Who needs a Champions Trophy?

A week after IPL, dinner time TV viewing has gotten so boring! Thankfully IPL ended the way I wanted - MI winning (I chose not to blog out my thoughts before the finals , purely on account of superstitious reasons!) a really tense encounter. It in some ways summed up what the excitement of the IPL is all about.
If IPL is meant to bring in viewers because of the sheer excitement is provides, what is the Champions Trophy supposed to do? It is a, once in 4 years, 50 overs a side tournament in some sort of a knockout format! 2 groups of 4 teams each, the top 2 from each group make it to the finals. It gets over in 18 days (unlike the World Cup which lasts more than a month) and so is supposed to be exciting!
Really? The excitement is all for the ICC - which is out in the counting house, counting all its money. Not sure in this era of T20 cricket, who would want to spend a whole day watching a game!
Yes, the games may end up in tight finishes (more likely high-scoring tight finishes; net result being that this tournament will set a record for the highest no. of runs scored in a tournament etc.). Yes, TV revenues will be high (the game timings very clearly cater to the Indian TV audience, with provision for Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Sri Lankan audiences). Yes, the ICC will pat itself on the back for having conducted another tournament successfully!
But, what is the fun in having a tournament where only 8 teams compete! That too in a format that takes the whole day to play! If cricket should expand, there should be more teams playing T20 internationals so that the game catches on. Test matches can always exist to cater to the purists (and to allow us folks the treat of watching a Cheteshwar Pujara, Umesh Yadav etc. play some great and menacing cricket). A Champions trophy is only a money making idea, nothing else.
Anyway, enough of my ranting (I don't see the point of one-day internationals anyway). For this CT, here's hoping England or SA win! Why not India? Well, not that I love India less; it's just that I love cricket more :)

Sigh! MI lost the first qualifier :(

So much for my predicting the path for MI to win! They lost to Pune, thereby keeping their record of losing to Pune every time this year, intact. If I had to pick reasons for the loss,  can think of just 3 :
1. Last 2 overs - those cost MI 41 runs. Considering that Mumbai lost by 20 runs finally, this was too much (those 41 runs were 25% of Pune's final sore - in 10% of the overs they faced!).
2. Rohit Sharma's not out - It was a bat-pad decision, so it might have been difficult to judge! But that LBW set the dominoes in motion. Had Rohit held steady for another 5 overs, the story might have been different.
3. No dew - Chasing under lights when there is dew, is supposed to be easy. Difficult to grip the ball for bowlers - tougher to hold on for fielders! But yesterday's match, there was no dew. So, the whole advantage of chasing was negated.

It will be interesting to see if dew plays a role in Bangalore today. In any case , I am hoping SRH reach the finals in Hyd and beat Pune.

VIVO IPL 2017 - lets make some predictions :)

The IPL 2017 season is drawing to a close. Just 4 matches left, including the finals. Being a loyal IPL fan (as most of us are), I am dying to find out who will win. The heart says Mumbai Indians, but what does the head say?
So, I thought of using match data for this year (2017) and only this year to try and see if I could draw some patterns/ trends (not sure how to attach my working excel sheet to this post, but I will try attaching it later). And yes, am trying to build a scenario where MI wins!

1. Teams chasing have won more matches (no surprise there) except when they have had to chase a score of 200+ (again no surprise there)! Out of 8 200+ chases, only once has the chasing team won. Out of 47 sub 200 scores, the team batting first has won only 17 times!
2. If the score being chased is >150 but less than 200, almost always it is the chasing team that has won. However when chasing a 100-150 range score, the chances of the team batting first winning are nearly even!
3. Among the top 4, SRH has won more matches batting first (they also have the most 200+scores - 3 in all as compared to 6 by all others put together).
4. Out of the locations where the next matches will be held, Bangalore and Mumbai are a little more balanced - nearly equal chances of winning when batting first or chasing. Hyderabad is lopsided - out of 7 matches there, 5 have been won by the team batting first!
5. Pune Super Giants (using PSG rather than RPS - Rising Pune Supergiants) is the only team to have beaten Mumbai twice this season.

Based on all the above, this is what I see as a scenario for Mumbai to win.
1. Qualifier 1 in Mumbai. MI vs PSG : If Mumbai bats first, they should score > 200. Safe chance of winning. Alternatively, score between 100-150 (assuming the pitch is bowler friendly). But this being Wankhede and the pitch being batsman friendly and dew being a factor when chasing, the best approach for Mumbai is to chase (and hope that PSG do not make more than 200). The absence of Stokes means that Pune is on the backfoot.
2. Eliminator 1 in Bangalore : KKR vs SRH: refer point 4 above. There is no huge skew towards batting first or chasing. However, of late the Bangalore wicket has become difficult to score on. Given this fact, chasing is a good option for either KKR or SRH. Considering that chasing has been KKRs strength generally this year, it will make sense for them to chase and knock SRH out of the equation.
3. Eliminator 2 (or is it Qualifier 2) in Bangalore: Loser of MI vs PSG match plays winner of KKR vs SRH match. Assuming KKR wins the first eliminator, it will be KKR versus PSG. Again, in the absence of Stokes, KKR has better chances of winning this one chasing.
4. The Finals- in Hyderabad: If it is MI versus KKR in Hyd, I am betting on MI winning; whether it is chasing or batting first. Though chances are that whichever team chases will win this one (for a sub 200 score being chased, that is).

Phew! To simplify, if MI has to win, they should preferably chase in Qualifier 1 and win; hope that SRH doesn't reach the finals. Then, MI should again chase a sub-200 score in the finals and win!

Keep Left!

It is said that most of the famous people the world over are left handed! Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Henry Ford etc etc. Why, even Sachin Tendulkar (despite being a right handed batsman), writes with his left hand! August 13 is apparently the International Left Handers day.
Being a natural right hander, this bit of news was making me a little uneasy. Hell – most of the famous people you hear of are left handed (can it not be , that the only time you hear of the hands of famous people is when they are not right?). So, if I have to be famous, why not try becoming left handed myself?
It was a good thought, but tough to put to practice. You see, I had tried to start writing left handed in school, but got promptly whacked by my teacher for being a nuisance by using the wrong hand! I used to sit on the right side of the desk , so my left handed was on the centre of the table when I was writing. My neighbour (don’t remember his name now) was right handed and sitting on the left side of the desk. Naturally when he wrote, his right hand would move around the middle of the desk. The result? My left hand hit his right hand and we came to blows (and bawls a little later). My teacher gave a supreme demonstration of foresight by nipping the problem in the bud – she stopped me from writing lefthanded (one more way to solve this problem was to force me to sit on the left side of the desk; that way my hand would always jut out of the table and not trouble anyone. But anyway...)
So – back to the present. I decided to re-discover my childhood and picked up pencil and paper to start writing (I had the distinction of being the only child in my class to have ‘copywriting’ till Class X; so my experience at copywriting is more recent). Well, when I tried to write a ‘t’, it became an ‘f’, an ‘a’ looked like a ‘u’ – the net result was a disaster! I left the paper on the table with a vow that I would resume practice the next day. Next day morning, I was surprised to hear my wife talking to our maid (who is illiterate) holding the scrap of paper in her hand and saying “ Not bad, you are trying to write English? Next time you want to write, let me know and I will teach you.” After that day, it has been ‘Keep right’ for me.

The biggest decision

I was listening to the radio the other day, and the RJ was asking something on the first biggest decision the listener had taken. That made me think - what was my first biggest decision? Hmmm.... it was a long time ago (seems like long long ago – but hey, despite my receding hairline and my bald pate and my ‘curd-rice’ belly, I am not that old). The decision at that time seemed very very tough – I was confronted with two equally good choices.
Now, you see, if there are only two choices, the decision is always tougher. Give 4 choices and still you would find it easier to select one, but give two choices and you always wonder if you selected the right one. No wonder, love triangles in our movies are so complicated! The hero or heroine has to choose one out of two heroines or heroes respectively – in South Indian movies, the hero would smartly marry both heroines (hell, one day we might end up seeing movies where the hero marries two other heroes! That would be a sight to see...Dunno Y).
Coming back to the decision – well yes, two equally good choices. Now, unlike the South Indian star, I couldn't get both (choices I mean, not heroines). So, to take one and leave out the other didn’t seem like a fair deal. The first choice was definitely good, worth fighting for and would have made me happy. The problem was that the second one too had similar features! How do you choose then? I thought of the old coin trick – toss a coin, heads is one choice and tails the other! I couldn’t make up my mind and the coin toss moved from a best of 3, to a best of 5 to a best of 21 when I gave up! I could ofcourse choose the seemingly Gandhian way of not having any ( I guess in today’s age it will be considered Gandhian to grab both choices and thereby save the other person the torment of having to select), but well I didn’t particularly like history. So, I was still making a list of pros-and-cons, when my elder sister shouted ‘Adi, if you don’t decide between the Dairy Milk and the 5 Star quickly, I am gonna eat up both!’ That’s when I did what only a naughty little brother can do and get away with – I quickly gobbled up one chocolate and wailed while my sister was trying to eat the other. She ended up giving me half of hers 
So – that folks, was my first biggest decision some 25 years ago! Remember your first biggest decision anyone?

Close relatives?

“Hi Adi – how are you? Last time I saw you, you used to be running around in nothing else but a T-shirt”. Okay readers – before you think otherwise… the occasion was family wedding, and the person speaking was an aunt I was seeing after close to 25 years! Yeah – the last time she saw me, I was not even 3 I guess.
I am still thinking – how the blazes did I end up getting into this conversation? Well, you see – it was my BILs wedding. As the saying goes “ Saari khudaai ek taraf – joru ka bhai ek taraf”. So – being my saala (sorry sale saahab)’s wedding, I naturally had to play a very important role.
Prior to the wedding, that meant, that when my better half had to shop on his behalf for the whole family, I went around carrying the bags, paying the shopkeepers, standing on one leg, driving the car etc etc. So, I am sure you fairly understand the important role I had to play pre-wedding!
I usually dread family weddings – turns out that other than a few close relatives, I end up recognizing no one. One reason is that I have hardly visited relatives; the second is that I have a phenomenal memory.. I can forget faces and names in less than a minute! So, that always meant that family weddings would involve long intros and ‘Do you remember me?” and other awkward stuff. My brother-in-law’s wedding, I was sure, wouldn’t be like that.
So – the wedding day saw me sitting bored at the hall, pitying my brother-in-law (another bachelor bites the dust) looking so happy – if only he knew of the perils of wedded bliss! I would also occasionally stand next to my wife to meet some relative of hers, who wanted to see her husband (Hell- I thought I had met all her relatives during our wedding, but she always manages to surprise me with an assortment of uncles , aunts and cousins).
As the day progressed and it was time for the muhurtam, I suddenly got a jolt. In the distance, I saw some faces that looked vaguely familiar. I thought – must be more of my wife’s relatives. That’s when one of the old ladies in the group walked up to me and spoke as above! I am sure my face turned pink and crimson and red… but I was still wondering how could one of my relatives some there? That’s when I got the answer – you see, my brother in law’s would be wife (any minute now), had an aunt whose cousin was related to my grandfather’s (dad’s dad) cousin! No wonder – I really have some close relatives J

The ride to work!

I am off to office on my two-wheeler! Traffic is sparse, so it is easy to ride. Suddenly, right in the middle of the road, I find a Men At Work sign. The road’s been freshly dug up! Damn – there was no work happening last night. That’s one good (And bad ) thing about our civic bodies – they take up road digging very seriously. Whether it is road widening, or cable laying, or laying pipelines, or laying out sewage lines. Infact , at one point, 2 departments starting digging from opposite sides – one for a water line, the other for a sewage line! They finally met in the middle, and I wonder which line went through. In Bangalore, it is better that way – we have the same dept. for both water supply and sewage. So, it is the same set of people digging up either.
Anyway, there I was at a newly dug crater and wondering where the blazes it came from. My office was only a km away on the other side, and taking a diversion would have meant 5 extra kilometers. So, I did the best thing possible – got off, lifted my two wheeler and carried it across. Lifted it across you wonder – why yes, looks like I forgot to mention that at the start. I ride a bicycle to office  . No no – I have not suddenly become health conscious, or become a member of the green brigand.. sorry . brigade or anything of that sort. It is just that a combination of factors has contributed to the decision. Firstly, there was this newspaper headline
“Mukesh Ambani: Crude oil price to rise above $100 a barrel”
Well, I am sure the senior Ambani knows a thing or two about price of petrol. Hell, he has the wealth to make petrol prices rise to $100 a barrel I am sure. So, if he says it,I better believe it! Anyway, that headline made me realize that petrol or diesel in any 2,3 or 4 wheeler would be simply unaffordable.
Secondly, there are the (bad) roads! You can lift a cycle across any diversion – try doing that with even a Nano! Thirdly there is the health angle – wait a minute.. what health angle? When I ride this cycle, I am afraid of being run over by bikes (yeah I don’t even think of buses – the damn BIG10 buses in Bangalore are like T. Rex dinosaurs. The drivers will run over a cycle and think they hit a speed bump!). That keeps my nerves on the edge – and is sure to give me hypertension. The smoke is enough to choke anyone – I guess, I get more coal tar than a chain smoker!
But hey – yes, it is damn exciting. So folks, if you want excitement in your lives, cycle away to work. Maybe we will have a Tour de France winner from India soon!