasper and Warne after the lunch interval and go on from there. They would probably attack Jones since he has gone cheaply in his last 2 innings.

The next session may well determine who wins this match which has fortunes oscillating like a Yo-yo.

English August

As I write this post all the hype surrounding the first Ashes test is over. It seemed to be the same old story except for the first 2 sessions of the match. On a difficult pitch for batting the English bowlers bowled really well and restricted the Aussies to a low score. But still ended up losing the match by a huge margin!!

What went wrong ?

First of all Vaughan seems to be losing his edge in captaincy. He seems to over rely on Matthew Hoggard who it must be said got Clarke out in the second innings, but then went for a lot of runs as well. But on the other hand Simon Jones who after Harmison was the most penetrative bowler in the side was underbowled. I think had Jones had a bit more luck then things could have been a wee bit different. The other of course is the non chalance with which Clarke and Martyn handled Giles. After facing upto Murali, Kumble and Bhajji, Giles is just a walk in the park. England might be well advised to play Gareth Batty since the Aussies seem to play the away turners better than the offies who give lesser room to the batsmen. Theres no use of using Giles to bowl over the wicket, he wont take a wicket neither will he stem the flow of runs since there are 4 left handers in the top 7 of the Aussie batting line up. And anyways Martyn Clarke and Ponting are all good sweepers of the ball. He might as well give the ball a bit of air going around the wicket since the Aussies dont mind leaving the crease when playing the spinners and he just might end up appealing for a wicket, though his getting one seems to be remote right now. For all it might help Vaughan would be tempted to bring himself on.

The batting seems to have come undone as well. Trescothick as usual will have a tough time since he does not move his feet too well at the beginning. On the other hand Strauss is probably playing a spinner a real spinner for the first time in his life and is being found out. Vaughan for all he might say played a poor shot in the first innings though he would like us to belive that the ball stayed low. Bell though needs to be more positive if he has to score runs since the only way you can get runs against McGrath and co is by attacking since once you start defending the runs just dry up and you end up putting lot of pressure on yourself. Flintoff of course has always had a problem playing spin usually committing himself too soon and going very hard at the ball. He would be well advised to use his feet when playing forawrd and go right back instead even if the ball is marginally short and look to score. Warne is a much easier bowler to play now that he has hardly any variations, just a straighter one. And Gillespie is still not into his stride as yet, so England have to win this match if they dont and as the pitches get drier Warne will become a bigger looming threat and Gillespie might soon re discover his touch and McGrath's prediction of a 5-0 whitewash might well come true. Englands cause wont be helped by the fact there are only a couple of days between the tests.

Only time will tell whether English August is going to be good or bad.

Blogging from Israel

Right now I am in Israel on a business trip. Its a beautiful country. The roads are as narrow as in India but the traffic is not as chaotic. Use a taxi to commute from hotel to the office. Some of the taxi drivers are cool chaps. One of them actually sang a hindi song "chal chal mere haathi" while he was driving us to the office, and then came up with "Indian women aaaaah they are so beautiful".......and then added quickly looking at the bemused expressions on our faces "At least in the movies"

Went on a hotel trip over the last weekend. Went to Ceasaria, Haifa and Acco. Haifa the bahai gardens are great and a sight to behold. In Ceasaria and Acco which were basically citites built by crusaders the forts were pretty good.

Had something known as a falafal which tasted somewhat like a vada. Cant find a power cord for my laptop or else would have uploaded a few photos of my trip here in Israel.

Going to Jerusalem tommorrow.

Went on Wed night to an Italian restaurant where our bosses taook us for a treat. They explained to us the funda behind people using blue flags to support the pull out of the army from Gaaza while others using an orange one to oppose it. There were a few cars which had both these flags which I suppose goes to show that they are undecided as yet.

Anyways will upload the pics soon and post a link....