The spirit of the game

In case you are an Indian, and have just returned from Mars, let me tell you, India won the test series against Australia. For the first time since 1988-89, the world champs lost a test series by a margin of 2 matches. Even when Steve Waugh's team were stumbling at the last frontier, the margin was never more than a match. It is an intriguing time, when Aussies battle hard to maintain their lofty standards. Unfortunately, this rather interesting situation is getting clouded with the so called violation of the spirit of cricket by the Indian team.

Did Dhoni and co really violate spirit of cricket? Let's examine it.

Fact(repeatedly stressed by Australian media - Chapell, or Roebuck or Malcolm Conn): 

(a) MS Dhoni packed the offside with 8 fielders 

(b) At the same time, he asked his bowlers to bowl wide of the off-stump, which amounted to ultra-defensive negative cricket.

Charge: Dhoni violated the spirit of cricket.

Facts (the ones being ignored in laying the charge)

1. Nowhere do the rules bar a captain from doing this (to be fair, Ian Chapell seeks to remedy this by changing the rules)

2. Australian team, upon arriving in India, immediately made it clear that the best way to get the strong Indian middle order out, was to play on their patience, set defensive fields and restrict run-scoring. What's more, they implemented it through out the series in all four test matches.

3. Australian strategy was unsuccessful, as Indian batsmen improvised and scored runs.

4. Mitchell Johnson, in particular, kept bowling a foot outside the off-stump, hoping the batsmen would get frustrated, reach out and throw away their wickets. Not just in one match, but all four matches.

Inferences: If MS Dhoni did violate the so called spirit of cricket, then Australians were equally guilty, if not more; what they did for four matches, India did for a single innings in a single match, albeit, much more clinically. Considering that when they chose to play defensive cricket right from the outset, by trying to merely restrict run-scoring by Indian batsmen, they termed it as "strategy", and when Dhoni did the same, they labelled it as "against the spirit of the game", it seems Aussies belabor a nice fancy spirit that lives only in the baggy green souls :)

An IIT for women? PM says no.

PM Manmohan Singh, after announcing a slew of new IITs, has vetoed a proposal for an IIT exclusively for women. To be sure, Arjun Singh's office, in accordance with their unscrupulous vote-garnering viewpoint, had accepted the idea without a second thought.

UFO alert

There is an UFO alert. Read the rest over here :)

More crap from India Today

Aye aye! India Today published their ranking of engineering colleges for 2008. Here is the link. They claim that "factual" rank of "Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai" and "Indian Institute of Technology Chennai" is 21. The same, for Vellore Institute of Technology is 4, Delhi College of Engineering is 6th and National Institute of Technology Rourkela is 14, etc etc etc. Hmmm ... Can anyone explain on what count?

First of all, what is this "Factual rank?"

And hey, know what? These nitwits dont even know the proper names of the institutes they are ranking, that too in top 5 ("overall rank" this one).

Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai. Chennai.

Go check the names first. There is NO IIT-Mumbai. It is still IIT-Bombay. The name of the city changed; the name of the institute has remained the same; check it on their webpage or ask the student, faculty and staff over there.

Same for Chennai. It is NOT IIT-Chennai. It is still IIT-Madras. Go check.

This alone shows how "well researched" these rankings are.

democracy

hehehehe ... This is democracy.

A tale of two owners

One of the attractions(?) of IPL has been the team owners - well, at least the two more audible, visible or high profile ones, namely Vijay Mallya and Shahrukh Khan (with due respects to pretty Preity, high-profile she may be, but she hasnt been as audible as the other two during IPL).

Mallaya's team, as well as Shahrukh's team has been on losing streaks. Mallaya's team has won 3 out of 12, while Shahrukh's have won 5 out of 12. The difference though, has been the way in which losses have been handled. Shahrukh seems to have kept his spirits (and tried to keep the team spirits) high. Mallaya has been brooding over what went wrong, and pointing fingers (to the extent of firing CEO Charu Sharma). Mallaya has of late, blamed the captain Rahul Dravid for team selection and has openly said that Rahul Dravid didnt chose proper players (players of Mallaya's choice).

Net result? Despite Kolkata Knight Riders turning out to be a damp squib, Shahrukh ended up a winner, with his popularity higher than ever (and as significantly, with a stronger fan following for the Knight Riders). In Vijay Mallaya's case though, it is probably worth asking who is a more sore loser - the team owner, or the team?

And they talk of industrialization!!

Jardine (well, not Douglas Jardine but Henry Jardine) sent out a strong message to Bengal. The US-consul general voiced what everyone already knows: a culture of bandh is not conducive to industrialization. If Bengal is to court foreign investments (and Indian investments for that matter), they should cut out bandhs and all "adda" and no work culture. Wonder if the political hooligans will hear this message. probably not.

Payback!

Nandigram paid back CPI(M) in the best possible way! By voting (Booting:) out CPM from East Midnapore and South 24 Parganas. Truth be spoken, CPM deserves much worse; unfortunately, the lack of strong opposition parties in Bengal means overall, CPM still rules the roost.

Burglery with a toy

Never even think of committing a crime with a toy gun. Otherwise you will end up like this chap.

"Dumb"bells

Ever wondered why dumbbells are called dumbbells? They are called so because the original dumbbells lifted by early strongmen where actually churchbells with their clappers removed (and hence muted or "dumb"). This piece of information appears in this wonderful site primarily about Eugene Sandow and other "ancient" musclemen.