Layeth the Smacketh down

India crash out of the T20 World Cup

2009-06-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

Quite a shock to the entire nation where cricket is THE religion and Dhoni the new God. When half the world had believed that Pakistan would make an early exit, Pakistan made a strong statement with a whopping annihilation of the faviurites, New Zealanders. They might be a set of inconsistent Afridis, but they sure seem a squad that can better their last T20 result. On the other hand, the team that looked unbeatable with the consistent Rohits and the Rainas and the in form Yuvraj, could manage just 2 victories against the minnows. Top favourites to win and recently slipping to the 2nd position in the betting world giving way to the South Africans, India never looked like a team that could win.

Starting off with the Sehwag controversy, India looked uptight on and off the field. With people saying that India had the best batting order one could ever imagine, they couldn't chase a modest 154. England should be given the credit for bowling well and in an idealistic scenario, England won the game fair and square. There was an instance when the commentator, Ian Bishop I believe went on to say, "Don't they bowl bouncers in the IPL?" when Indians looked clueless in the first 10 odd overs.

Now from the betting perspective, my paranoia, if it were, specially considering this after

1. Dhoni not trying to take the 2nd run on the 2nd last ball of the 20th over, to take the match to a "7 needed of 1 ball" and hope against hope that Yusuf would get a six and force the super over. No team I suppose could have given that match away before the last ball. Dhoni tried to get Yusuf run out on a previous occassion, but thanks to Stuart Broad (He is a broad trapped in a man, I would say, he can never catch the cricket ball), Yusuf survived. But then Yusuf hit a six from nowhere of a york length delivery from SideBottom and Dhoni thought he should not be given another chance.

2. Sending in Jadeja again was a bad decision and the "hit it out or get out" had to come when he was 15 of around 20 and not when he was 25 of 30.

3. The middle overs in the Windies game, when Dhoni didn't try to attack. Come on mate, what were you thinking? The West Indies chase was falwless and it never looked like they were in trouble.

4. India still had odds of 4, to win outright, 2nd only to South Africa with a 3.5

Say it was fixed, it just takes a great performance from one player sometimes to win you a game. Sadly Yusuf Pathan was denied that chance by Dhoni.

Dhoni seems to be quite content and delirious with the kind of money he is making with the dozens of Aircel and PSPO kinda crappy ads he is making and might add a few more bikes to his already 10+ bike garage in Ranchi. It makes me wonder if Dhoni was assigned a simple job, to crash out before the semis.

Now to prove a point and to make people think otherwise, I sincerely believe India will win against South Africa and Dhoni will play a good innings and show some good captaincy as well.

I have put my money on Pakistan to reach finals, last time I had bet on RCB to win, they lost in the finals, so plein safe.

But frankly, I am happy in a way that India are out. Firstly the sponsors deserved a bad viewership. Come on, it's the worst period in the advertising history, with the AIRCEL... tadaaaa, and the "hum chlormint kyun khate hain bhala" kinda ads. Also, India was suffering from a T20 and reality show overdose. The youth I am sure either watched IPL or Roadies/Splitsvilla/Fast and the Gorgeous/Horny and the Furious in the past 2 months.

It's time that people get back to work, and this goes for the Indian cricket team as well. Quite disappointing and frustrating I know, the fixing fraternity is diabolic indeed, its money and it can make you do anything and its always the common man who fails to read it and suffers.

For instance, and on a totally unrelated note, it's said that Rakesh Jhunjunwala has written NIFTY 4700 CALLs and 4400 PUTs for June and NIFTY has to be somewhere in between for him to make money, it always seems a better option to believe this kinda things and play safe.

The IPL : The greatest Mallya story ever told

2009-05-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

At the beginning, there was Parkal, of the tournament, probably after 5 games, when both Delhi and Hyderabad had 4 wins each and both Bangalore and Kolkata close to 4 defeats, everyone thought that the former 2 teams would definitely make it to the semis and now the IPL is down to the 6 teams with Bangalore and Kolkata looking done and dusted. Now at the near end, it looks like Deccan might just fail to make it and Bangalore might reach the semis.

Probably even 2 games later, half way thru the league stage, it looked like Bangalore would repeat last year's performance. With having incurred a loss of close to 40 crores last year, Mallya would want to make up for it this time. With the betting scenario in mind and from Mallya's perspective, this was the right time to bet on his team. Mid way thru the league, the odds for Bangalore winning outright were close to 30:1. The safest thing for Mallya was to invest another 10 crores in buying a few players and say 10 crores on Bangalore with 30:1 odds. The worst case scenario would be that he would end up making a loss of 60 crores which is again peanuts compared to the kind of losses the airline industry is making. But if Bangalore wins, he makes a net profit of 250 crores atleast.

In what looks like a "fixed tournament", specially after watching the Deccan Kolkata match, with the Kolkata captain having 3 fielders inside the ring and giving a 4 on a no-ball, there is a lot of money on stake. With every game depending on the local talent as much as it relies on the foreign players, buying out a few local players should not be tough at all. In 20-20, where one over can turn the game, it all looks possible.

Giving no credit to the PakObserver, I would bid on Delhi, Chennai, Deccan and Bangalore in the semis, I doubt anyone would have got this combination right after 7 games. In the semis, I would go with Deccan beating Delhi and Bangalore beating Chennai and Bangalore beating Deccan in the finals.

This is like the exit poll, that can totally go wrong. But I have put my money on Bangalore, coz after all that I have read, known and heard bout Mallya, a konkan by birth, this is the least I would expect from him.

Lets wait and watch, u never know, u might have a different scenario and a different winner, but I would still think that Mallya had a plan,

a master plan even, and I can't explain it to you now, but you must, you must stay away.

"Sherminator" : The greatest *&^%$# story ever told : Bless this film :)

The north east trip

2009-01-06T22:22:00.000-08:00

This was what I would call a baingan trip. 4 baingans, telugu reddy, konkan parkal, tamil babbar and last but not the least the kandu hildul..

Day 0:
Highlight of the day: Missing the flight to Bangalore
This was not exactly one day before the trip, but a series of events across 4 days, but nothing significant other than going in a bus to Bangalore on a so called "SOFA" seat at the rear end of the bus. 7 of us sitting on a 5 seater with no push back for 15 hours, quite a painful journey. The first day of the India-England test going in England's favour big time.

Day 1: 25th December: The beginning

Highlight of the day: Boarding the Bangalore to Guwahati 930 flight at 932. A van came to pick us up at 928 and one of the flight personnel mentioned.. "The last 4 passengers are boarding now"

We reached Guwahati at 130 and took a Sumo to Shillong. Christmas in Shillong and no alcohol n discos. Just smoked a couple of verves n milds and called it a day. It was like the 2nd day of the first India-England test going in England's favour again..

Day2: 26th December
Highlight of the day: The caves(forgot the name) which I missed as I was feeling a little unwell
Started our journey to Cheerapunji, had a look at the Bangladesh border, nothing great. The 3rd day of the test, India making some improvements, but still in England's favour.
On the way to Cheerapunji : Nothing great there, so decided to jump from the cliff..

Day3: 27th December
Highlight of the day: Helicopter to Tawang and first chance to see Hildul's kids
Even though we had to spend like 4 hours waiting for the copter and go through some pains like missing the chopper ticket, which the security handed over to some random guy, this chopper ride was worth it. We reached Tawang at around 230 and for the first time in this trip witnessed a single digit temperature. We stayed at a place called Dung phoo, which was a non-insulated room, with the temperature falling with time in the night and life becoming a little painful even though the room had a so called "heater" that sucked. We had got alcohol(dirt cheap), but only Hildul ended up having around 5 pegs and there was an episode of 1 to 1.5 hours where the alcohol took charge and Hildul started speaking non-sense at midnight. This was better than the first 3 days, I would say India just started to rebound.

Hildul's kids: We realised Hildul once did something on a mountain cliff, which then flew thru different rivers and infected lot of women leading to what you can see below. This is just a sample. There were atleast 100 more.. Many a times, we saw kids coming to him n crying.. Pappaa, aap aajtak kahan hila rahe the? Anyways here's a glimpse..

The happy father of the happy kids.. At the end of the trip, even Hildul got those 2 red thingees.

Day4: 28th December
Highlight of the day: Sela pass view and the PTSO lake
On our way to Bomdila, we decided to go to the PTSO lake, brilliant view and first time we saw snow, even though it wasn't falling, we played for a while and then left to Sela pass..

At the PTSO lake

The Sela pass was a million dollar view and we were all shell shocked. We stepped out of the van and there it was.." Welcome to the world of Corolla"..There were snow covered mountains and a frozen lake. We did a lil bit of skidding on the frozen lake and I fell down and had very minor injuries. Then as a way to get back at the lake I released some fluids and the frozen lake now resembled a salt lake. The other folks also did the same. So next time if some1 blames for having tasted some salty snow balls, you know who is to be balmed. We headed to Bomdila, had booze in the night and Reddy drowe us from Patna to Bomdila. We reached at 1115 and the tourist lodge we had booked was closed. So we made alternate arrangements and called it a day. Totally in India's favour, Tendulkar and Yuvraj rising to the occasion and winning the match for India.
A brilliant day coming to an end.

Day5: 29th December and onwards in the next post..