Anirudhha's response to facebook quizzes

The Facebook quizzes facinate me, especially the identify the brand ones.

I always thought they were pretty basic and even my three and a half year old son, Anirudhha would score 95%+ in those. So I put together some 33 logos to test how he fared.

So here's how he scores when showed him logos of cars.

He answered 32/33 which is 96.96%. The Tambram parent I am, I am a bit concerned about the score.

I am worried about the 3% that was not, more than the 97% that was !!

What would be your reaction ??

"I'm not very good at Twenty20 cricket, am I?"

Kevin Pietersen makes a frank admission on the eve of the tournament

May 29, 2009

Saw this on the Quote Unquote section of cricinfo.

The first question that came up in my mind was "To whom could he have made this admission ??"

His banker ??

May be, he thought he could have milked a couple of (hundred) thousands more from Mallya ??

Or may be he made this admission to Mallya himself !!

Let's say this question was directed to you...

What would be your answer to Kevin ??

Would you say...

Oh Kevin !! Don't be so humble and modest ??

Face of the Indian youth

Firstly, this is post is not about cricket.

The twelfth man is extremely disappointed about what happened in IPL today. No, not that he is a Delhi supporter and Deccan won today. It was because his wife and son wouldn't let him watch the match, the whole match... Damn it!!

He missed the match okay. But he also missed three other things because of that which is not okay.

1) That gem of an innings from Gilly

2) How astutely Jatman handled his bowlers

3) His regular IPL feature "B the moment of the match"

Okay, now that we have done our days lip service to cricket let us move on.

Move on to another important thing that happened in Delhi today. The new Indian cabinet was sworn in today, all the Indian media is filled with stories. Some stories about the swearing in and many about the first family of Indian politics, the Nehru -(Feroz) Gandhi parivar.

This is one such story that I found in one of those Padmashree infested Indian news TV channels.

Now, the "She" here is Sonia Gandhi...

"On one occasion she even poked fun at Rahul, when someone asked her whether there was a future roadmap for the Congress. "Ask him," pointing to her 38-year-old son, "He should be knowing." Pat came the reply. "Why are you passing questions to me? That's not fair," said Rahul Gandhi"

Brilliant, the question that comes to The twelfth man's mind is, "Why is heirloom written in capital letters on the face of every Indian youth in politics ??. Where are the other youth, someone non family, in a supposedly young country ?? A country full of youth ??"

Think of a name irrespective of the party, it is all full of dynasties and families.

Congress, BJP, DMK, NCP, Akali Dal, Indian Lok Dal it's there everywhere.

We know it, we all know it, but still we vote for them. The worst yet, we take sides accuse someone a Hitler and we fight among ourselves, while we all know that there has been a Hitleress (feminine gender!!) & her Hitler Junior before.

We love when the aspiration of bright young kids are killed, plastered on to the roads like those carcasses of small animals on a highway because of what our politicians call "Affirmative action".

Why?? Because the politician wants to affirm his love to the downtrodden??

No, it is because those are the people who are a good majority when it comes to his / her constituency, the people who provide them that winning edge.

Let me ask you something, only to those of us who go to temples. Have you ever thought about how wealthy or prosperous the Pujari / priest of the temple is?? What his progeny do?? I know a couple, whose dreams have been squashed on the highway.

Why?

Because the "caste" column in their birth certificate said BRAHMIN.

This guy earns all of Rs.600 plus those ones and twos we drop in his aarti plate (offerings to the man who serves god). With his salaries he can't even have three square meals, two glasses of coffee (himself) and a daily newspaper. Still he has managed to educate his kids, and they have managed to do well till, the dear politicians we support decided to squash their dreams. I am sure we will forget all these.

Come next elections we might even vote for that party who we think are the outcasts of today. For, they might touch our emotional chords deep, a bit deeper than the others.

We would still not vote for those independent candidates with impeccable credentials. Ala Meera Sanyal, Capt. Gopinath or a Saratbabu.

Why, because they have no chance if winning. WTF, if you and me don't vote for them then HTF would they win??

The quintessential Indian mentality, we don't do or even attempt something but blame when something happens. We have seen those who lead candlelight vigils, post the Mumbai happenings sleeping soundly after a particularly heavy night before voting and there are some among us who had signed in or those of us who toasted "Cheers" to a Pink Chaddi but defeated the Prima Donna who stitched the Pink Chaddi first place (in the elections).

So what are we ??

Are we puppies who follow some dynasty and make them THE chosen ones ??

Till when do we want to live up to the tag of Indians being emotional idiots??

Being someone who stands erect and gets goose bumps every time "Jana Gana Mana..." plays (not withstanding the fact that it was written in praise of King George) because it my dear national anthem, I am ashamed.

I would rather remix that "song" to a club hit mix and get a couple of hundreds jiving to it than simply getting goose bumps and getting scratched all over bloodily by those useless politicians.

And long live the youth of India. Excuse me !! It is not you & me but some chosen one from those select few families.

Jai Hind !!

Re-integration

Thanks to "The Twelfth man" cricinfo have decided to return Nainital back to its original state of Uttarakhand.

I hope Karnataka doesn't object !!

That was when Nainital was part of Karnataka**

** As per cricinfo

And this post the reintegration

It's okay even if you decide to call the state by its old name, Uttaranchal. At least you got the geography right this time, leave alone the history !!

Cricinfo's geography

It seems Manish Pandey, the guy who became the first Indian to score an IPL hundred was born in Nainital, Karnataka.

I know Karnataka have a border dispute with Maharashtra, famously called the Belgaum dispute. The good guys of cricinfo are adding another dispute to the list, Nainital ?? Tall claim !

Get your geographies right guys !!

Nainital is in Uttarakhand, which is one of the northern states of India.

The odd Spalding...

As I kid I was inquisitive...

And I had this odd hobby of collecting balls, I mean those used in mainstream sports and games !!

Sometimes it was odd when a Madurai kid had in his collection a rugby or a golf ball. For, those are something, games unheard of when it came to his peers. So there was no point WOWing them with an exhibition of this sort of a collection. In all probability they might end up saying, "What unshape cricket balls you have !!" and to add to the insult they would say "I would always flush off those unshape ones"

So to divert their attention I always invented a new form of cricket that would fit my ball for the day.

This particular day it was a Spalding, a Spalding golf ball.

The only association a Tamil would have to this game would be from that famous Rajinikant movie "Mr. Bharat". In a particular song sequencce Rajini plays golf.

So when I got this Spalding and I wanted to show off, I told my select few in my class... "Thalaivar played with a lean stick on grass, why don't we play cricket with this in the class"

It was my seventh class and we decided to use the golf ball to play cricket during our 5 minute class break.

The physics / chemistry record note would become our bat and we would hammer our way till the next class commenced. This used to be our routine till the Spalding arrived, the only change... The ball till then, used to be the crushed pages of our notebook. Tactfully removed from the center.

And this was the one bounce catch out varient of cricket.

So, came the Spalding and without even thinking about its bounce we started playing cricket. That was the break between our Maths class and we were expecting our Hindi master to come in anytime.

The bowler at that time pitched in a short one, "S" who was batting tried to prove a point to the girl from the second row he was eyeing those days "R". He did that wild slog and unluckly for us he connected right on the logo of his physics record book, the middle. The ball just missed "D" on the fourth row and flew on to hit the stained glass sliding window.

I heard "A" my crush crying a "Arghh". It was already broken and the Hindi master would get in any time. So what do we do??

The answer was to put "S" bag on the window wedge to hide the hole-some view.

Thanks to "S" and her bag we diverted things effectively till 4.30p when the school would disperse.

And then came football to get the window pane open from outside and save us.

Finally we had to marry cricket with football to have our soul saved

We have changed...

RajaB's have given way for "The twelfth man"

For he has been a non player for a while. So he has decided that he would take centerstage and start driving a couple straight down.

There also has been some small changes in terms of the design. As usual we have decided to borrow a preset template from the good guys at www.blogger.com.

Let's hope "The twelfth man" talks more frequently than RajaB used to those days.

Okay it's time, let me pad-up...

The long shot...

Two teams have booked their place in the semifinals of IPL 2 as of now, Delhi Daredevils & Chennai Superkings.

It seems like there are three teams fighting it out for the other two spots. But the reality as we know is that there are only two teams that stand a real good chance. They are the ones who play this evening, Bangalore Royal Challengers & Deccan Chargers.

The other, Kings Eleven Punjab would be praying hard. The first thing they would do is to sing a nursery rhyme loud, so loud that the gods hear it.

"Rain, rain go away... Come again another day"

For, if the match is rained out today their dreams, however miniscule in percentage would also get washed out. (if it happens the two teams get 1 point each and both get to 15, while Kings would be left behind at 14)

The next thing Kings would be praying for would be a big loss for any one of these two teams.

Here is a sample of how big a loss Kings would be praying for.

Let us first look at Bangalore, currently in the fourth position

In this case Deccan bat first and score 130 in their 20 overs. And Bangalore chasing it, true to its name plays like a test team and scores 60 in reply in their full 20 overs.

Then Punjab and Deccan go to the semis.

Not possible, right ?

Now option 2: Bangalore bat first and score 50 in 15 overs, chasing this Deccan score 51 within 6 overs.

This also seems a distant possibility, so Bangalore are more or less through. Unless some miracle happens and they get plastered by Deccan so badly.

Now let's look at Deccan's chances

Now let us say, Bangalore bat first.

They have to score 253 in their 20 overs and get Deccan out for 50 (in the 20th over)

Then Deccan are eliminated, Punjab advance with Bangalore.

I know what you are saying, IMPOSSIBLE. Right?

Now the other option, Deccan bat first.

They score 40 in 12 overs and Bangalore in return score those runs off in 4 overs.

This is another way of eliminating Deccan.

No way again !!

So effectively, there is no chance other than statistically for Punjab to advance to the semis.

Unless I have missed out on any other combination... Do let me know and I shall stand corrected...

An interesting stroke

Chennai Superkings playing Kings Eleven Punjab

With 56 runs required of 24 balls, it was Brett Lee's turn to face Suresh Raina.

The first ball of the 16th was plonked for a boundary, the second ball. Did he try a pull or did he try to cut the ball over point?

Whatever it was he missed the ball completely only to do some last minute adjustments to reach the ball back straight to the bowler.

Now, one could see an interesting expression on Lee's face. Gesticulating with his left hand like he was hitting the ball while his mouth saying "Tonk".

That reminded me of one of my childhood friends. I have never seen him connect bat to ball, but would promply replay the shot he had tried to and do that well connected in the middle of the bat sort of "Tonk".

Commentators on cricinfo...

The commentators on cricinfo have a weird sense of humour.

Sample this...

"At the time out, Kolkata look lost and dazed. They are still in with a chance but Rajasthan have the edge. They never cease to amaze. They still have a very capable batsman in Agarkar, who's faced similar situations before."