First Double Hundred in a ODI

Sachin Tendulkar scored the first ever double century in a One Day International. The Gwalior one day also saw a few other records tumbling while Sachin was on his way to his record breaking knock. Robin Jackman said we could see a double from Sachin during the 28th over of the match when Sachin was on 104 and we did at the end of the innings. Watching the Indian Innings of 400 runs was like watching the highlights package. Some of the shots that Sachin played were mind boggling and there were anxious moments for all the fans and Sachin till he got to the double century because Dhoni played 21 off the last 30 deliveries. Sachin became the highest scorer in a ODI in the 45th over but he faced only 9 deliveries from overs 45-50 and finally he got to it in the 50th over. It was a moment to cherish for all the Indian cricket fans and Sachin fans across the world.
The most disappointing part was the crowd behavior around 37th over when some one from the crowd threw somthing @ a SA cricketer and its so sad Because India were playing well(well placed to score 350), Sachin was in ominous form and Pathan scoring runs @ quick pace not sure what prompted them to display such kinda behavior.
Breaking the Barrier
A selection of tributes on Sachin Tendulkar's double-century
History as it Happened
Most runs in an innings in ODIs

Facebook - Farmville Fever

Last couple of weeks, I have started using my Facebook account more frequently ever than before just because of Farmville. Farmville is fun to play and is my current flavor for the season. I have kinda become addictive to it during weekends and tune my game to suit my work timings and it has been working out well for me. I am trying my best to get rid of the addiction because even when I have things to do, I am getting tied upto my farm and the activities required to keep my level up and compete with my friends and wife on farmville.
I have watched the movie Dev-D after a year from the film's release. It's a decent movie with commendable performances from Abhay Deol, Mahi Gill and Kalki Koechlin. Dev-D is the Modern version of the classic 'Devdas' written and directed by Anurag Kashyap. The movie received critical acclaim for a different kinda story telling and presentation. I liked the screenplay and direction of the movie,so I wanted to watch one more movie of Anurag Kashyap and I found out 'Gulaal' was the film that I need to watch. I have heard good reviews for Gulaal as well which forced me to watch Gulaal and the movie was not bad at all. I am planning to watch other movies that Anurag Kashyap has directed namely 'Black Friday', 'Paanch' and may be 'No Smoking'.

Have fun
Cheers

Kolkata - Second Test - Ind vs SA

India won the second test match and squared the series, it was not about the test match win or squaring the series that mattered to Team India and the Indian Cricket fans but it was about India getting dislodged from the Number 1 spot in the ICC Rankings. India always have been bad starters in a test series and to India's disadvantage India never played a long test series like the Australian-English Ashes series(5 match test series)that could be one of the issues winning a test series outside India.(I know guys would argue there are practice matches but the practice matches are used to select the team's strength and not many players take those matches seriously).Team's mindset has changed from Ganguly's Captaincy and they have taken winning outside the country as a challenge and that's when the chase for the number one ranking started. Dhoni might get a chance to win the Test Team of the year award but the ground work has been done long time back.
Coming back to Second Test Match, the Indian team looked more desperate for the win than their counterparts. India won the test match but still not sure why there were so many changes for the second test but there was only one change in the playing eleven(VVS in palce of Saha). I thought Murali Vijay, Ishant sharma and Amit Mishra should have been replaced by Dinesh Karthik, Sreesanth and Ojha respectively but Dhoni thought otherwise.
Analysis of the match:
Day 1: Peterson and Amla scored tons and SA were cruising @ 218/1 but the last session changed things for India and they were reduced to 266/9 at the end of day.
Day 2: Tailenders added 30 more runs for SA and India's openers added 78 and Sehwag blasted quick 165, Sachin scored one more ton and India ended the day @342/5.
Day 3:VVS scored a patient century and Dhoni gave him good support and India declared late and they could only bowl 5 deliveries before bad light stopped play.
Day 4:Rain and wet outfield forced the teams out for most of the day and only 35 overs were bowled and SA were 135/3 at the end of the day. Amit Mishra got the most important wicket of Kallis before close of play.
Day 5:India needed seven more wickets to win and SA needed to score more runs or occupt the crease to force a draw. Zaheer couldn't bowl which meant India were one bowler short and Dhoni had only three regular bowlers to get the remaining seven wickets. I wanted to witness Team India's Victory but for the first one n half hr session, I didn't see any wicket falling that forced me to bed but I wanted to see the last few overs,so I got up early to watch the match. There was lot of drama towards the end, Indians were getting more and more desperate for the win, Amla was rock Solid reached one more century in the series and almost forced a draw but Harbhajan's 5 wicket haul, two wickets from Ishant and good support from Amit Mishra sealed an Innings victory for India and more importantly they held on to their top spot in the ICC Rankings.
Man of the Match and the Series: Hashim Amla for the number of runs he scored and the amount of time he spent @ the crease.
Player's performance analysis has been done by the cricinfo staff and they were accurate.
India Win Thriller despite Amla's Heroics


Cheers
Vishal

Colts Choke ,Saints Shine - Super Bowl XLIV

Saints Super Bowl XLIV Champions
Highlights of the game
Sound FX from NFL.com
Colts were favorites to start off and the NFL stats for fantasy has given a spread of 5.5 with NO Saints as under dogs.

First Quarter - 10-0 Colts: The game started as expected and it looked like one sided with Colts scoring a field goal followed by a touch down.
Second Quarter - 6-0 Saints: Saints scored couple of field goals had a chance to score a touch down but Colts defense denied them.

Half Time: Few years back people used to wait for Super Bowl's Half Time Show to get entertained but after Janet Jackson's wardrobe feat the Super Bowl half time shows have been uninteresting would be an understatement.
Some of the Super Bowl's Commercials were good but not memorable.

Third Quarter - 10-7 Saints: The story changed after the half time and Sean Payton did the unexpected. A Surprise side kick sparkled the comeback of the Saints and it was risky but now that we know it was worth taking. The mindset changed and Colts were in a shock tried their best to recover. Peyton Manning had frustrating time sitting out waiting for his turn. Saints scored 10, Colts managed a touch down.
Final Quarter - 15-0 Saints: Saints played like do or die from the start and they were rewarded for out-thinking the Colts major portion of the game. Colts didn't lose the Super Bowl but Saints snatched the victory with some trend setting decision making. That's why the final score read 31-17.

Brees MVP
Coach Sean Payton
I had a chance to do my part of betting on the Colts, Colts lost but I still ended up on top due to defensive betting by others in our league.
Had fun watching this year's Super Bowl? I guess not if you are a Colts Fan.


Cheers
Good Night

Snowy start to 2010

Last year the weather was lot better in NJ compared to this year. I think we have seen enough snow for this season but I guess there is more to come next week as well. Roads blocked, Train stations closed and I worked from home for the last two days.

How much more snow do we have this year? Do we have an answer? some weather channel pleaseeeee
Few of the pics taken are uploaded to my Picasa web album


Njoy
Vishal

Consistenly Inconsistent - Team India

SA defeated India convincingly in the first test match. They have been the best overseas team against India for sometime now. It's not about the defeat that the Indian Cricket fans would be disappointed about but the way the team lost and the margin of defeat(Innings and 6 runs). The defeat definitely showed the ability(rather lack of ability) of the Indian batsmen against quality fast bowling and the quality of the bowling attack between the two teams; It also provided a good overview of the bench strength that India possess in the absence of Test Stalwarts like Dravid and VVS. As mentioned in my previous post, the team selection was defensive(if not a blunder) and they had to settle for Saha because Rohit Sharma(missed a definite chance of Test Debut)the stand by batsman also injured himself during net practice playing some other game(soccer or kho-kho).
How many times Indian players get themselves injured playing sports other than cricket during net practice? Yuvraj Singh injured his knee playing kho-kho few years back and has never been the same fielder that he was years back and could never ever recover. Instead of learning from the mistakes, players still commit the same mistakes.
How good are the ICC Test Rankings? How can a number one test team lose to the number two team by an innings and six runs at their own backyard? Smith claims that SA deserve to be number one and not India.
Kris Srikkanth has mentioned that he is ready to take the blame for the team selection but the changes made to the team for the second test are not justified at all.
Why were the cricketers selected in the first place and why were they dropped?
Dinesh Karthik for Saha -(Exclusion of Saha doesn't make sense because Saha was primarily selected as backup for MS Dhoni not tested for his wicket keeping skills, Karthik's included for the second test because he scored couple of centuries in his two innings in Duleep trophy final)
Sreesanth for Sudeep Tyagi(If they wanted to include Sreesanth, they should have dropped Ishant and not at the expense of Sudeep who wasn't even given a chance)
and Raina for Mithun (Raina still has issues facing short pitch stuff and has been included at the cost of Mithun who didn't even get his chance)
Indian cricket fans still think that India can square the series @ Eden Gardens where as our senior cricketers skip practice. Let's wait for the Valentine's day to look at the team that India would field for the second test and obviously follow the test and wait for the result.

Cheers
Vishal

RGV's RANN

I have always liked to watch movies directed by Ram Gopal Varma. I watch his movies because he has this ability to surprise the audience with his kind of story telling. I have read people write that RGV can make three genres of movies
1) Under World (Satya, Company, Sarkar, Sarkar Raj)
2) Horror (Raat, Bhoot, Phoonk)
3) Musicals (Rangeela, Naach, Mast)
But following RGV's movies for a good period of time, I think he makes two categories of films.
1) Serious
2) Experimental
The difference between the two categories would be the story, screen play, star cast and budget selected. To give an example Satya was experimental (turned out to be successful) but Company was serious (Experiment was successful so tried to master it with a different view @ the same topic).In his Serious movies, he has a plot and he is well prepared starting from star cast, budget etc where as in his experimental films like Phoonk, Agyaat, Darling mostly goes by his instincts. Some of his experimental movies became huge hits when he thought he became a master he failed because he couldn't surprise the audience.
Generally, I do not prefer to read reviews of the film that I would definitely like to watch; so I would read them after I watch the movie to find the gaps.
I had a chance to watch the movie RANN yesterday and after watching the movie, I read the reviews.
Full Hyderabad- Deepa Review
Bollywood Hungama - Taran Adarsh Review
Rediff - Sukanya Verma Review
India Glitz Review
Bollywood Hungama's review is exaggerated Taran kind of gets biased reviewing Big movies, Rediff's Sukanya Verma didn't like the movie, Full Hyd Deepa's review was too difficult to understand for a regular movie buff, I thought the India Glitz's review was kind of close to my thinking. The movie had a tight screenplay, good background score, commendable performances from the lead cast (Big B, Sudeep, Riteish, and Paresh) but the main story had its own flaws. Few to mention are
A) Harshvardhan Malik doesn't try to verify and validate the news (or check within his publishing team if it was manipulated) before he publishes in front of the camera to the whole world.
b)Nobody investigates about the news read by Harshvardhan Malik(except for Purab)but everybody(public, other news channels etc) believe him without any questions.(No media person interviews or no cop interrogates him for making such a serious statement)
c) Jai Malik doesn't investigate how the programs that his channel was planning to telecast are being telecasted by other channels.
D) Expected Climax (Suicide, Purab to take charge, etc)

You could still watch the movie for the performances put in by the principal starcast and captivated screenplay.

First Test - India vs SA @ Nagpur

The Current Top two test teams (based on ICC Test Rankings) are competing against each other for the Top Spot. India couldn't field their two important test players Rahul Dravid & VVS Laxman due to cheek bone injury and finger injury respectively. The Team that India selected for the first test doesn't look any where close to winning the test match. The composition of the team speaks defensive mindset of MS Dhoni, when the opposition has a strong batting line up like what SA have, India should have opted for the fifth bowler(either Tyagi or Ojha based on pitch conditions) instead they went for the wicket keeper batsman Saha which is kinda strange.
South Africa won the toss and elected to bat first as expected; as the sub-continent pitches are good for batting for the first three days and later on spin will come into play. Zaheer got the break throughs that India needed but they couldn't hold onto the advantage till the end of the day. Amla and Kallis escaped the few good deliveries initially and they scored unbeaten centuries. Indian bowling doesn't have the depth and variety to trouble good batsmen because of which the score reads 291/2 at the end of Day one. I am sure this test would be a dull draw unless quick wickets tumble tomorrow or India succumbs to the pressure of retaining the number one position.

126 days to Soccer World Cup 2010

Soccer World Cup 2010 starts after 4 months and FIFA already have the teams organized  in to different groups namely A-H. The dates for the round robin league matches are also finalized and the schedule is available @ FIFA.com. Without actually looking @ the squads and recent stats, just glancing @ the teams in different groups, Group D, G, A look like the difficult ones but I may be wrong.

If some one already had a chance to analyze the groups and interesting matches link would have been great.

Cheers,

Vishal