Same old , some new

All the festivities and celebrations surrounding India's victory in the T20 world cup came crashing down. In a matter of 1 week since the Aussies started their 7 match series here, its been the same old comments on how the Indian team should improve their bowling and fielding. And the same sunken feeling in my stomach when the Aussies start assaulting the bowlers and demolishing the much-hyped Indian batting line-up.

The most note-worthy thing about this series has been the attitude of the players in the two teams. On earlier tours the Aussies would come-bully-win and go. On this tour, the Indians are giving it back to the Aussies in terms of bullying.

Now, I agree that it has gone over the top some times and the incident where Sreesanth tried to run Symonds out was plain stupid, but the fact remains that the Indians are not backing down to the Aussies. Only if they could perform well and win matches !!

My thoughts on the first couple of matches:

1. The Aussies seem to have planned to bat first and put up huge totals. Indians are perennial chokers when it comes to chasing and the Aussies seem to want to exploit this to the fullest.
2. The 2 captains (Mahi and Gili) are very likable, though Ponting came back for the 3rd ODI. (I'm not a huge fan of Ponting)
3. We saw sari-clad women distributing drinks during the ODI in Hyderabad !! What will they think of next ??
4. The grounds staff also performed a puja of the pitch !! Pity, it didn't help wake the Indian cricketing gods.
5. Mahi seems to play a fair game and I am impressed by his no-nonsense presence on the field.
6. Dravid seems to be lost on the ground. We hardly get to see him on the field. He does not even venture out to give any sort of advise to Mahi (which Sachin regularly seems to do). I don't know if something is amiss between Rahul and Mahi or if Rahul just wants to give Mahi his space. In any case, a few words here and there will definately help.
7. The team mgmt sat out Ganguly even when he was fit ?? I wonder why?? What was the sense of playing Rohit Sharma when Ganguly was available??
8. The behavior on the field improved considerably from the second to the third ODI. Maybe someone knocked some sense into Bhajji and Sreesanth.

India now needs to win all the remaining 4 ODIs to clinch the series. Though I don't see them doing that, I think they should use this series to identify players and get some match practice for the Pakistan series.

AND GET A COACH !!!

Inspirational Lecture by Randy Pausch

A friend forwarded this to me yesterday. Its a lecture from a professor of the Computer Science department at the Carnegie Mellon University, Randy Pausch.

Its part of a lecture series that the university initiated where-in they asked professors to give a lecture as if it were their "last". The ironic thing in this case is Randy Pausch has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and has only a few days to live.

It is amazing to see this man's zest for life and the will to live his life to the fullest. Its also amazing how many people he has touched by his innovative methods of teaching. We need more such individuals.

This is truly an inspirational video.

A Change of guard

Its official, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (or Mahi as he is well known) was appointed the captain of the Indian Cricket ODI team this week. This after the previous captain, Rahul Dravid, quit citing reasons that were unheard of earlier. Rahul claimed that the Indian captaincy has a shelf life and that life was fast decreasing. Going be his comments and the timing of his resignation it would seem that the shelf life is close to 2 years. I read an interesting article from one of modern eras best captains, Steve Waugh, where he expressed concern at this fact. His point was that if indeed the shelf life is so small it does not augur well for Indian cricket. I agree with him. A captain needs at least 6 months to a year to settle in (depending upon his seniority in the team). Also, a captain needs time to shape the team and guide it in the direction in which he wants. This requires continuously interacting with the core of the team and instilling ethics and values into the players. This does not happen overnight and specially not in a unit like the Indian cricket team. Two years in my opinion in too short a time to do all these things and then start seeing results. Now, that said, Dhoni does have some favorable things on his side :

• He is part of a team that has 3 previous captains in Sachin, Saurav and Rahul. He could make use of their immense experience and knowledge of the game to not only learn quickly but also make effective decisions. The key here is that he should be able to make these decisions independently without being influenced by one individual.
• He is taking over a team that has been a pretty cohesive unit under Rahul for the better part of the year (after the Chappel fiasco).
• The seniors in the team are a helpful bunch with little or no ego issues. I'm sure that they will support him a 110%. This is very important because if the ex-captains turn on the new captain, it can ruin the team (look at the Pak team)
• He is a cool headed individual. This quality will be tested to the LIMIT in his new role. Specially with the expectations of the people for the Australia and more importantly the Pak series.
• He is the best new comer in the Indian team who can hold his place in both the ODIs and Test sides. This stops the other "youngsters" (Yuvi and Viru) from thinking that they deserved the role more than him.

The key here is that he has been appointed for the first 12 ODIs only. This means that he absolutely has to win the 2 series if he wants to keep his position and for that he has to hit the ground running.Dravid was comfortable from the get-go because he had been the vice captain for 4 1/2 years before that. It remains to be seen how long Dhoni takes before he can start becoming comfortable with his new role. Dhoni has already been given the captaincy of the Indian Twenty20 side for the world cup, but the real test is when he has to face Aus and Pak in the ODI series in India. I hope after these series, the shelf life does not reduce further !!

Djokovic - The Joker

Novak Djokovic reached the semis of the 2007 US Open yesterday and in the process irritated and entertained the crowd that had gathered to watch the match.
He has the irritating habit of bouncing the ball for a long time before serving. Yesterday, he went to the extent of bouncing it 28 times before serving. On an average, he bounces the ball atleast 10-12 times. Now, isn't that irritating? Imagine what it must do to his opponents?

He displayed a different talent yesterday by imitating various players on the court.
Here's an interesting video where he imitates quite a few players. I must say that he's good !!

Tendulkar to retire from ODIs?

An excellent win against England went a little sour with the news that Sachin Tendulkar is contemplating retirement from One day international cricket.

THE greatest batsman to ever play the game has amassed phenomenal amount of runs in both forms of the game and will be heralded as the greatest who ever played the game.

His stats speak for themselves. There is no one even close enough to challenge him for his position atop the ladder.

The news says that the Pakistan and Australia tours could be his last. These are the teams against whom he has repeatedly shone and we wish he does one better on his last tour !!

Here's one from two of his most memorable innings that he played in Sharjah against Australia. The first to put India into the finals and the second to win India the cup !!

Falling dollar

Here's something a lot of Indians working in the US track very very closely: The exchange rate.

We should be proud of the fact that the Indian economy is doing so well.

I heard an interesting piece on CNBC the other day with respect to currencies and the recent sub-prime loan problem that has taken over the US economy.

First, what exactly is the problem?

The US Dollar, being robust as it was, attracted a lot of foreign investors in the past. These investors dumped money into the US and facilitated the huge growth and economy that the US boasts. A lot of investments were made towards the lending industry here. Probably the largest investment went into the housing loan industry. There were more people to give out loans that people who wanted loans. So, invariably, people with bad credit history got loans approved that they would not have in the normal circumstances.
All was hunky-dory until the US economy started slowing down due to a lot of other factors (China and India included)
Suddenly people in the lower income strata did not have the kind of money left to pay off their loans. This resulted in a lot of foreclosures and a lot of people lost their houses. But, now there was no one to buy these houses (again because of the slow economy), so the prices of these houses came crashing down.
For example, a house that was sold at $500,000, 7-8 years back was now valued at $300,000. Because of this the loan companies started incurring a loss resulting in the foreign investors, who back these loan companies, incurring a loss.

The bleak future:
The financial analyst on CNBC said that the future was very very bleak for the US Dollar. He seemed to think that as the foreign investors start looking at other markets to invest in, the value of the dollar will plummet to an extent that it will no longer be the de-facto standard against which other currencies are measured. He also said that he was advising his clients against investing in the US and getting rid of their dollar cash reserves !!

If what he says is true, I'm sure it won't be long before we see the graph above dipping into the 30s.

Start sending your dollars home !!

Wanted - A coach for the Indian Cricket Team

A lot of people have come out in support of the current arrangement of the Indian cricket team. They are out on tour with no coach. Agreed, they have a bowling coach in Prasad and a fielding coach in Robin Singh, but they don't have a "head coach". It would seem that the senior players in the side have gotten together and formed a think-tank of sorts and they take decisions collectively.
However, my opinion is this kind of arrangement reduces the authority of the captain. If the captain needs to bounce off his ideas on other players in the team, he may be perceived to be indecisive and incapable of taking a decision on his own. The coach is the ideal person to complement the captain in this capacity. Also, you usually need an eye/brain that is not in the game to notice things that people in the thick of things may overlook. Almost all the coaches these days sit in the dressing rooms with laptops open, taking notes. Agreed, that you can have a statistician do the same, but a coach will analyze this data and then provide a synopsis to the captain. In the current scenario, Dravid needs to go through heaps and heaps of data to find out what will be beneficial to him.
Bottom line is a coach is required to help the captain. Ganguly and Sharad Pawar gave statements saying -

We are in no hurry to hire a coach. Besides, what will a coach teach players like Sachin, Rahul, Kumble etc.

That in my opinion is the worst attitude to have. If you think these players know everything, why do they not score a century or take 5 wickets everytime they bat or bowl? A senior cricketer can always add value to any player by virtue of their experience. And please don't tell me that these guys think they are so good that they don't need anyone's help.

The BCCI recently posted their requirements of the person who can apply to be a coach, and its about time too . They are :

The candidate must have played at least first class cricket and must possess experience of coaching an international or national team or should have been a coach at an elite coaching centre of international repute.

The aspirant should be a qualified coach with minimum Level III coaching credentials obtained from Cricket Australia, England or India and should also be able to build positive relations with the public and the media.

The coach's key responsibilities also include working closely with the selection committee and inter-acting periodically with the Review Committee to be set up by the board, it said.

He should have the ability to plan and manage programmes for the elite cricketers, should have basic Information Technology skills and be familiar with the use of performance analysis software packages.

The aspirant must also possess excellent communication skills to deal with different sections of people like players, team management, selectors and the BCCI, the release added.

The aspirant for the coach's position should be available to conduct clinics and workshops for the local coaches and provide the team with tactical expertise, according to the conditions laid down by the BCCI.

Another requirement stated by the board is that he should have basic knowledge of Indian cricket, player pathway, culture and ethos, should be capable of handling the team under high pressure situations and have outstanding organisational skills.

The candidate should have extensive coaching experience and expertise in working with elite cricketers.

The candidate should also have knowledge of international coaching trends and possess ability to use video technology, the release further said.

The term of the new coach will start on October 1 and involves extensive time away from home while travelling with the Indian team both within India and abroad, the BCCI has said.

My candidate -