Mongoose Cricket Bat

Haven't heard of this new kind of cricket bat until today. This cricket bat has a longer handle. Specifically "The Mongoose’s blade is 33% shorter and its handle 43% longer than a conventional bat"

The bat's website is here.

Here are a couple of pics of this bat.

Bhupati, Sania Win Australian Open Mixed Doubles

Good Job Guys!!

Women's Singles in Olympics '08

Guess which country got all 3 medals in tennis Women's Singles at this Olympics?

Russia.

Guess how many Russian women are in the top 11 ATP rankings now?

6!!

Why India is not winning Olympic Medals

A few articles contemplating and trying to answer that question:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/25/india.olympicgames2008
• http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/08/why-does-india.html
• http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080813202631AAFWAsJ
• http://www.epw.org.in/epw//uploads/articles/12432.pdf
• http://www.gadling.com/2008/08/18/behind-the-olympics-where-are-all-of-indias-medals/

Indian Boxers @ Beijing

From Yahoo:

Indian hopes of a first Olympic boxing medal were high on Saturday, with three fighters reaching the quarterfinals.

The trio, coincidentally all called Kumar, a common name in India, will secure at least bronze if they win their next bouts.

Raj Bhavsar: Indian American in Olympics

From USA Today:

Gymnast Raj Bhavsar can wake up today and know he is no longer an Olympic alternate.

Finally.

Bhavsar, an alternate on the 2004 Olympic team, was also an alternate on the 2008 team until Monday. He said he was with his coach Kevin Mazeika when he got the call that he would be Paul Hamm's replacement at the Beijing Games.

"The first thing that comes to mind is that dreams can come true," said Bhavsar, 27.

Read more about that and watch a video profile @ Sepia Mutiny.

Also, on the -ve side, Guess who topped the list of 'World's Worst Olympians' by Foreign Policy. Go ahead, give it a shot.

Another World Champ

From rediff:

Viswanathan Anand crowned himself as the new World chess champion with a short 20-move draw against Peter Leko of Hungary in the 14th and final round of the Championships in Mexico City on Saturday night.

33rd National Games concluded officially

33rd National Games of India have officially concluded. 'Services' ended up with most Gold's (59) and Assam ended up with most medals (148). I don't know why Services is regarded as another state. Is there a state called Services that I didn't know of? hmm.. Also, the website has the symbol of Olympic Games on 'Games Result' button for some reason.

Herez a spreadsheet analysis of how various states performed. Andhra did pretty well in medal's per contestant category.

First one is list of states sorted by 'medal's won per contestant'
Second one is when sorted by number of medals

Isn't this a Shame!?

A shameful state of National Games in India. Can't even provide the results of a sporting event. Its ridiculous. I mean these are National Games for God's sake. India Shining!! I can't avoid the glare in my eyes.

From Indian Express:

The mediapersons covering the 33rd National Games in Guwahati are badly hit by 'poor disemination' of results and information.

The media centre at the Nehru Stadium, venue of at least five sporting disciplines, wore a deserted look with no authorised person available for switching on the computers.

The situation at the media centre at the main sports complex at Sarusajai was no different.

Any which way but lose!

An old but wonderful article by Sandipan Deb regarding India's (or Indians) obsession with Cricket. I cannot say I totally agree to his premise that all this is because of our "hunger for recognition from the world leads us to trumpet our supposed superiority to everyone else at the drop of a hat" but all in all a fun read.

A quote from the article:

Only 36 per cent of our population has access to sanitary means of excreta disposal. There are lakhs of Indians who subsist on our streets without even the most basic rights to a human life or a dignified death. Thousands of our citizens live as refugees in their own country, having lost their homes and means of livelihood. Last month, in a poll conducted by The Hindustan Times on the attitudes of Indian youth, more than 50 per cent of the respondents said that given a chance, they would live in some other country.

But even when they do go away to some other country, they have the rediff live cricket scorecard open surreptitiously on their computer monitors throughout their working day. They stay up nights in the US to watch India play in England. They participate in detailed analyses of the Indian team's strengths and weaknesses in countless Internet chat rooms. And they turn out in daunting numbers at the stadium whenever India's playing in their adopted country.

(h/t: sightscreen)

Violence in Super Bowl Ads

The darkness of the Super Bowl ads

I watched most of these ads yesterday, but didn't notice the underlying theme. Gosh! Did we become so tolerant of violence in our media?

And the scientific evidence shows that they either did not connect with the audience or scared the hell out of them. hmmm

A comment in the above blog that makes sense:

By Anonymous, at 2/05/2007 7:33 AM

Sweet jehova! Let's not go overboard here. I think Anonymous was right when he said the companies thought it was safer to go with violence over sex. Sex get's you fined by the FCC. The violence in these comercials was the equivalent of Wile E. Coyote getting an anvil to the head. As another poster said, the tolerance for violence in this country is very high, particulary of the sort on display Sunday (during a violent sporting event). Make those ads realistic, showing the physical aftermath of said violence and you'd probably have several million poeple crying out with you.

Tendulkar fires India to series win

India wins series 3-1

"It had been nearly four years since Tendulkar struck a hundred in a winning cause," Says Dileep @ Cricinfo. Feels like a decade for me though.

Anyways, Congratulations for the Indian Cricket team for winning a series emphatically. Looks like we have a 95% chance of seeing India in the Finals of the worldcup again.

A stat from the game:
160 runs - The margin of victory for India, their highest in an ODI against West Indies.

India Won on SA soil!

India has won a test match on SA soil for the first time ever?

From rediff: India finally registered a Test victory on South African soil on Monday.

I was not following cricket these days. Just lost interest in it, dont know when. This past year I was just watching the scores after the matches were complete. I did not follow this test either. I know the series is going on and India lost the OD series bigtime. But, I felt they were going to do well in test, maybe 'cos I remember some other away tour (WI?) where we lost OD series and won the test series. Anyways, its always good to see our home country win. Doesnt it?

Also, I just did a little math to see who was mainly responsible for the win. So, i summed up the batting and bowling figures of our guys for both innings. Following is our batting line up sorted by runs scored and which is followed by bowling team by wickets taken.

Just by looking at raw data, we can conclude that Laxman and Ganguly!! were the best batsmen, and kumble and sreesanth were best bowlers in this test. Incidentally kumble and sreesanth were the worst performers with the bat. Zaheer took as many wickets as kumble and also scored 46 runs in the test.

So, I would give my 'men of the match' awards to : Sreesanth, Laxman and Zaheer.

	R	M	B	4s	6s
VVS Laxman	101	357	221	17	0
SC Ganguly	76	241	139	8	1
SR Tendulkar	58	156	111	10	0
Z Khan	46	139	103	3	2
Extras	45
VRV Singh	40	38	23	8	0
V Sehwag	37	85	55	6	0
R Dravid	33	167	92	5	0
MS Dhoni	23	58	45	3	0
W Jaffer	13	59	49	3	0
A Kumble	7	36	26	1	0
S Sreesanth	6	17	9	0	1

Bowling	O	M	R	W	Econ
S Sreesanth	35	11	99	8	3.18	(6nb, 2w)
A Kumble	22	5	56	5	1.85
Z Khan	32.5	8	111	5	3.33
VRV Singh	21.1	4	75	1	3.12	(8nb, 1w)
SC Ganguly	1	0	11	0	11	(2nb)

Huskers defeat Texas A&M

Huskers defeated Texas A&M today by 28-27. It was 21-10 by first half. Texas A&M defense shut down Huskers in the second half until the last drive with ~1 min play time. It was an awesome drive by the Huskers offense. I did not follow the 2nd half 'cos my wife was watchin 'The Color Purple'. When I had the game back on, A&M were leading 27-21. And I was right in time for the last drive. Its a wonderful win and Huskers clinch the Big XII North.

Jyoti Randhawa VS Tiger Woods

From HSBCgolf :

HSBC Champions leader Jyoti Randhawa is looking forward to matching his game up against that of the World No.1 Tiger Woods when the third round gets underway on Saturday.

Randhawa remains on top of the leaderboard after day two.

The 34-year-old remains in control of this year's event after a three-under-par second round 69 saw him climb to 10-under-par and take a one-shot lead into the weekend.

We DID It!!!

STL Cards = 2006 World Series Champions!!

Can you believe IT??

Cards are up 3-1 in World Series! Are you kidding me?? Eckstein 4 out of 5.
Tigers led till bottom of the 7th. I mean who would have thought?? I predicted 4-2 tigers win, before this world series started. May be I just didnt wanna jinx our winning record ;). Under dogs since the last week of the regular season, this is an UnBelievable drive by the Cards. This is my first baseball season and it is great to see my team is going all the way!!
And the best part is: My wife sat with me till the end!! She enjoyed it as much as I did. One happy family :)

college basketball championship @ vja

i am thinking of conducting/sponsoring a sports championship in vijayawada between colleges. i dont know how much is presently being done, but i am sure there is a lot of promise in creating more entertaiment fields in india other than movies and cricket.

everytime i see these nfl, nba, mlb, nhl matches, i think of why it cant be done in india. a competition between clubs (i think there are for soccer) for various sports. a competition between colleges ( i think only cricket has ). there is enormous amount of talent, entertainment value and money to just not take up the same in india.

i think we should be able to promote interest by proper marketing. by televising the events, by advertising and with good prize money. and also if there is a proper career oppurtunity in sports. not just in cricket. like a strong structure of professional leagues to goto once they are done with college. i know i am just talking from what i see here in usa.

the sports i can think of that are going to work at college level are basketball, volleyball

weekend sports

nebraska won over ks wild cats 21-3 on saturday making their record 6-1 this season.

stl rams lost to seahawks at stl 30-28 today. i saw until half time or so when they were leading 21-7. just checked to see them lose. thats sad :(