ChinmayC Blog

Two nations and millions of fans the world over are waiting with bated breath for the titanic clash of the arch-rivals, India and Pakistan in a crucial Super Eight match of the ICC World Cup T20 2012 in Colombo today. Fans would love their favorite team win and the desperation to win for any of the two teams is conditioned by the two passionate nations. This passion is not conditioned though by whatever happens in the tournament later. The desperation for India is even greater. On superior bowling strength and current performance Pakistan have the edge over India . Add to this the terrific Pak all-rounders like skipper Hafeez, Jamshed, Afridi and now even Umar Gul. India , on the other hand, are burdened with the last thrashing by Australia , the Sehwag riddle and team selection chores. Indian skipper Dhoni has been under fire by many cricket experts and cricket lovers for omitting Sehwag in the last two games and his gamble for three spinners. Anyway, the three spinner tactic is not ...

The two Umars—Umar Akmal and Umar Gul—rescued Pakistan out of absolute devastation and powered them to a pulsating victory by two wickets in low scoring thriller against South Africa in Colombo yesterday. In the second match India made a mess of everything and lost by nine wickets to Australia with 31 balls to spare. Both of these Super Eight matches of the ICC World Cup T20 2012 were studies in contrast. Australia exploded the myth created by India that Colombo tracks had been becoming ideal for spinners offering lot of turn and spin. They have hardly made a difference between fast and slow bowlers hitting everyone mercilessly out of the ground. Such was the fury of the Australian openers Shane Watson (72 off 42 balls with 7 sixes, and 3 wickets) and David Warner (63 off 41) that the top Indian spinners Ashwin, Harbhajan and Chawla were not even allowed to settle down. India skipper Dhoni complained of a little rain that made the ball wet, but finally it comes to good and accurate bo...

Dilshan! The first Super Eight match of the ICC World Cup T20 2012 ended in a tie and for the first time in the tournament the super over eliminator came in to decide the outcome. Malinga for Sri Lanka did the trick finally in his super over and Sri Lanka won beating an unlucky New Zealand in Pallekele. Winning the toss New Zealand elected to bat and made a solid start thanks to Nicol (58 off 40 balls) and Guptil (38). Brendon McCullum (25) kept the momentum on, but could not last long. Though well on the way for a total in excess of 190 the Kiwis finally fell short by about 20 runs, but 174 was still a challenging total and the match was on. Sri Lanka in reply raced to 119 in the 13 th over with Dilshan (76 off 53 balls) coming into form in a magnificent way, but midway lost the plan with a bit too many run outs. Interestingly both teams were at level in the 17 th over and like New Zealand could not capitalize on the last four overs Sri Lanka too could not force a win from a ...

The Super Eight stage matches of the ICC World Cup T20 2012 in Sri Lanka start today with the big one coming between hosts Sri Lanka and spirited New Zealand in Pallekele. In the last match of the group league on 25 th September buoyant Pakistan beat a fighting Bangladesh by 8 wickets. Bangladesh fought very hard trying to win by more than 36 runs which would have taken them into the Super Eight stage. There is hardly much to choose between the two teams. While Sri Lanka would be looking for the home advantage with their specialized slow bowling that suffocates opposition on various occasions New Zealand is set to benefit too as they played their two matches here in Pallekele where they crushed Bangladesh and ran Pakistan to the wire in the second. Sri Lanka on their journey to the Super Eight bulldozed Zimbabwe in the first match of the tournament and then lost to South Africa in a ridiculous 7-over encounter. The biggest plus for Sri Lanka would be the return of the magical spi...

That was a very hectic day at work and he got really late. Finally he cleared the last file on the desk, picked up his briefcase and hurried towards the elevator or the lift as you may prefer to call it. His office was on the fourth floor and naturally he was headed for the ground floor. He pressed the down button outside and the elevator came up promptly with the indicator showing down. His mind still going through the bits and pieces of the day yet he could not help but feel happy at the elevator’s perfect timing. He pressed the number four button in the panel and then the door-close button. The number four button flickered red briefly and blanked out, but the doors closed immediately. The lift did not budge and the doors opened up a moment later. Dumfounded, he repeated the act with the same result. A man came in and asked if it was going up, the professor replied authoritatively that it was in fact going down. The man looked desperate to go up just one floor and finding all floor b...

Article first published as The M3 Riddle Of Indian Politics on Technorati. This one is the farthest removed from the musical Mp3s! Yet, there is a striking similarity between the two if you want to behold at all. Concentrating on the ‘music’ commonality the whole nation and the people of India have been facing the music thanks to M3. While many of the states of India, the economists, the industrialists, the farmers, the sensible leaders within insane groups, the opposition parties that can sense a good thing and the ‘uncommon’ people within the ‘common people’ syndrome have all hailed the new steps of the Government of India as very necessary for a stagnating economy and to avoid a crisis in the long term, the M3 and its like-minded followers had been splitting the hapless ears of the unwilling listeners with its draconian music. M3 is consisted of naturally three basic political ingredients...                         ...

Harbhajan Singh The Player of the Match It was India’s biggest win in terms of margin of runs in any T20 history. It was England’s lowest total ever in T20 history. It could be the T20 international of the century in terms of the most dramatic turnaround with spinners dominating absolutely. It gave Harbhajan Singh a most memorable comeback to Team India. The off spinner had an incredible figure of 4 wickets for just 12 runs with 17 dot balls in 4 overs. With his partner spinner, another comeback guy, Piyush Chawla the duo captured 6 England wickets for 25 runs. Thanks to them England crashed from 39/2 to 60/9, looking at achieving the ignominy of being the team scoring less than the lowest ever total of 67 by Kenya in T20 history.   The last England pair saved that humiliation at least by taking the score to 80. India crushed England by 90 runs in their last group encounter in Colombo on 23 rd September, 2012.   Indian skipper Dhoni seemed to have done everything right on t...

The first two big matches of the ICC World Cup Twenty20 2012 were scheduled on September 22--Sri Lanka Vs South Africa and Australia Vs West Indies. Spectators were indeed regaled by some splendid batting performances including that of Chris Gayle who is back in the West Indies team (54 runs off only 33 balls with 5 fours and 4 sixes), De Villiers for South Africa (30 runs off 13 balls) and Shane Watson for Australia (41 off 24). The first match between Sri Lanka and South Africa in Hambantota started after a delay of more than two hours due to heavy rains and so it got reduced to a ridiculous 7 overs each. Sri Lanka made it worse for themselves by opting to field first after winning the toss, maybe influenced by the overcast conditions. Thanks to De Villiers South Africa posted a daunting 78 runs for 4 in 7 overs. The Sri Lanka reply was a disaster as their batsmen had no answer to the pace and accuracy of South Africa bowlers. South Africa won by a huge margin of 32 runs. Malinga was...

Happy Lord Ganesha Festival wishes to all of you! The beloved God of wisdom and prosperity who protects everyone from obstacles and mishaps has arrived yesterday in Mumbai. Huge endless queues line up the biggest public worship places while millions do the rituals, the offerings and chanting of devotional songs in their homes. At home for the desired duration of days He is like the Head of family and is respectfully installed, bathed ritualistically, dressed and offered all the daily meals—an integral part of worship. No wonder He is so fondly called Ganapati or Gananayaka (leader or protector of people). This year Ganapati Festival on the occasion of Lord Ganesha's Birthday is being celebrated from September 19 in Mumbai and Maharashtra. This 10-day festival begins on the fourth day of the new moon lunar cycle. Worshiped both publicly and at homes across the state this festival is celebrated from one and half day to the full ten days. On the 11th day idols are immersed in a big ...

Yuvraj Singh Takes Crucial Wickets! India struggled to beat Afghanistan in their first match of the ICC World Cup Twenty20 in Sri Lanka yesterday in Colombo. When finally they won by 23 runs it was not at all worthy of the current one-day Champions.  India huffed and puffed to 159 for the loss of five wickets in allotted 20 overs with the openers Gambhir and Sehwag failing again. The pitch could be a valid reason, because the Australia-Ireland match was played in the same track a little earlier. Just to exploit the wear and tear of the pitch Afghanistan must have decided to send India in after winning the toss. But equally important was the sheer pace of Afghan pacer Shapoor Jadran who accounted for the both the openers and the energy of a spirited Afghan team. The openers departed for just 22 runs on the board in the 5 th over. Yuvraj Singh in his second major comeback match made 18 off 20 balls with one six. They could have reduced India to 79 for 5 if the catches were taken an...

Match winning 92 by Kamran Akmal As anticipated an all out war broke out at the warm-up T20 cricket match between India and Pakistan in Colombo today in the run-up to the ICC World Cup T20 tournament starting tomorrow. In line with the epic cricket wars between the archrivals even this insignificant practice match whipped up passion and tension in cricket lovers. Amidst ups and downs finally Pakistan emerged triumphant beating India by five wickets with nearly an over to spare.  India elected to bat winning the toss and lost Gambhir early. Sehwag too could not get going after a good start and it was the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year Virat Kohli again who took command. With Rohit Sharma Virat crafted a partnership of 127 runs to take the total score to 185/3 and set a challenging target of 186 runs for Pakistan. Virat remained unbeaten on 75 off only 47 balls with 7 fours and 2 sixes. As in the practice match against Sri Lanka that India won comfortably Rohit came good here too sco...

The economist in Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, has finally decided to take control of the country’s economy and growth, and end the nearly one-year-long policy plus reforms paralysis politically enforced by the opportunist opposition parties as well as the allies of the ruling coalition. Undaunted by the countywide rallies and protests against the diesel price hike on September 13, 2012 Dr. Singh captained his government along to push through the reforms further the very next day. Goodness for the country’s economy and future growth prospects in a global perspective must be kept beyond politics and political fortunes of the government; he seemed to have decided upon. In a landmark decision on the evening of September 14, 2012 the Government of India approved the much opposed 51% FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in the over $500 billion Indian multi-brand retail market and 49% FDI in the misery-ridden Indian aviation sector. The FDI cap for the Broadcasting sector has a...

Laurels for Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. For the fifth consecutive year Dhoni has been selected in International Cricket Council (ICC)’S ‘ODI (One Day International) Team of the Year’ and this time he has been named the captain too. Not only this, Team India got its three players along with Dhoni selected—the highest for any team. Australia (Michael Clarke and Shane Watson), Pakistan (Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal) , England (Alastair Cook and Steven Finn) and Sri Lanka (Kumar Sangakkara and Lasith Malinga) have two players each and South Africa has one (Morne Morkel). The other two Indian players are Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir. The ICC Chief Executive David Richardson announced the 'Squad' at a special function ahead of the LG ICC Awards being held tomorrow in Colombo , Sri Lanka . The LG  ICC Awards honor the best performing international players and officials of the last 12 months. A specially appointed five-member expert panel headed by West Indies...

How many cooking gas cylinders do you use a year or how many days one cylinder lasts for you! The frenetic calculations must be raging at the moment in households or in the minds of housewives across the length and breadth of India! The curious spectacle of the 7 th cylinder must be getting embedded in various brains. But the first story first. After months of introspection, retrospection and brainstorming the Government of India today took the courageous decision of hiking diesel prices by 12% or 5 rupees per litre. This is very courageous basically on two grounds; first, diesel has been the basic fuel of India used in various activities meant largely for the poor and the farmers and second, with the political opposition hounding for controlling inflation and the pressure of big and bigger scams building all the time the ruling coalition government was in a tight corner. The fiscal deficit of the government that has been growing due to the heavily subsidized diesel, cooking gas and ...

Brendon McCullum Blazing Away! New Zealand in the death moments prevailed over India in a nail-biting thriller and won the second and last Twenty20 international cricket match by just 1 run in Chennai today thus winning the T20 Cricket Series 1-0. The first match in Visakhapatnam was washed out due to heavy rains. And, for all the eager fans—Yuvraj Singh played cricket again. He fielded, bowled and batted. His cancer was a thing of the past now—fought, conquered and forgotten. Finally in Chennai the rain gods had mercy and play began dot on time. Indian skipper Dhoni won the toss and perhaps to use the conditions and some little grass on the pitch invited New Zealand to bat first. As anticipated by Dhoni the Kiwis started badly losing the openers for just two runs on the board. Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan shared the two wickets. Star Kiwi keeper-batsman Brendon McCullum took charge and made a hurricane 91 off just 55 balls. Kane Williamson (28) gave him able company and the pair added...

The watery ordeal of the Khandwa farmers was supposed to have finally ended on the 17 th day today after the government of Madhya Pradesh agreed to their basic demands. The state Chief Minister assured the traumatized farmers that the water level of the Omkareshwar Dam will be lowered from 196 to 189 meters and the affected farmers would be given ‘land for land’ compensation. Media attention, though belated, finally brought the issue into national or even international focus and the authorities were forced to bow down to the demands. But the farmers who stood in neck deep water for 17 days claimed only a partial victory as they felt that delaying tactics would be applied considering their present weary condition and therefore as per some reports they refused to come out of the water. They said that with the increased water level of the dam to 196 meters the expanding reservoirs had already submerged many low lying areas, and they actually wanted to see if water receded after the gov...