Please Check My Blog :-) Monday Videos

And maybe this one to close the day, in memory of the greatest living Bose of all time.

Shaz dazzles on the blog

Sometime back during the 2009 IPL, I was following Shastri’s commentary with the objective of listing out all his cliches. Given Shastri’s success as a world level commentator, his book of cliches would be useful for any budding commentators. So I had posted this in 2009.

In the 30 days since the start of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, this post has scored more hits than the runs scored by VVS Laxman in this series. So it would appear that this listing of his cliches is generally very helpful to the public.

My lack of TV (forgot to renew the DTH subscription) and heavy work schedule makes it difficult to sit through a full day of live cricket and make a new list of cliches (including those spoken by Wasim Akram, Sanjay Manjrekar, etc). I shall probably do something on the lines in due course.

And thanks for coming to the blog.

Home and Away

The former no 1 and present no 1 teams are struggling while on tour

“It’s always nice when you turn up to a ground where history suggest you can score runs. But that doesn’t really count for anything. We’ve got to go out and put our poor performance behind us.”

This could be by someone from the Indian team or someone from the English team. As it stands, this is Alistair Cook previewing the second test versus Pakistan in Abu Dhabi.

With regard to the Adelaide test which starts tomorrow, India has not lost at this venue since the 1991-92 season.

However, if draw is India’s top priority, than that’s difficult to achieve at this venue. Despite the batter-friendly reputation, in the last 13 Tests spread over 14 years, there has been only two drawn games.

And Australia have decided to not respect Sehwag’s claim that theirs is the best bowling attack he has ever seen and are dropping Starc for Lyon.

The move came after India’s Virender Sehwag described Australia’s pace bowlers – including Starc – as “the best bowling attack I’ve ever seen”. “They are bowling in good areas, they are not giving up easy balls to hit boundaries. They are playing with your patience and all,” Sehwag said. “I think that’s the best bowling attack I’ve ever seen, especially against Australia. Generally, when I played the fast men … I’d get a couple of balls I could hit for boundaries. But in this attack I hardly get any balls. So, I think, one of the best bowling attacks.”

And just for perspective, Rajasthan are the best cricket team in the country. Rajasthan could have pushed for an outright victory. With a first innings lead of 326, they had enough buffer to enforce the follow on and bowl out TN second time over. But they didn’t because they wanted Saxena and Bist to complete 1000 runs for the season. Saxena failed, Bist did. That’s how the best cricket teams in India play at the highest levels of the competition.

Messi v Rest of the World

Richard Williams in the Guardian writes:

It is the measure of Messi’s greatness that no one ever talks about how much he is paid, or about the women he goes out with. Any conversation on the 24-year-old maestro will be so occupied with his feats on the pitch that there is no room for gossip. For the past half-dozen seasons the entire world of football has been beguiled by the way this little man skips, dances, wriggles and scuttles between defenders, scoring beautiful goals from all angles and any range. And when he celebrates, it is with the same modesty that he appears to conduct his life off the pitch.

And watch the greatest goal of all time (~ 1.00 minute mark)