ChinmayC Blog

Earlier, commercial breaks were not as intrusive as we could anticipate the time and quantity of their coming perfectly thanks to the limited opportunities available. Doordarshan was the only television channel, entertainment-public service-news all combined, for us to confront them.   We knew that maximum ad time would be for the Sunday evening Hindi feature film and we used to utilize those commercial breaks to entertain ‘silent’ guests, discuss the movie on air and make tea. The virtual breaks that were intrusive even then were the songs of Hindi or Bollywood movies that caught us unawares as always forcing us to take a break and go out of the theater into the lobby.   However, with the advent of cable television and the flood of private entertainment and news channels intruding-annoying-agonizing breaks have become a part and parcel of our existence—you like it or not. There emerged a rich variety of how the commercial breaks began to be presented to us. Maybe at the inne...

Jonathan Carter For West Indies Pakistan and West Indies rose to the occasion and ensured their places in the knockout stage of the ICC Cricket World Cup-2015. Notwithstanding the minnows both teams were facing they had to take the games seriously. In the first match West Indies without Gayle did win with a big margin as required for a better net run-rate against UAE. Chasing a modest target of 176 at Napier today West Indies won by 6 wickets with nearly 20 overs to spare making it almost impossible for the loser of the other match between Pakistan and Ireland to come up on better net run-rate and their place in the Quarterfinals was ensured except for a tie or no result in the other match. Sarfraz Ahmed's Century For Pakistan Pakistan bowling that has been responsible for the team’s great comeback stuck to their job and restricted Ireland to 237 in 50 overs despite a century by Porterfield (107 off 131 balls). Pakistan without Younis Khan did not take any chances in the chase and...

India have hit a resounding six of six consecutive wins in the ICC World Cup-2015 beating Zimbabwe by 6 wickets in their last league match in Auckland today. However, the margin of India’s victory was not as comfortable as it looks. Chasing a very competitive total of 287 set by Zimbabwe India were under intense pressure at 92 for the loss of 4 top order batsmen in the 23 rd over. Thanks to a rollicking unbeaten partnership of 196 runs between Suresh Raina and skipper MS Dhoni victory was finally made easy with 8 balls to spare. Man of the Match Raina raced to a brilliant hundred, his first century in World Cups, making 110 not out off 104 balls with 9 fours and 4 sixes. Raina was helped by a simple dropped catch before he made his half century and was initially living dangerously giving somewhat catching practice to the Zimbabwe fielders. Dhoni gave him solid company making a professional 85 runs not out off 76 balls with 8 fours and 2 sixes—the winning shot being a six from him. Ar...

The biggest surprise of the ICC Cricket World Cup-2015, I think, has been the superlative performance of Team India, not only for the Indian fans but also for the whole cricketing world as everybody saw how the team performed in England and Australia just before the mega world event began. I have personally expressed my anguish in these pages on many occasions and even in my last post (circumstances forced me to take a long break, but was following everything keenly) I called Team India ‘a disillusioned listless disgruntled side’. Well, how depressing it was to watch the team losing to England—a side lot weaker and now obliterated from World Cup-2015. However, all along the underlying impression or belief was that India were not playing to its true potential and both internal and external factors like lack of confidence or application, apparent discontentment within the team, BCCI upheavals, disorder in the batting order and Mahendra Singh Dhoni suddenly running away from Test captain...