chak de, akhtar

Watching the kolkata test [thanks to the free online link], it was obvious that akhtar saab was chucking certain deliveries. I captured a couple of snapshots – one where he is running and throwing [bowling] and another where he stops and throws [fielding].

 Che(u)ck this out….

quiet strength – tony dungy

just started reading ‘QUIET STRENGTH’ and it seems to be setting the pace really well. Very curious to understand the management style of tony, aka ‘Gandhi of NFL’ getting it done without “losing it”, the first african american coach to win the super bowl, the person who overcame adversity, loss of his son, and instills principles, priorities in his players to play at the highest level. in the intiial phases, the book seems to take a bit too much about this religious faith, too many articles from the bible and might be a turn off to some. hopefully it gets better down the line. will let you know.

i always enjoy reading some of the books about coaches, mostly NFL. it conveys a lot of smart management techniques which are applicable to folks who want to pursue management, entrepreneurial careers. getting players who make million dollar pay checks, troubled personas, different backgrounds and getting this together and play for the TEAM vision is indeed unique. there have been different approaches to coaching and will continue to be . you see the chucky personality (john gruden) – young aggresive and getting it done. you see the tuna personality (bill parcells) – old school, but making the players earn respect, conveying a cold feel towards players but contrary towards his guys. then there is tony dungy who gets it done in a very simple style, dont get me wrong, very passionate about winning but not necessarily showing this eternally via emotions.

 more to follow… stay posted

mellowing with age – the gr8 maestro

Just reading an article off cricinfo about sachin mentioning his batting adaptations over the years -‘Sound of bat hitting ball is still a special feeling’. The changes in his mental frame right now with after so many years of service to international cricket. we could hear the critics say ‘I always told this before’ – but seriously it is not rocket science to predict that ones natural reflexes will slow down with age and does it even matter? each of us need to set the bar for ourselves and as long as one delivers the goods the rest does not matter.

To me, the article heading stands out ‘Sound of bat hitting ball is still a special feeling’ – after so many years, this guy has the drive (no pun intended) to play at the highest level, his commitment to the game has always been more 100% and his playing has been inspirational. To have a consistent mental poise at 15, refined and got better at 35 years old has been unique. being successful at what you love and being one of the best is achievement.

kudos to the one and only man who scores 100s in both cricket and outside of it!

hope his swansong thrills us as much as his entire career has been.

jet lag and no NFL – this is injustice

I am currently in HYD for 2 weeks. Usually, during my personal trips, jet lag takes much lower priority and the adrenalin of being at home, helps get over it 

But this time.. Waking up at 2 AM and hanging around is a pain. I browse through the TV channels in my hotel room and see some baseball game live!! This irritates me further – why the hell do they have to telecast baseball when NFL is currently in full swing.  Asaya kamchu irritate panranga!! And that too baseball, which probably has even fewer followers in India who will treat it as some bad imitation of cricket.

Maybe its time for T20 to get to the US and kick baseball out of transmission.

Now let me catch up with some old cricket matches until I fall asleep. Hopefully, my team does well and wins today.

yuvraj settles score!

wow, 6 sixes in an over, a difficult feat in any form of the game. most have been pretty thrilling to watch. I read some reports on how flintoff ticked off yuvraj and yuraj wanting to settling scores with the beating he got (5 sixes in an over a few weeks back).

Ah! a great feeling to answer back with his bat. But now that he has settled scores, hope things dont get back to ‘usual’ and he continues to blast his way. kudos

fantasy football’s desi twin

interesting, an online league system built for the cricket junta -
http://cricketselector.com/

this was suggested by my wife the other day and I shot it down by saying that cricket does not have as much variety from positions and scoring perspective to make it as interesting as fantasy football. Voila, here is a website attempting at that. Let us see how people take to it.

cricket – the 20-20 format

Now a new format begins to kick off in the cricket era. i thought the motive was to get a 3 hr format and make it interesting for the US – where the crappy baseball is still a big deal. To me this was obvious, end of the day $ is still Rs.40+ and the advertisement $$$ will swamp BCCI’s bank account (oh I know ICC runs cricket, but my dear friend BCCI kicks butt in collections). Imagine the super bowl ads being played at $3M per minute played for the billion people audience which is unheard (no one can beat us there)

But now it seems like the wish list is even greater – folks want cricket in the olympics it seems. Now we are doomed. at least till now, India could be in the top 8  cricket nations in the world. but now, every kid, every employee working in manufacturing, in China will start playing cricket. In one way, the aussies will have a sound competitor

I still think the format needs to be tweaked. It still has not strategy point – the bowlers will become mincemeats. I suggest that the folks need to make it a 25-25 format with 3 innings of 12, 8 and 5. the team has the option of having 9 fielders, 10 fielders and 11 fielders in each of the innings. The team has to follow field restrictions where fielders have to be within the ring.

 Is the ICL listening – kapil, maybe the ICL can still be better than the IPL. Give me a call buddy and let us chalk out my contract

american football – the season begins

At last, the season begins… now things are all set for the next 4 months. Sundays for reserved for NFL and Saturdays are booked in case the Gators play.

This year is special – the gators are the defending champs and are playing like one. Never expected them to trounce the Vols – defense was weakened with the departure of several stars last year but the freshmen are ramping up fast. Tim Tebow, aka sooooperman is playing well. but it is a long season and college ‘ball does have its share of surprises. Hopefully, the gators dont choke and get it rollin. Urban Meyer has a big legacy to save, the ole ball coach is setting up his next one with the Gamecocks.

NFL is special this year too – am playing fantasy football (league is QuarterMachis) with my pals. We have represenation from chennai, east coast (atlanta – yes the “nai sanda” town), central and the west coast. it was funny trying to setup the online draft on msn foxsports, it bombed and then had to resched the whole thingy. Thanks to freeconference.com, with yours truly monitoring the picks we managed to complete the draft and get the games rolling.

For those of you checking out american football for the 1st time, embrace the game – it simply rocks. get past the physical aspects of the game and you will start enjoying the strategic aspect of it. I was lucky to get to UF – a football powerhouse, the origin of fun ‘n’ gun, with the ole ball coach calling the plays. Pick up for friend who is football rules aware and start following the game – believe me it is a lot of fun. One minor nit, you will have a tough time convincing your better half