[via Amul]

 Chris is out this week.

related post:

Desi connection to American Idol 6

I hope this is temporary issue, but it is free service after all.

Aaj Tak had Kapil Dev on the telephone line as Kapil is giving his expert opinion on Aaj Tak these days. So the correspondents asked Kapil about this new committee and when they were going to start working for this and Kapil’s response was that he is not aware of any such committee and he did not receive any kind of notification about this committee from BCCI and he is only hearing about this from media. Such is the state of BCCI and what a confusion!

So today afternoon, I was thinking about it and I was happy that at least BCCI is taking steps to do something about this. I mean they should have done something similar after the South African tour. So I wanted to know more about this committee and hence I started searching on the web for news but did not get any links so I started searching for BCCI website and to my shock found that BCCI is India’s richest sporting body and one of the richest sports team or body in the whole world, they do not have an official website. Well in this age and time, and considering the fact that India is an IT (Information Technology) hub, I was surprised. No wonders there are so many rumors floating around. The only information I could get was from this Wikipedia page. The fact did open my eyes.

“The Board of Control for Cricket in India, or BCCI, is the apex governing body for cricket in India and lays down its law. The board was formed in 1929. It is a society, registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act. The BCCI, inter alia, enjoys tax exemption and other benefits such as use of Indian police officers for free and often uses government-owned stadiums across the country at a nominal annual rent.”

Point here is, BCCI is just a society. No one owns the BCCI and BCCI’s membership generally includes the State cricket associations and hence all the regional problems during selection. So who is BCCI accountable to?

This is being a real eye opener for me. I mean BCCI enjoys all the facilities from the Indian Government and it is not accountable to anyone.

The problem as I see is having a strong leadership all along. There is no road map or strategy for anyone in place. I don’t how much input regional boards have in BCCI.

So just to compare BCCI with the Australian Cricket Board , I did a little bit of searching on the web. Since we need to be the best why not learn from best. So I searched for the Australian Cricket Board and what was the outcome, you ask? Impressive!!!

They not only have an Official website, but the website has a page for strategy. It lists 5 goals and 9 primary targets.

Here is the excerpt from wikipedia:

“Cricket Australia, formerly (and still often referred to as) the Australian Cricket Board, is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in Australia. It was originally formed in 1905 as the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket Matches. [1] It is incorporated as an Australian Public Company, Limited By Guarantee.”

It is just not about having a website. The point again is about leadership and accountability.

I was aware of the number system and Zero. But it was amazing to see how old cities were build, plastic surgery and even cataract operations.

“Somebody is going to get hurt real bad.”

I had a similar interaction with a Chinese guy in local mall when I took my jacket to his store to get it dry cleaned but I was able to negotiate a deal with him. But still funny.

I hope that fans back in India don’t end up doing stupid things like attacking players house and start running around with donkeys with cricketer’s poster on them.

And well the way they batted this world cup they really would not had done any better against better teams. That’s it for me this world cup and I will watch may be Final. I am routing for South Africa now. But I still Australia will be the team to beat.

Very disappointing performance by India.

This could be the last world cup for Ganguly, Dravid and Sachin. So I would like to say Thank You for all the great moments and memories you have given us.

I am very sure Greg’s contract is in scoop now. BCCI will be under scanner, the richest cricketing authority as they are know should take responsibilities and act accordingly. Last year when Vengeskar took charge as head of the national selector, he had said it clearly that India don’t have bench strength. BCCI need to answer this kind of questions.

Last media needs to act appropriately they are the one who make Stars out of cricketers. Running tiny little stories about them and then make defamatory statements about them.

was panic after exam as he could only attempted 60 marks of question paper out of 75. One can understand that since the pressure of SSC examination is surreal and competition is so much. This is the turning point for one and that is the sad part. Exams will decide which college you go to and what field you choose.

And now that “The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education has decided to give 30 marks to all students in the subject, irrespective of which set (A, B, C or D) they were given.”.

And for obvious reason some people are happy and others are not.

But the main question or point here I have is what is done to those guys who are responsible for this test question? Why are they not hold accountable for this? Just giving 30 points is not the solution it might make the students and their parents happy but who is responsible for this?

Here is the link to the story via Mid-day.com

Agitated parents of SSC students assembled at the office of the Bharatiya Janata Party, in Vile Parle (East), Thursday morning, to plan a petition over a tough question paper in algebra and geometry given to some of the students earlier this week”

Now you would ask why? Well this is so strange, I have visited this small town twice till now. This is native place of my wife and we got married right in this city.

I would like to see her reaction when she learns about this fact. Hmm. She has fond memories of this place. The fact that there are so many manufacturing companies around this area that I am not surprise that these companies are adding all toxic material and contaminating ground and water.

Ranipet, India

“Ranipet’s pollution can affect up to 3 million people, as it is upstream from populous Chennai. Its tannery waste amounted to 1,500,000 tons a year of toxic material. There is contamination of ground and water. There are efforts being made at containment.”

VFTW has backed Sanjaya. But I think his last night was better among all his performance. But Still amazed by amount of media coverage this kid is getting and still surprise’s me that he is on show. Hair is doing it for him.

Well last night on the show he made Ashley Perl cry. She was thrilled to see her idol up close, Actually she was spotted during rehearsal by show producers and they gave her the best seat in the house during the live show. Sanjaya really did great to drop his shy image and had a rocking performance and at the end of his performance he hugged 13 year old Ashley, who was thrilled to meet Sanjaya. Now you know who is really voting for Sanjaya. So Sanjaya Malakar will be on next week. But I still think Sanjaya has gone as  far as he can and now media attention he is getting can work against him.

Here is youtube video of his performance and Ashley crying.

Here is what judges had to say..

• Randy said, “You shocked me tonight. Usually, you’re this reserved, mild, meek, very cool guy. You came out of your shell. That was your best performance to date.”
• Paula said, “That’s what we’ve been waiting for. Go for it. You went for it. It was a lot of fun.”
• Simon said, “I think the little girl’s face says it all.”

[Via justjared.buzznet.com/]

Century by Sehwag should help his cause. But its was Yuraj who made this total possible, tremendous hitting by him. In all Indian inning saw 18 sixes. This is how the Indian inning ended. Nice to see they were able to finish inning on high note.

Let hope bowlers also come out with similar Mojo!!

He played 377 matches over a 15-year career, scoring 11702 runs at 39.53 including 10 hundreds and 83 fifties. That is impressive stat. But one thing that stats don’t reflect is what  a great ambassador he was for his country and for cricket. I mean I am not big fan of Pakistan cricket but the I liked Inzy. He was very humble and graceful in all the press conference and on the field. Even during the controversy against England test, when he and his team walked of the field.

Pakistan team is going through lot.

“Rachel L. Holt, 35, had pleaded guilty to second-degree rape. Holt was initially charged with 28 counts of first-degree rape. “

“Police accused her of having sex with the boy that many times during an intense weeklong affair. She was also accused of plying the boy with alcohol and allowing him to drive her car.”

This is some serious stuff for 13 year old to handle.

The victim’s uncle, who spoke on behalf of the family, asked for the maximum sentence, saying Holt had tarnished the reputation of teachers and violated his nephew’s trust.

“He had his innocence taken away through betrayal,” he said.

I hope the boy too feels same way.

[images via http://news.aol.com/]

Here is the link to the news.

[image via cricinfo.com]

Here are some of the facts about sex offense from FamilyWatchDog website.

• 1 of 6 boys will be sexually molested before his 18th birthday.
• 1 of 5 children have been propositioned for sex over the Internet.
• 2 of 3 sexual abuses are perpetrated against teenagers or younger children.
• 90% of sexual assaults are committed against someone the perpetrator knows.
• The median age for male molestation victims under 18 is 9.8 years old.
• The median age for female molestation victims under 18 is 9.6 years old.
• There are new 400,000 victims of sexual assault every year.
• There are over 550,000 registered sex offenders in the US.
• There are over 100,000 sex offenders that fail to register in the US.
• 76% of serial rapists claim they were molested as children.
• Over 40% of male juvenile delinquents were molested as children.
• 1 of 5 girls will be sexually molested before her 18th birthday.

All the above point are from familywatchdog.us website and were really eye opener for me. They provide a way to find all the registered sex offender around USA, so one can be aware of these people and I was surprise to see the result of the search for my area. I mean we live in a small town and result count was 258 offenders found and 20 non-mappable found.

This was just ignorance of my part and the only purpose of posting this here is spreading the word out so people can use the tools available. The real eye open was watching the NBC show Dateline – Catching the Predator which I bloged about.

I am going out so.. I will be only updating this post only in evening. Hopefully India pull throw this one, which looks really bad for India.

Indian batsmen failed and Tamim was able to do this . . 6 | 1 4 4 . 6 . | 1 . 4

[Update]

155/4 after 41 overs

Yuraj and Ganguly has saved day for India atleast for now.

[update 11:50 am]

India 98/4 after 33 overs

Dravid Gone. India 72/4 after 24.1

Stat say that Rahul dravid and Sourav Ganguly has 9 runouts between them.

[update 11:11 am est]

After 21 overs India 61/3. Good bowling by Rasel. 10 over for 31 and no wicket.

Wicket looks like it has settle down now. Spin is on from both ends and bowl is turning.

[update 10:55 am est] Sachin is gone, unusual dismissal. Next over gave 10 runs. Couple of boundaries one was over throw and other one was nicely timed by Ganguly on off side. Right now India need is good partnership.
India won the toss and elected to bat.

Conditions looked dry but there is enough in the wicket to trouble Indian batsmen. Plus really good bowling in tandem by opening bowlers. Right now Bangladesh is on top. India is 24/2 after 10 overs. Yes that’s right. But Sachin is looking compact and just hit a boundary as I type this.

Sehwag disappoints again, after he survive a runout in the first over.

I will keep updating this post with match updates.

Siddhartha Vaidhyanathan offers the five reasons why beating Bangladesh may not be easy.  I am glad Siddhartha is not with Indian team  to form any strategic because most of the point are baseless and just stupid in terms of cricket. But who am I judge Siddhartha. He has right for his opinion but it is very one dimensional. Since I put that to rest. Now if India has to worry about Bangladesh then we can’t call them as one of the Team to be in the final four of World Cup as most analyst think of this team.

Team selection, I think Uthappa has done good but for this game I think Indian team will go with Sehwag, in order to get him going and it is important he spend some quality time in the middle. So I think Uthappa will miss the game as Team management may go with Virendra Sehway and Irfan Pathan. As both have a very important role in the success of this team and will determine how far this team will go this World Cup. There could be similar team selections conundrum for the spinners spot. Both Kumble and Harbhajan are good, but only one spot in Team. But I feel Bhajji will get the nod ahead of Kumble.

Rest of the 8 players in the team will be Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Rahul Dravid, M. S. Dhoni, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel

I think it should be good game for India and sure Men In Blue won’t let Indian fan down. They need to have a very good outing and should not be complacent.

BEST OF LUCK to Men in Blue.

[picture via BBC.co.uk]

 It is nice to see the enthusiasm among Ireland fans. They are cheering, jumping, having fun and feeling the tension of the nail bitter. That is really great of the game and for the Ireland team.

Here is video for 50th and 49th over of game.

[update]

Now video is available

[snap via cricinfo.com]

Keepers expression is priceless.

Herschelle Gibbs hit 6 sixes in a over, Mark Boucher had the fastest50 and there were 3 hundred partnerships. Among all Kallis got a century. Before world Cup started there was talk about minnows in this world cup and after this game I am sure their are going to more of these talks. After Australia and Sri Lanka won there game with margin of 200 plus so there is a valid case for this discussion. But Still hitting 6 sixes is a row is some hitting. It is record and happened first time in ODI (One Day International).

And this is how South African innings ended. The only thing positive was that Match was 40 overs per innings. I don’t know why Netherlands did not bat after winning toss.

I hope the Netherlands aren’t too disheartened by this massacre.