SRK's Blog

Disciplinary action in Zimbabwe cricket

admin — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:02:00 +0000

Not quite the action we are used to though !

As if Zimbabwe Cricket have not got enough on their plates, what with continuing internal unrest and a national side that has lost 12 ODIs on the trot, they have decided to take a firm stand on one of the game’s more serious issues.

It has emerged that three of the national side - Keith Dabengwa, Tawanda Mupariwa and Christopher Mpofu - were ordered to have their hair cut this week as part of a new board dress code. The dreadlocked players are believed to have complied and will be sporting their new look during the ODI series against Bangladesh which starts next week.

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/2 77924.html?CMP=ILC-DIR

Cheers

SRK

Firefox tip - Connection lost during browsing

admin — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:15:36 +0000

[ Mood: Cool ]
[ Currently: Working ]
Do you get the message “Connection lost to Server” or “Could not contact Server. Check your Network connection” while browsing Firefox or when you switch your PC to stand-by mode and come-back on? And the problem gets corrected when you restart firefox?

Well, the solution is simple. Go to Tools->Options Network->Settings and click ‘Reload’ button of the proxy setting, voila, the URL will get loaded properly.

P.S : I learnt this from G.Rajesh.

Cheers

SRK

Ricky Ponting’s quote

admin — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:00:48 +0000

Ponting on 20-20 cricket.

“My problem is that I can’t play a game in which I’m wearing my national team’s colours, and my opponents are wearing theirs, and treat it as just being fun.”

Hats off !

Cricket - Bill Lawry’s quote

admin — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 04:49:23 +0000

It is an excellent batting pitch if the opposition bowls without any intelligence, which is what they are doing now.

Bill Lawry, on England’s bowling in MCG yesterday !

Cricket - Greg Chappell’s quote

admin — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:00:33 +0000

Asked whether he’d give an honest opinion on Sehwag as he’d done with Ganguly in Zimbabwe…

“I don’t intend to do my coaching through the media”

Snappy, Candid and cool, isn’t it?

My carrom match - How I lost !

admin — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 16:45:16 +0000

[ Mood: Embarrased ]
[ Currently: Working ]
We (myself and Prakasan) lost our carrom match today against Kotha and P.S.Vijay.

It was the first match for us. We had a Bye to the second round - Kotha and PSV had won their first round against Gibu and Charles Adaikalam.

This was played under best of 3 boards format.

The first board was very close - Kotha team took 1 point. I made a few blunders in that game, which made it tough for my partner.

Second board was also very close. We had 1 white, 1 black and 1 red at the end. I played miserably throughout the game. Ironically, it finished with my partner making a mistake - he put the opponent’s coin into the packet - red carried 3 points, so they got 4 points from the board !

So, Kotha and PSV were leading 5-0 with one board remaining. We had to take 6 points to win, even 5 wasn’t good enough (they had won more boards).

And it was a very closely fought battle…

I was disgusted at myself the way I played till now…

Kotha took the strike and put 2 coins. We(all 4 of us) played a few ’safe’ moves. Then, on my turn, I put 6-7 coins including red, and they had 7 coins on board to our 3. And we only needed 3 of their coins in the board to win. Kotha (I think) put 1 coin and Prakasan put 2 more in his next strike. It became 1 coin of ours to 6 coins of theirs. We were looking comfortable at that time, with 4 of their coins in bases.

Then, PSV played remarkably well to put 3 (somewhat difficult) coins, and it became a game of chess - whoever puts the first coin wins. The next 7-8 turns were spent in basing and unbasing our coin.

Then, I made the biggest blunder of the game - I missed an easy shot I missed. That must have given lot of confidence to my opponents - Kotha put a seemingly impossible pocket (with lot of courage, and some luck…).

That sealed our fate - I put the coin in the next chance - we finished with 5 points in the board, and the overall score was 5-5, Kotha and PSV were victorious since they won more number of boards.

It was one heck of a close match, which we lost (fully because of my inability to put crucial shots), and I real feel for my partner because he is too good a player - I consider him one of the top 2-3 in AdventNet, and we lost squarely because of me :-

As with any other sport, the team that held their nerve won. They did, and deserved the victory - congrats.

Personally, it has been a long, long time since I played this badly, in any game. Hey, I have played worse, much worse, by the way I will tell about that later !!

Even though I fought hard in the last board, I was nervous from the start, and it was a totally uncharacteristic performance from me…

It was indeed a good lesson for me - like one person said in Jayamailini’s blog - “Modhara kaiyyala kuttu”, and I deserved it !!

BTW, the carrom tournament this year is really exciting, with many teams playing well - it should be really interesting and exciting to see how it goes from here - more close games/upsets etc !

Cheers

SRK

P.S : I will be back next year, to stake my claim

5 and 12

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:13:31 +0000

We used to play a game when we were in College. Dunno who started it. But, the game goes like this.

One of my friends asked me to quickly tell a number between 5 and 12. I said 7. Then, he told me most people whom he asked told 7. I did not believe it and decided to try for myself. To my surprise, about 70% of the people I asked said 7 !!!

I have wondered what could be the reason, maybe something related to psychology, numbers …

Maybe because 12 -5 = 7

or 12 + 5 = 17 (seventeen), drop the teen, we get seven !!

It’s so astonishing to see how the human brain thinks, isn’t it?

Cheers

SRK