Punch the keys

I wish the India Vs Pakistan cricket semifinals were today. I mean I want it over with as soon as possible. Getting irritated with all the junk that people are coming up with. The rest time in between is really getting to be the Devil's workshop for many. There are morphed photos doing the rounds. Comments without abusing one others team's are hard to find. This one takes the cake! Today I got this video on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150172366125325 The video is that of a Hindi News channel reporting that India is going to lose the match on 30th since its all pre-arranged because of the betting. But hold on. Since there is still time till 30th, I am sure someone else could come up with something that could beat this one for the top crap slot.

Sports is one of the biggest business areas now in India too. Thanks to IPL(Indian Premier League), the Indian edition of Twenty20 cricket tournament, there is a huge focus on sports. This, along with all the other sporting activities like Team India in F1, Hockey and commonwealth in India, has certainly got the common man into sports. It was a bit difficult to imagine earlier that sports could become such a huge business. IPL, in its third edition, has added 3 more clubs and the tenders drawn were more than the existing 8 teams' bid combined together just 3 years back. You can imagine the amount of money involved. And believe me, this business is indeed profitable. If not now, surely in the near future. Else all these big names would not be putting these huge sums onto the table. The main intention for me to start of this blog was not to talk of money, but what got me thinking on this topic was a conversation dialog from the movie Invincible . I love movies based on sports and...

I am not an ardent follower of cricket, i.e to the extent of remembering statistics or players from bygone eras. So apologies to all those who reacted to the title question with "Duh! Is this guy from earth?" or an equal response. I did not actually hear about Jack Hobbs until I came across this article on cricinfo. A super article by Gideon Haigh I must add. The article also enlightened me on the apparent class divide between the "professionals" and the "amateurs" of that time. To appreciate Hobbs' full significance, however, we must contemplate the class rigidities of his time. The discrimination that placed amateur and professional in separate dressing rooms and hotels, and had them enter the field by different gates and travel in different railway carriages, now seems as remote from our experience of cricket as sectarianism or McCarthyism. Awesome to know about him! Many of the great players are great not just because of their skill but b...

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan match fixing is denied : A committee of Pakistan's parliament has summoned the country's cricket captain, coach and manager to discuss new match fixing allegations. "'The nation wants to know how the team lost to Australia,' Jamshed Khan Dasti, chairman of the parliamentary committee, told the BBC. Pakistani cricket has recently been free of match fixing claims He argued that Pakistan deliberately lost in the last group match to prevent India from reaching the semi-finals. Mr Dasti's committee has summoned coach Intikhab Alam, captain Younis Khan and Pakistan Cricket Board champion Ijaz Butt to a meeting on 13 October to clarify the allegations." You have got to be kidding me!!! Aren't there other things in Pakistan that need to be fixed!

A couple of weeks back, I saw this on google's news page. It seems like google thinks that cricket is for men only. :)