Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Utter Callousness by VHP!

Nationwide protests is what they wanted, to 'highlight' the hindu culture that would be destroyed if the Central government went ahead with the Sethu Samudram Project.
Protest they did. Blocking railway tracks and creating traffic jams by blocking major roads. In the midst of this mayhem, a pregnant lady trying to make her way to the hospital with her husband is stuck in the traffic. With the VHP was in no mood to relent, the husband tries to find a nurse to help his wife, only to return and find out that his wife has had to deliver the child on the footpath!
Is this what we plan to achieve in the 21st century? Political parties and religious fundamentalists calls bandhs and stage dharnas all in the name of protecting the common man's interests and culture. But at what cost?
When the news channel Aaj Tak tried to contact Praveen Togadia on the phone, he refused to acknowledge that VHP was responsible for the woman's sufferings. Later on, another person from the VHP apologised on behalf of the VHP, but continued to claim that this was being done to protect the hindu culture!
Why make the common man suffer for the whims and fancies of these organisations? You want to call a bandh or stage a dharna, then do it in your area first. Shut down your daily life first and then go to the common man asking him to just drop what he is doing so that your aspirations can be satisfied.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

We WIN!!!

Series is level at 3-3!
God! What a match! After a humongous hue and cry (raised (only) by yours truly), on the atrocious decision resulting in Owais Shah scoring his MAIDEN ODI century, the match proceeded on with England scoring 316 runs for the loss of 6 wickets.
India responded in brilliant fashion scoring 150 runs for the opening partnership between our very own Tendulkar and Ganguly. Sadly Ganguly would fall at this point, (painfully to Broad, the same bowler with whom he had a verbal altercation earlier) thus making way for the entry of Gambhir. Gambhir struggled in the partnership with Tendulkar who could not take the quick singles due to his frequent bouts of cramps. Tendulkar, on 94, would fall quickly to Panesar, with the score on 156 leaving Gambhir and Yuvraj to try and conjur up a partnership. India then received a double jolt wherein the wickets of Yuvraj and Dravid would fall in quick succession with the scores at 209 and 216 respectively. Mascarenhas and Shah would be the bowlers responsible for the fall of those wickets. The change in pace and the ball stopping on the batsmen would create much trouble for the Indian batsmen.
Gambhir would follow soon after in the 41st over and the score on 234. His wicket would fall to Mascarenhas again. This bowler, responsible for hitting 5 sixes of the last 5 balls in the England innings off part-time bowler Yuvraj, would be responsible for quite a few saves in the field and the two wickets as well. Dhoni and Uthappa then came together to put up a substantial partnership. With 90 runs required of 70 balls, Dhoni started improvising his shots and with the score on 294, Dhoni would be bowled by Broad trying to improvise a shot behind the wicketkeeper.
Agarkar came in to score a single run off the only ball he faced, but was involved in a 13 run partnership, only to be run out trying to go for a second run off the last ball of Anderson's over with the score at 307. With 10 to get off the last over, in came Zaheer. With 2 runs taken by Uthappa off the first ball bowled by Broad, Zaheer was run out the next ball when he was found short of his crease after backing down the wicket too far. His departure left the score at 309 and 8 runs to get off 4 balls.
With Panesar at fine leg, up in the circle, Uthappa improvises the sweep shot to play it over his shoulder and down for a boundary!
4 to get off 3 balls!
Deliberation goes on between the bowler Broad, and the England Captain Collingwood. Fine leg is sent down to the boundary and mid-off would be brought into the circle.
Guess what? Uthappa would smack the next ball straight past mid-off to register the next boundary and level the series for India!!!
3-3 all with everything to play for in the FINAL ODI to be held at Lord's this Sunday!
LORD'S!!! HERE WE COME!!!

Travesty of justice by a debutant umpire!!!

So India has England on the mat. England seems to be developing a partnership between Owais Shah and Luke Wright, when Ramesh Powar comes on to bowl and has the ball take the back of Shah's bat, hit his elbow and balloon up to the keeper for a catch!
Horror of horrors!!!! The umpire turns it down!!!
This decision by an umpire who is making his debut in umpiring in ODI cricket! And then we have umpires by the dime and dozen who are willing to wrongly give the Indian batsmen out denying them match winning innings or a century!
And best of all, Shah has the audacity to indicate that his bat didn't make contact with the ball!!!
Needless to say, Shah goes on to register his century and propel England to a target of 316!
Damn! If wishes were hitmen, he'd be out in the other world by now! The umpire, that is to say.