Ganguly was lucky to win the toss and of course, elected to bat. Bajji, who has buckets full of wickets on this ground, was chosen ahead of Zaheer.
India started off quite well with nothing to bother the two openers. Of course, the Pakistan bowlers were to blame in this respect because Sami kept spraying the ball all over the place and Khalil was apparently instructed to only bowl short stuff at Sehwag.
Sehwag was of course not in a mood to hook or pull so he just let those be, and at the sight of any loose ball, he would smack it for 4. Gambhir did the same. Some classic drives off the front and back foot on the offside were a treat to watch.
What was important to see was that both the openers went after Kaneria, trying to seemingly disturb him and not let him dominate them. They succeeded to a great extent because he was immediately made to rethink his plans and had to start looking at options like going around the wickets, and maybe trying to get some purchase from the rough on the other side.
Gambhir went first trying to be cheeky and sweep a fuller ball off Kaneria. That shot was not really called for, but I guess you can’t really blame him for getting out like that. He was on a roll and he would have bet his money on connecting on that ball. Another good start by this guy for India.
Dravid came and settled in fine, with no signs of defensive frame of mind. He was trying to get runs from the first ball, so the run rate was maintained at about 4+ runs per over.
Sehwag went to an absolute nonsense shot. He was beaten twice earlier off Afridi and once was when he tried the exact same shot he got out to, eventually. He did look a little out of sorts, maybe disinterested even. Strange, because it has not happened for a while.
Anyway, he scored (quick as usual) a nice 80+. And that brought out Sachin Tendulkar.
Sachin was 27 shy of 10K in test cricket and after a long long period of staying on 0*, he opened his account with a classic off drive. His next shot was a great smash on the offside and I could tell he was all set for a long innings.
Except that after reaching his fifty, he was out. Another soft dismissal where he tried to go for a cut and got a very thin bottom edge which stuck in Akmal’s gloves. Sachin looked in great touch, and especially after reaching his 10K mark (which apparently he was not aware of) he showed some of the shots the ‘old’ Sachin used to play. Fierce pulls and cuts and drives. I can only say that Bangalore will be a great match to watch! :-) Fingers crossed.
Ganguly came and hit some shots but was out fishing outside the off stump. Laxman had a failure on his favorite ground. Karthik hung around for a bit but frankly I fast forwarded the last bit of the game because I was pissed at the mini collapse.
And sadly, at the end of the day, Dravid knicked one behind the stumps and I know now that Pakistan would think they are back in the game.
It is no up to the tail to muster at least 100 runs more so that there can be some pressure applied on the Pakistani batsmen. Pathan will have a big role to play along with Karthik, in the first session tomorrow.
I am not too interested in the Indian batting now. And if Pakistan is positive in their attitude (means they give Indians enough chances to take wickets), it will be worth watching. Or else it could start getting quite boring. But on the other hand, the pitch is expected to deteriorate a bit, so hopefully there will be some unexpected response from the pitch and help to Kumble and Bajji.
Congratulations Sachin Tendulkar for achieving a big milestone. 10,000 runs in test cricket. 15+ years in test cricket and you have joined an elite group of cricketers now, not that there was any doubt about it.
May you go on to make 10K more, and all the best in conquering all other peaks!
I am not sucked into the March Madness stuff. Maybe because USC has not been a powerhouse in basketball (Women of Troy are seeded #8, though, and the men went to Elite Eight, I think, 2 or 3 years back). Maybe because my office is quite small and people are not interested in college basketball. Maybe because I don’t have time to follow so many games.
Went to see Damon Wayans at the Improv on Saturday night. He was the headliner and the host was Reggie Steele, with the opening act being Siddiqui something.
Reggie was very funny. He was what I categorized as true stand-up guy. He talked and cracked jokes. He did not move around much. He just casually kept dropping nice funny stuff.
Siddiqui was what I call ‘action-based’ comedian. He came and chugged half a bottle of Corona first. Also, he was moving around the stage a lot. He was more animated than funny. He was very funny, don’t get me wrong. He had some good jokes. But he was quite restless.
And Damon Wayans was more story-based comedian. He created quite funny stories and cracked us up. He was there for over an hour. In the middle he did drop in a few ‘what the hell is Bush thinking’ jokes. About how the kids are being sent to war at such young age and all that. I could tell that the guys sitting on the table next to us were not liking it because they did not laugh at those jokes. But most of the crowd was laughing at that big time. Being in the Silicon Valley, it was expected that people will support anyone who talks against Bush.
The best thing was that none of the guys spoke the current hip/hop language. I would not have got it at all. They were all speaking normal English language and not forgetting to pronounce the second half of the words. :-)
Overall, a great evening. Highly recommend Damon Wayans. And can’t wait to go to Improv yet another time.
I was quite excited to watch the fifth day of the test match. It was poised well for India of course, but something told me that it was not going to be easy.
Well….easy? Akmal and Razzaq killed the Indians! They played so well and so easily, it was really frustrating to watch. Kumble appealing for lbw when the ball pitched clearly outside leg stump was a sign that things are really quite bad.
I don’t know how everyone kept saying the wicket was good and that it was a good test match wicket. When sides score so many runs and wickets are hard to come by, how come captains and commentators say it was a good wicket?
Most of the batsmen got out on bad shots or aggressive mindset. Bowlers had juice in the morning because of the moisture, and what is the point of having only 1 hour of help?
I guess if it hadn’t rained on the second day, the situation could have been completely different. It was supposed to dry out the pitch and make it completely batting-friendly. Well, we cannot keep talking about what could’ve been.
So now, on to Kolkata. India is sort of on the backfoot now. Pakistan has gained some psychological advantage mainly because they have started believing in themselves that if they apply themselves they can bat for long. Also, that lower order batsmen can in fact make things happen.
India will most likely drop Zaheer and go for 2 spinners. Not sure if that is a good idea either, because I personally have no faith in Bajji as a bowler. But oh well.
In May 2004, I bought an emachines computer M6805 from Best Buy in Milpitas, CA. I never buy any extended warranty, but the folks at Best Buy were trying to tell me that it is worth it. Any damage will be repaired for 3 years, internationally. I was still not impressed. Then, one sales person came to me and said that I can get a new battery every year with the Performance Service Plan (extended warranty).
I was surprised about that, because batteries (especially branded ones) cost $120 or so easily and if you do the math, three years would make it $300-$350. The cost of the plan was $250. So to me, it was a no-brainer. And that is how it was sold to me too - it is a no-brainer, you have to go for it. I went for it.
A few months back, there were some cracks near the hinges on the laptop. I called Best Buy and the first thing they told me was that for the first year, the manufacturer’s warranty is in effect. So I had to call emachines. Luckily, since it was under warranty, emachines fixed the problem for me for free. Best Buy did not care.
Now, since it is getting close to the one year mark, I called Best Buy to ask what the deal was with getting the new battery. They said that they would ship the battery to me at no cost only if I had a service technician’s order number for the battery, and that I could get it only if I went to a store.
So I went to the Palo Alto store one day when I was in the area, and showed my warranty card to them and they said that I need to take my computer to the store, and preferably the Milpitas store. Apparently the technicians there need to see the computer. For what? I don’t know really.
So at another time, I went to the Milpitas store (without the computer) and I was told that I needed to bring the computer for ‘verification’ purposes. Just so that I am not ordering a different battery. I asked if the serial number would suffice, and I was told no. They needed to see the computer and ensure that it was bought at Best Buy, and such. I was not happy at all. It all seemed like a ploy to deny me my battery.
So today I called the toll free number again and after manipulating the prompts, I somehow got to a customer care person, Judy. She was friendly to start, but when she told me that I cannot get the battery unless there is a problem with my existing one, I lost it. I told her that I feel cheated. And she said ‘All I can do is apologize’. She also suggested that I can go to the store
and return my service plan and get a pro-rated refund. Pro rated? Are you kidding me? I was misinformed and made to buy something that I did not want to buy in the first place and now, to return it I have to pay? I have to pay for their misinformation campaign? No way.
I want my new battery which I was told comes with the plan. If they want it as a replacement, that is fine with me. If I am not going to get a battery unless the current one gets broken (and I have to go and show it to them and such), I want to return the plan, and get ALL my money back. All of it. I don’t want to be a victim of misinformation and lack of knowledge on part of company representatives. Again.
I asked her to lodge a complaint on my behalf at Best Buy. I am not sure what is going to happen there. But I also told her that I was going to go to the Better Business Bureau. Want to make sure their unethical practices are made public. And she said she was fine with that and asked me if there is anything else she could do for me. I was speechless.
Something needs to be done about this lack of customer service at such big companies. I mean, who is being held responsible for such acts? Who is monitoring these things? Or are they just too few and far between and I am the one getting trapped all the time? I doubt it.
The frustrations continue. I am trying to post some comments on some blogger blogs and it just won’t let me. It keeps sayins ‘blog not found’ or something like that.
A lot of administrative things to take care of. Of course, one of the highlights is Improv. We are going to see Damon Wayans at the San Jose Improv. Looking forward to it. He seems funny. Some friends who actually came up with the idea, wanted us to go for Pablo Francisco also. But he seems just ok. I think Damon Wayans will be funnier.
Plus of course they have opening acts and all that … and the last time we went, for Kathleen Madigan, all the acts were superb. So I am hoping that the same repeats tomorrow night.
As I expected, the Indian innings had some flurry and ended quite quickly. Kudos to Kaneria for persistence. He is good, but I am not sure if he is in the Warne category, where every ball seems like a wicket-taking ball. But again, to be the only ‘strike’ bowler in the team puts that added pressure on you to perform. Plus of course it is versus India. So congratulations, Kaneria.
The Pakistani second innings was a dream start for India. Making them 3 down for almost nothing, India would have sensed an innings defeat. But it was not to be. My favorite players of the Pakistani team (“nagging”, as an Indian fan, but “favorite” as a cricket fan) Inzy and Youhana played like as if there was no pressure at all and scored so fast that suddenly, the lead did not look too imposing.
Kumble did the trick. Hats off to him. He really is a strike bowler and he may not threaten every ball, but he sure makes the batsman think every ball. It was good to see him bowl and beat the batsmen time and again. It was fitting that he got the two big guys out.
I was so happy that Kamal got out before the end of the day. Now, it is up to the Indian bowlers to clean up the tail. This current partnership is key because Razzaq can go crazy and suddenly the tables could turn on India. Any lead within 150 should be decent and achievable.
Yet again, a good day to look out for. Unfortunately, we will be out for dinner when the day starts (starts at 8.30pm Pacific). So I am hoping that we can watch post-lunch and that there is enough to watch post-lunch :-)
Bought a fairly large pack of chocolate-covered espresso beans from Starbucks a few weeks back. Did not really eat any till this week. I took it with me to my office and I have maybe 10 or so a day.
They are soooo good. I remember when we were at USC, we used to consume maybe 100 or so in one night. And still feel sleepy because we had to study! :-)
Now, I am consciously trying to contain the intake. Because if I don’t control, I could eat the whole damn thing in one sitting.
I tried so hard to log in yesterday, to post ‘Blogger sucks’. But it just wouldn’t let me log in!
Maybe it knew what I wanted to post and did not let me :-)
But yesterday was bad. Bad, bad, bad. Just wouldn’t let me log in. And then what I did, I just started typing in notepad and waited for blogger to show up. Then mass-posted :-)
The last few days have been amazing here in the San Francisco Bay Area. The temperature has started going into the low 70’s and the sky is almost spotless. There is a slight breeze, which keeps it cool.
And at the same time, the trees have started blooming to a great extent. Some of the trees in our complex get flowers before they get leaves, so it makes the scenery look very pretty. Like cotton balls hanging from branches.
The breeze also makes the dry leaves on the ground fly around and create that very pleasing sound.
If only I had a long vacation to sit and enjoy this beautiful turn of seasons.
I think Sachin was playing well. He and Ganguly went into an inexplicable shell in the afternoon. Not sure what was the whole point.
Sad to see Sachin miss out on the century record. But that’s ok. I think it is only a matter of time.
Also, he missed out on 10K runs. And that too, is ok. Only a matter of time. Even lesser in this case than the century case.
Now, if India can knock a 100 or so in 60-70 minutes, it will make it interesting. Or will it? With rains threatening, it may be a good idea to let the swing bowlers take advantange of the humid conditions.
Good to see the Pryors back! It was a good episode, but I must say, there have been better. I guess it was so long since I saw American Dreams, they could have shown me anything and I would have liked it.
But seriously, it was a really good episode. The whole black/white discrimination and the ‘it is so obvious blacks and whites cannot date’ phenomenon was shown well. JJ’s going to get sucked into staying longer with the Marines - not unlike right now, and of course, not unlike any other corporation. A good employee is never going to get it easy to leave, especially if the management is good.
The speech Meg gave was well interspersed with the other speech at the black rally.
Funny how ‘video camera’ was big at that time too. Of course, Pryor having a tv/radio store meant that he would have a video camera too.
Next week Paris Hilton is going to be on, and the show is going to be in Hollywood. Will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
On a slightly negative note, I checked the overnight ratings - the Lost re-run scored bigger than American Dreams. Also, on CBS, it was bye bye to Dan Rather, so I guess some of the common audience was steered away from NBC. But it is a positive sign, I hope that the new time slot did not affect the ratings negatively at least.
Meanwhile, if you can, please send a postcard to:
Jeff Zucker President, NBC Universal Television 30 Rockefeller Plaza New York, NY 10112
Kevin Reilly President, NBC Entertainment 3000 West Alameda Ave. Burbank, CA 91523
And tell them and the show should survive. Please.
It is sad that a lot of time was wasted because of the rain. But on the other hand, it was cool to see Sehwag and Gambhir play so freely on what was supposed to be tough conditions to bat on.
Sehwag was good, but he got two lives (at least). Now, from purely a spectator point of view, I loved his batting. I mean, he keeps it simple - if the ball can be hit, hit it. So it ended up with India showing a run rate for most of the opening partnership of 100+, of 6+/over. Awesome.
In the end it was a good day for India, with a strong reply at 184/1.
The first test has started. I subscribed to the pay per view package at the last minute (actually, beyond the last minute - by the time I was set up, 30 minutes of play had already passed).
It was quite a delight to see some cricket after a long time. But you know what, it was boring. Not sure why - maybe I caught the day’s play at the wrong time - when Inzy was making it look so easy. And that Asim Kamal guy is just too good. He is gritty and somehow it seems he likes the Indian attack and likes to play under pressure. Need to get him quickly in the upcoming innings.
Because of the relatively healthy run rate, Pakistan was able to put up 300+, but because of constant wickets falling, they were all out by the end of the day.
It will be interesting to see how the Indian cope on this wicket, which is supposed to dry out into a batting beauty. Remember, it is the batting that has been under question of late. Nevertheless, I’ll watch the first session tonight and decide if it is worth it to spend more time.
Also on Mohali, it was heartening to see a full house for the first day of the test match, on a Tuesday morning. Good to see that test cricket (and cricket in general) is not boring as such.
From left to right: Henry Walker, Sam Walker, Roxanne Bojarski, Meg Pryor, Jack Pryor, Will Pryor (kid), Helen Pryor, Patty Pryor, JJ Pryor, Beth Mason
Be Cool - starring John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Cedric the Entertainer, the Rock, etc.
Was pathetic. Except for Uma (face value), there was nothing in the movie worth watching.
Yes, I did doze off for quite some time. Means it was quite boring. In fact, it has been quite some time since I dozed off in a movie. Just goes to prove two things - haven’t been watching many movies of late, and the ones that I have been, have been good.
Will stick to cinema savers, and go watch some movies that we missed out on, earlier - Ocean’s Twelve, The Incredibles, etc.
I got a call from American Eagle Outfitters and separately, from some musicians merchandise store saying that someone had placed an order with my card, but the order was flagged as a problem order.
I have taken so much care with using my card online and all that, but it still got hacked. It must have been at some restaurant or some store. Actually, now that I think about it, recently we went to a Reebok outlet store, where for some reason, after the bill was created, we found out that there was a wrong charge. Instead of reversing the charge there and then, he actually created a return, and created a new bill. In any return process, I have to give my name, address and telephone number and since he already had my credit card, I have a feeling that it was him. He just kept the information and started (tried to) using the card in ordering merchandise left and right.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
I hate having to cancel my card and all that. It is not complicated, just too much time spent doing all that. But I guess I have to do it.
They forwarded the complaint to Cingular and I did get a call from them! Amazing all this happened in a matter of a few days.
I called Cingular back and they asked me to walk through my issue(s) and I did. Patiently, and politely. Julie, from the Executive Offices of Cingular Wireless was very good with me and apologized for the mistakes. She was able to talk to the Business End User Care representative and confirm that I was in fact entitled to discounted international dialing for free. She added it back to my account, ensured that I received credit for the previous month, and added another credit for January, which the customer service rep was not able to. She was very nice through the whole conversation and by the time the call was over, I was floored with the way it all went.
I am happy, and in fact relieved, that customer service exists in this day and age of mergers and quasi-monopolies. Even if it takes some effort to get that out of the companies (like going to the BBB). I think I will stick around with ATT for a little bit more :-)
I filed a complaint online with Better Business Bureau (http://www.bbbonline.com), and forgot about it because I never knew what happens to those complaints. I just assumed that they get collected and analyzed for others to read about.
But to my surprise, in a couple of days, I received an email from them saying that they had forwarded the case to AT&T Wireless and they had assigned me a case number!
Wow, so someone does something with those complaints? Unbelievable.
In fact, a day later, I received a voice mail from the Executive Offices at Cingular Wireless (formerly AT&T Wireless), asking me to call them back and discuss the issue.
I am happy that I am with a company that somehow does respond to customer complaints. More about what happened to the actual case, in another post. :-)
Whining is more like it. As if three days of match practice is going to make or break anything. As if the conditions in India are drastically different from the conditions back home.
Come on, guys. Just play and try to win. Of course, I don’t agree with Shiv Sena’s threat to boycott/sabotage some games. That is utter nonsense. The government has allowed the team to come, and once that happens, just let them play, let the crowds enjoy the game without being anxious about what is going to happen in the stands, or on the pitch.
We went there and had a fabulous time. It is time we reciprocated. Otherwise, the ‘burden’ of having had a great hospitality and not having returned the favor will forever stay with us.
Please let the tour go on, and please welcome the team with open arms.
About the political differences, that’s a different story altogether.
