Cellphone to warn lightening???

Nokia has recently applied for a patent to a technology to detect a imminent lightening strikes!!!

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India England Test series

With the first test at Lords starting in a few days, a lot has been written about the tour result. Without nay information about game day pitches and weather, I can just say that it will be a tough battle between two teams who based on expected players are equal.

Now before you attack me for making that statement, I believe both teams are almost equal and India has a slight edge after Harmison injury. Let me dissect the statement further

1> Bowling: a lot has been said about the Indian bowling being raw. Test for test, England bowling is worse than India. Hoggards (64 tests), Monty (17 tests) Sidebottom (4 tests), Anderson (16 tests) and two debutants compare unfavourably to Kumble (115 Tests), Zaheer (47 Tests), Sreesanth (8 Tests), RP Singh (4 tests) Powar (2 tests) and two debutants. To be fair, local conditions and more first class experience reduce the gap. I would give the Indian bowlers just a slight edge.

2> Middle order: Indian middle quartrant - Sachin, Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman - is coming back into their form and has more experienced than the English equivalent. On the other hand, though, English middle order - Vaughan, Pietersen, Collingwood, Bell has been in good form recently, but they seem to be fatigued after a tiring schedule. I would India a slight edge over here.

3> Openers: Indian opening pair is inexperienced and is not consistent. On the other hand , English opening pair has been performing well and is more stable than Indian. English openers have a big edge over Indian pair.

4> The two wicket keepers are almost at par. More experience of Dhoni is compensated by Prior's first class experience. Both are attacking strokemakers.

Over all we expect a good tussle matches with relatively high scoring matches. Final results will depend on how Indian new bowl attack negates the English opening advantage and English middle order converts the local advantage to bridge or overcome the middle order gap.

LET THE BATTLE BEGIN

Wrong Wrong Wrong

This was one of those days when everything goes against the grain. One of the biggest day in the upset history of Cricket world cup. I was expecting IND BD to be a tough match with India surviving. Actually, it was a close match which was won by BD. The other result was even more astonishing. IRL defeated PAK world cup winner of 1992 and made them the first team to get kicked out of world cup. So, what are the learnings.

In case of IND BD, I still believe that the result would have been different had BD batted first. So I am going to take toss into play. About PAK IRL, it was just a bad performance by PAK over all. Even after getting out for 132, their bowlers could have skittled IRL for under 120. But their bowlers were not disciplined enough.

Now the new predictions, India will come back big time and defeat Bermuda with a vengeance. They will cross 300 if batting first and skittle Bermuda for under 120 if bowling first. I do believe they will have a hard time over coming the margin of 243 that SL had against Bermuda, but win by a difference of 200.

Results & March 17th Predictions

Okay, My WI Vs PAK prediction was right on target. WI won the game, though it was less competitive than I thought (51-49). Neither Lara nor Inzy were the main stars and the best I predicted the winning total very accurately.

My next prediction for today, India (60-40) and Pakistan (70-30) will win their matches against BD and IRL though IND BD will be a very tight match. Indian bowlers will win the match for India while for Pakistan, it will be their batting. I don't think IRL bowlers will give any difficulty to Pakistan. IRL batsman will give them a scare though, because of their county and Australian domestic league experience.

Sunny Vs Ponting: Part 3

Yeah we were expecting a response from Sunny to the personal onslaught from Ponting. The response was a number of good hard punches on the chest and face and another one under the belly. So, as expected Sunny explained his stand of leaving the field. Then pointed the mistake that made Ponting look like a guy who is not articulate (Please check the old post to find this). After puting a number of minor punches, Sunny let go a big one - " The Australian behavior, if done in s bar, will have there ass kicked". OOH!!!

But, then in excitement or to give an example to bolster his statement, he gave a reference of Hookes - An Australian cricketer who was killed in a bar fight. That was really below the belly. In Boxing boxer hits the opponent below the belly to soften him up - even though he may lose a point in doing so. Here this attack will backfire. Score (Sunny 0.5 Ponting 1.0). Would have been a 0.5 each if sunny hadn't referred hookes.
Final Score (Sunny 4.0 Ponting 1.5) Test Series to Sunny.

Please note the tour is not over yet. Ponting may yet respond. In fact, Hookes reference might get other country involved too. We will wait for the one day series that will follow. For the fun of the game, I hope it does :)

In other, sledging match SA and AUS are going at each other with "Chokers" and other tit for tat children fight. We will keep you updated

Sunny Vs Ponting: Part 2

I was awaiting a response from Ponting and surely it was there.

He could have let the comments go. But, being a captain of the team, he also had to defend his team specially when attacked by someone as statesman as Gavaskar. I agree with that, but he fell for the bait that Gavaskar had for him. The attack looked personal, but was not personal. He went ballistic. He had a personal attack on Gavaskar - regarding his walk out on being called LBW. I agree with him that it was wrong to walk out and umpire's decision is final. They make mistake, but that is part of the game. But, by attacking Sunny personally, he proved that Sunny's remarks hurt him where they were meant to. He seemed like an enraged lion. (Second test - Sunny 1.5 - Ponting 0.5)

Also, Ponting recognized that the remarks were meant to play with Australian mind and had an ulterior motive of helping their opponents (SA, IND, NZ). So, he attacked the performance of Indian cricket team and tried to make Gavaskar responsible for the loss. This was a bait that went very wrong for Ponting. In fact, his response makes him feel like an inarticulate person. Judge for yourself.

Gavaskar's Summary: Though Australia has been a dominating force in world cricket and play aggressive cricket like West Indians were in the 70s, they are not loved as well as West Indies of the 70s. This is because of their behavior on the field. Their behavior and aggressiveness falls on the side of unsportsmanlike

Ponting's response: Well Gavaskar himself was not sportsmanlike (eg walk out). Also India has been performing very bad with Gavaskar been associated with the team blah blah blah.

Let me leave with a visual: Ponting made himself look like a CAGED Lion. He wants to attack theperson who is poking him, but the more he tries to attack him, the more he hurts himself as he bangs against the cage. (Third test Analysis: Sunny 2.5 - Ponting 0.5)

Of course this is not over yet, wait for this series between the two titans to get more interesting।

Current Status: Sunny 2.5 - Ponting 0.5

Opening Game Predictions: West Indies Vs Pakistan

This is the most open world cup has been the standard line for this world cup. And the opening match is the best example of why it is very difficult to predict anything in this world cup. Pakistan team is at the lowest that I have seen them as far as I remember. But wait, isn't WI at it's worst after recent failures and being bundled out for 85 in the warm up. Pakistan at least won the warm up matches easily. So, who will win? I give West Indies a 51 - 49 favorite to win this, being the home team. It's Brian Vs Inzy, but I believe that the team that blinks first will lose. I also believe that it will be a low scoring affair with a score of 240 a decent one.

Let the games begin!!!