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...