Rahul Dravid, Will you ever get your fair share??

This is a question, I'm pretty sure, Rahul must be haunted with every time he plays his cricket - irrespective of the format - Tests, ODIs or even Twenty-20s!

After his great debut in Test at Lords scoring 95 (Test match more remembered for Ganguly's debut test century), people said he can't play in ODIs - Sure enough he struggled in the first 30-odd ODIs he played. But look at his ODI stats now, 10000+ runs, strike rate nearing 72 and an average of 40 - Tell me how many players have those?

Talk of the country today is IPL Twenty-20 and sure enough people have again said (I must admit I'm one of them to start with), Rahul isn't suited to succeed in this format - I'm happy that I was proven wrong!

After the first 53 matches and as on 26th May, here is the ranking of Rahul Dravid among the Top-10 run getters in IPL tournament:

Most number of Runs - 8th position (360 runs)
No. of 4s - 9th position (35, 39% of his runs)
No. of 6s - 8th position (11, 18% of his runs)
Strike rate - 8th position (This most people say is more relevant and Rahul's strike rate compares with the like of Dhoni, David Hussey, Uthappa, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Greme Smith)

A tournament where more than 100 batsmen have played (leaving out those who are pure bowlers or not-so-good batsmen), to finish at Top 8th spot on various parameters of batting isn’t a thing to be unnoticed or forgotten!

Rahul - Thank you for answering those critics and what's more, as usual, you have answered with the most potent instrument that you have - BAT.

It’s a different matter that you don’t get you fair share, not that you were ever craving for it.

Table below is for the people who still can't believe that it is true :-)

As of 25th May, after 53 matches

Sl. No	Player	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	0	4s	6s
1	G Gambhir	13	13	1	523	86	43.58	364	143.68	0	5	0	67	8
2	SE Marsh	9	9	2	478	84	68.28	355	134.64	0	5	0	45	18
3	AC Gilchrist	13	13	1	431	109	35.91	310	139.03	1	3	0	51	19
4	Jayasuriya	12	12	2	422	114	42.20	235	179.57	1	1	0	49	27
5	GC Smith	10	10	2	416	91	52.00	341	121.99	0	3	0	49	8
6	RG Sharma	13	12	1	404	76	36.72	273	147.98	0	4	1	38	19
7	V Sehwag	13	13	2	403	95	36.63	216	186.57	0	3	2	46	21
8	R Dravid	13	13	1	360	75	30.00	282	127.65	0	2	2	35	11
9	SR Watson	11	11	5	352	76	58.66	225	156.44	0	3	1	35	15
10	SC Ganguly	13	13	1	349	91	29.08	307	113.68	0	3	0	33	15

Weekend sports action - Best forgotten

There was a lot of action this weekend - F1 Racing, Cricket and NBA.

But from my perspective this weekend is best forgotten and wait for the coming weekend.

In Monaco, Ferraris had shown great pace in qualifying under dry conditions and occupied Road 1. Come Sunday - weather intervened, Kimi was uncharacteristically off the touch, Lewis drove well with luck on his side and Felippe made some minor mistakes - Result, Ferraris just managed 6 points with Kimi not finishing in the points.

Heart goes to Adrian Sutil in Force India car who has worked his way through to 4th place from 18th place start only to find Kimi, in the dying moments of the race, to hit from the back and damage his suspension and rear tyre. To be fair to Kimi, he made his move at the right corner but used the breaks a touch too late!

In Cricket, Deccan Chargers and Kings XI Punjab both looked to have the games in control till the last 3 overs of the match but found Akhil (Royal Challengers) and Ganguly + Gul (Kolkatta Knightriders) playing some audacious strokes to go over the line - If there was a consolation, results did not matter to any of the 4 teams playing as the Semi-Final slots did not change.

West Indies looked to have got back into the Test Match against Australia, after having conceded 120 run 1st innings lead, by picking up 6 wickets of Australia for 70 runs in 2nd innings and found Andrew Symonds in their way. In any case, West Indies will be happy that they will have to chase only 287 to win the 1st test match.

Finally in NBA, I was backing Lakers this year and they started their western conference finals actions so well this year taking a 2-0 lead over Spurs. But come 3rd game, they were no match to Spurs at home and lost 84-103.

Go Lakers! I wanna see KB Vs Cagey (yea, Kevin Garnet of Celtics) in the NBA Playoffs finals

Nice health commercial

Bangalore Cheerleaders have the best job

If there were anybody who will be happy with Royal Challengers Bangalore performance so far in the IPL 2008 tournament, they have to be the Cheerleaders that Vijay Mallya got from US (Yes, I'm assuming that they are a lazy bunch as I'm) - They are predictably the best paid among the cheerleaders and thanks to the dismal performance of the team, they had the least amount of dancing to do among all the other cheerleaders (One gets to dance for 10 seconds every time a boundary or six is hit or a wicket is taken by the home team)

What a job to have?

Here is a revealing table (As of May 19, 2008 - After Match No: 43)

Team	Matches	4s	6s	Wickets	Total	Total dance time (Mins)	Per Match Dance Time (Mins)
Delhi	12	189	47	67	303	8.42	0.70
Chennai	11	177	63	53	293	8.14	0.74
Hyderabad	11	163	72	50	285	7.92	0.72
Rajasthan	10	161	46	62	269	7.47	0.75
Punjab	10	148	58	61	267	7.42	0.74
Mumbai	10	138	56	68	262	7.28	0.73
Kolkata	11	132	60	52	244	6.78	0.62
Bangalore	11	143	49	40	232	6.44	0.59

Dr. Mallya – Yes your team sucks but I’m game for being a Cheerleader for your team!

ICC does it again - We can count the days of Umpire Simon Taufel

Just days after I wrote that the day when we see a cricket match without umpires is not too far, here comes a news that the world's best umpire is considering retiring - retiring at the age of 37 – ICC does it again!.

Cricket's most successful umpire in the last 4 years (He is the current ICC Umpire of the Year-2007, having won the award in each year since inauguration in 2004), Simon James Arthur Taufel has said “It is important to spend time with my family, spend more time with my kids. I am always looking for new opportunities, not necessarily umpiring”

Should he decide to call it a day, it will be a big loss for Cricket, Cricket lovers and ICC.

What bothers me most on this is – ICC, which is facing acute shortage of good quality umpires isn’t doing anything to retain its best umpire. As usual, ICC did two stupid things that, I believe, are the primary reasons for Simon considering such an early retirement:

1. ICC’s rules stipulate that all Test matches should be umpired by those in the ICC Elite Panel (It has only 12 umpires on the panel)

2. ICC does not allow its umpires to stand Test matches in their own countries

Both these would mean constant travel for umpires - On an average, each umpire spends anywhere between 5-7 months outside his country and lives in at least 4 different countries in a year – Imagine how tough it will be if you were put this grind – No family, No friends, different food, pressure to perform, unwarranted media scrutiny.

I can’t understand as to why can’t an umpire stand test matches in his own country. First things first – Cricket needs good umpires, not neutral umpires. For all this talk of neutral umpires – Can you refresh your memory and compare the number of umpiring-error related incidents took place before and after introduction of neutral umpires (Darrel Hair, Darrel Harper, Steve Bucknor and our own Simon Taufel have all been involved in some major & nasty incidents in the last 5 years. The only major & nasty incident that took place before introduction of neutral umpires that I can think of involved Pakistani umpire Shakoor Rana).

Wake-up ICC

1. Focus on developing more good umpires and increase the elite panel

2. Look at the quality of umpire not the nationality to decide where should he umpire the test matches

Little Known Facts about India

Here are some facts about India that are not well known

1. State of Rajasthan is the largest (Madhya Pradesh lost its status after recent sub division). Rajasthan measures 342,000 KM² and is bigger than countries like Italy (301,000 KM²), New Zealand (271,000 KM²) and UK (243,000 KM²)

2. India’s first five largest states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh) are individually larger than UK

3. Formation of states on linguistic basis started with Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu. After the country’s independence, the Indian union absorbed more than 600 princely states.

4. Over the last 5 decades India’s Social Indicators have shown great performance:

Description	1950-51	1996-97	2005-06
Population (mil)	359	946	1,124
Gender ratio (females per 1,000 males)	946	927	934
Urban population (% of total)	17.3	26.4	27.4
Birth rate (per 1,000)	39.9	27.4	23.8
Death rate (per 1,000)	27.4	8.9	7.6
Life expectancy at birth (years)	32.1	61.0	65.4
Universities (No.)	27	228	304
Literacy rate (%)	18.3	52.2	64.8

Source: Statistical Outline of India (2007)

5. India’s Gini Coefficient (A measure of inequality of income distribution) is at 36.8% and is lesser than USA’s which is at 40.8%, China’s 46.9%, Philippine’s 44.5% and Brazil’s 57.0% - Source: World Bank

6. How India fares in different industries on Global Scale:

Textiles	1st, Largest producer of Yarn (22% of Global production) 2nd Largest Textile & Apparel producer, behind China 3rd Largest Cotton grower in the world
Minerals	Mica – No. 1 Global Producer Thorium – No. 2 Global Producer Chromites – No. 3 Global Producer Iron Ore – No. 4 Global Producer Bauxite – No. 6 Global Producer
Steel	5th Largest Producer
Cement	2nd Largest Cement manufacturer, behind China
Pharmaceuticals	4th largest in terms of Volume 13th largest in terms of Value
Gems and Jewelry	Largest Gold consumer Polishes 92% of world’s diamonds, 55% by value and 80% by caratage
Oil	Producers little over 0.5 million barrels per day Consumes little over 2.5 million barrels per day Net imports of oil at $50 Bn
Coal	3rd largest producer behind USA and China
Power	A power deficit country – 9% shortage in 2007, down from 20% in 1993 About 30% of power available is lost in Transmission & Distribution. Jharkhand has 74% T&D loss, highest among states.
Pollution	During 1992-2002 India has seen only -9% change in emission intensity as against China’s -51%.

7. Bombay Stock Exchange is the oldest Stock Exchange in Asia, established in 1875

8. Arunachal Pradesh is the least densely populated state – With 84,000 KM² area it has only 1 million population

Adding Google Sitemap to your Blog (at blogger.com)

You can now add Google sitemap to your blogger.com account and increase your chances of being indexed in Google search engine result. You can add a Sitemap to your account to give Google more information about the pages in your site to help Google crawl them more effectively. What's more it is very easy to do as well!

Step 1 - Sing into Google Webmaster Tools using http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Step 2 - Enter the URL of your blog to add the site. If you have already added your site, Click on the "Add" button under "Sitemap"

Step 3 - Select "Add General Web Sitemap" option

Now you will need to add the Atom 0.3 feeds. Generally, you would use this format only if your site already has a syndication feed and this is the only way to add sitemap to your blogger.com account.

Paste url of your Atom feed: For example http://surya-sripati.blogspot.com/atom.xml and click on Add Web sitemap:

Update: If you are using a new blogger beta system, use http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full as a feed url.

After this You will get confirmation which reads as:

You have added a Sitemap to http://surya-sripati.blogspot.com/. Reports may take several hours to update. Thank you for your patience!

And you are done and your blog will be now index very fast (depend upon your posting and content).

Cricket follows Tennis - What a Pity and Shame on ICC

There was a recent decision that ICC Cricket Committee has put forward a system of having players challenge umpire's decision and ask for third umpire intervention. Which means a batsman who was given out by an umpire can now dispute and ask the third umpire to review it again and give the final decision. ICC also said if a three such challenges by players become fruitless (turn against the challenge) then the team will have no further opportunity to challenge a decision and ask for third umpire intervention.

I find this move ridiculous. For, it goes against the foundations of Cricket - "Players don’t dispute umpire's decisions"

What's more ICC's administrator (useless guys don’t come any better) seems to have copied this from Tennis and because these people don’t have brains - They just copied and forgot important differences between Cricket and Tennis.

1. In Tennis, referral to TV umpire is about line calls - Did the ball land inside the line or outside the line - Black or White. PERIOD. In Cricket, and especially if a decision had to be referred to TV umpire, often decisions about LBW and Catches are rarely Black or White. How will the Hawk-eye accurately predict the bounce of the ball to decide if the ball would have gone onto hit the stumps if batsmen's leg are not in the way.

2. Tennis is an individual's game and thus individual will use discretion as to when should he challenge and when he should not (Tennis too has this 3 time asking-for-help limit). But in cricket, an opening batsman can ask for referral 3 times and leave his other 10 teammates no chance to dispute the umpire's decision.

With all these stupid technology-led interventions, aimed at bringing down the power of on-field umpires, that those idiotic committee members are brining-in, I'm afraid we might get to see a cricket match without umpires on the field at all.

What a pity if we don’t get to see another Dickie Bird or Simon Taufel!

Publishing posts to your Blog via email

I found this very useful and thought of sharing

Blogger.com has this facility to publish posts to one's blog via email. It's pretty simple too!

1. Click on "Customize" on your blog's homepage (You will see this on top-left corner)
2. Click on "Settings" (You will see this on top-right corner)
3. Click on "Email" option that you get to see among other
4. You will see "BlogSend Address" & " Mail-to-Blogger Address"
5. Mail-to-Blogger Address will start with your first part of your blog URL (without ".blogspot.com") and will have [space box]@blogger.com
6. Fill in the "space box" with whatever you want (Suggest keeping it short as your Blog URL is already part of the email ID). Once you are done, you email will look like blogeurl.whatevergotfilledinspacebox@blogger.com
7. Check the "Publish emails immediately" button below
8. Click on Save Settings.

Next time on, you don't need to log into your blog to publish posts – You can simply write your post in your email and send it to the above address and it will be posted.

Caution: Don't share this email ID with other as they too can post in to your Blog!

Kuldeep Dubey - Laughter Challenge - Awesome performance

Bush's Coments on increasing food prices because of Indians

Now there is so much of talk every where in India about Bush's comments - People shouting and violently reacting that Bush is an Idiot etc - Every news channel has been interviewing people on the street to get opinions. Some ministers too have taken this as an opportunity get some coverage (I can't think of anything else they could get though by making comments on this issue)

What struck me most is, after reading those comments and watching some on TV, Whether these people understood what Bush said.

I don't have conclusive evidence but Bush seems to have said "Changing habits of growing middle class in India is also a reason for food price increases"

Now lets look at this comment little more carefully:

1. Can anyone with a little bit of knowledge/wisdom dispute that India's middle class is growing and they do have more money, than they ever had, to spend!
2. Can anyone dispute that the food habits (What, where and how of eating) of these middle class have changed and have been changing
3. Can anyone dispute that when demand increases at a faster pace than the supply, prices increase.
4. More importantly did those people commenting realize that Bush said this is "also"a reason for food price increase not "the" reason for price increase!

So whats the fuss all about?

In fact when I first read the comment, I felt good about being a Middle Class Indian - We are wanting and willing to spend more on food and be healthy!

Did we not hear the stories of how the bread earner in the family often did not take the second meal just to ensure that his kids can get 2 meals a day.

Whats wrong if we do not have to hear these kind of stories anymore (or should I say what wrong if we get to hear lesser number of these stories)