Barca - Milan

At the Nou Camp.
I was there.
Need I say more ?

What a farce !

After all that talk, all that bluster, the Pakistanis chickened. That must be it. Nothing else can explain the featherbed that passes off as a pitch in Lahore. So in spite of carrying an attack that features Akhtar, Sami and Rana, the Pakistanis were afraid of what Pathan and Agarkar (!) would do if given a green top. What comes out of this is a no result, no hope, beef-up-your-stats pitch. Frankly, which young cricketer watching this would want to charge in 20 yards and bowl quick? It's so much sexier to stand there, wield that blade and see the ball disappear..
On the other hand, this is a dream come true for Virender Sehwag. Coming out of a mini-slump, he must be wishing he could play Pakistan every day on a pitch like this ! The game isn't even over yet, much time has been lost to rain, and already we have 6 centuries, almost 1100 runs, and only 7 wickets taken..Oh just forget it. Let's leave this match for the statisticians. No one else cares..

What will they outsource next ?

People in America are really busy. Too busy even to entertain themselves. So what do you do ? You outsource it to the Chinese. This NYT article talks about a really bizarre piece of outsourcing. Computer games. Yes, you can now pay someone in China to play the lower (boring) levels of a computer game. When the stakes get higher, the weapons more destructive and the bad guys tougher, you jump in and take the controls. Wonderful isn't it ?

The irony of it all

Saurav Ganguly was retained in the test team. No big surprise there. As Dileep Premachandran of Cricinfo so aptly puts it,

The need to move on and forge a new direction for Indian cricket lost out to that great enemy of excellence: sentiment. Having stripped Sourav Ganguly of the Test captaincy and given it to the man best equipped to lead India, the five wise men couldn't find the strength to go the distance.

I'm ok with that. Give the man a last chance. Give him the chance to carry his destiny in his own hands. If he fails this time, go ahead and drop him and no one should complain. If he plays well, then there is a place for him, right ? Isn't that the mantra under Chappell ? Only performance gets you a place in the team. The selectors should have said exactly this, and stopped there. But no, Kiran More says,

We thought we'll use him as a batting allrounder in the team. We discussed it for a long time and after deliberations we decided to have him in the team as an allrounder. It will give more comfort to the team balance. We missed out on Zaheer Khan also. He's performed outstandingly in domestic cricket and it was a tough call to leave him out. Also, we consider Ganguly as an allrounder, that's why Zaheer Khan has missed out."

And now rewind to the Duleep trophy final played recently. Both Ganguly and Zaheer played in that game. Ganguly made a pair, and got three wickets in that game. More wickets than runs ? That certainly looks like a "batting all-rounder" to me. And one final detail. Ganguly was dismissed for ducks in both innings by a certain Zaheer Khan.

Murphyisms

Call me what you will. A pessimist, a loser, whatever. I prefer to call myself a Murphyist. Which means I am resigned to the fact that the inevitable will happen: What can go wrong, will go wrong...also known as Murphy's law. Some of my favourites:

Churchill's Commentary on Man:

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on..

Theorem:
Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
Corollary:
The hidden flaw never remains hidden.
Corollary to the corollary:
Mother nature is a bitch.

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

Theorem:
Brains x Beauty x Availability = Constant.
Corollary:
That constant is always zero.

Theorem:
All the good ones are taken.
Corollary: If the person isn't taken, there's a reason.

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Nothing improves with age.

Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure.

All's well that ends.

The best things in the world are free --- and worth every penny of it.

Check out a comprehensive list here

The business of humanity

A guy in the cricket team I play for runs a gas station. A really funny person, he's always telling us amusing stories about customers he meets. (I guess that running a gas station, you get to see all kinds). Here's one such story:

One fine day, a woman stops by at his gas station. Its early evening, about 5:00 pm or so. She fills up her tank, and then steps inside the store to buy a coffee. It so happens that this guy doesn't brew coffee in the afternoon. Apparently, no one ever buys coffee after 12 noon at his gas station (Curious, what do people do to get rid of the post-lunch lethargy ?). So the owner explains to the lady that the last pot was brewed around noon. If she wants coffee, thats the one she's going to get. The lady asks him to brew a fresh pot. The man refuses. Lady says, "But I'm from Louisiana". (This was a few days after hurricane Katrina, which hit Louisiana HARD). The man considers this for a moment, and refuses again. The lady is slightly upset that the man is so inconsiderate of her predicament. Here she is, her life in disarray because of the hurricane, and this man refuses to brew her a pot of coffee. But this guy is from a part of India where the business instinct is strong, and her pleas fall on deaf ears. The lady leaves without her coffee..

This wasn't very funny. I know. I was listening to this along with some other guys, and we tell the guy, "Come on, you could have done that lady a little favor, and brewed her some coffee." The guy says, "Did I tell the fools to live 10 feet below sea level ? Its not my bleeping problem..I can't brew a whole pot of coffee just to give her one cup". We probe him further, "Suppose it wasn't just one lady. What if it was like a family of three, displaced by the hurricane, coming to your store asking for a cup of coffee. Would you have brewed a fresh pot ?" He says, "Well, I might have considered it then.." We were relieved at this belated display of humanity. "So the sight of three needy people would have moved to forget your business for a minute and brew a fresh pot of coffee ?" His reply had us floored: "Well, you know, I break even if I sell two cups from the pot.."

Beaten for pace !

An entry from the "How they were out" section in the Zimbabwe vs India test match:

Coventry lbw Kumble 2 (197 for 6)
Beaten for pace, trapped in front

Says a lot about India's most successful "spinner" of recent times. I wonder how Brett Lee or some such quick would feel on seeing an entry like:

Trescothick st Gilchrist b Lee
Beaten in flight, easy stumping
:)