World Champs - Aussies!

My heart said Sri Lanka, but the mind knew it would be Australia. And so it was.


"We've dominated like no team has" - Cricinfo

"Gilchrist stars in Aussie Cup win" - BBC World

"Australia complete hat-trick" - CNN-IBN

With that, the Aussies have become the most dominant side in the history of ODI cricket.

It's a staggering achievement.

PS3

Sony has launched it in India at almost 40k with each title (Blu-Rays) costing about 2800 bucks.

What is it with Sony & pricing it's products out of range?

Cricket World Cup '07, 2nd semi final

SA faced off against Australia, who did a remarkable demolition job.

Australia v South Africa, 2nd semi-final, St Lucia

South Africa 149
Australia 153 for 3

So, it'll be a rerun of the 1996 final this Saturday. All the best Sri Lanka, you'll need it.

Cricket World Cup '07, 1st semi final

While Sri Lanka were batting, I'd told Arnie that they'd make 270 & beat the Kiwis by a margin of 60 runs. Well, they did that & then some more ....

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 1st semi-final, Jamaica

Sri Lanka 289/5 (50 ov)
New Zealand 208 (41.4 ov)

Cricinfo describes Jayawardene's (the MoM) innings thus, "The progress of Jayawardene's innings was not unlike the shaping of a diamond. It was raw to begin with - carefully negotiated dot-balls, as he reached 17 off 47 balls, and, as the right environment was created slowly but surely, 23 runs came off as many balls; then, as the carbon crystal was almost worth its weight in carats, Jayawardene applied immense heat and pressure, carting 60 off 30 balls; finally, when the stone was done he cut and polished his gem, taking 15 off 5 balls, and left it out there for the world to admire."

A perfect example of what is called rising to the occasion, a feat unknown to most of India's cricketing 'greats'.

Apache RTR 160

Yup, that's what the new Apache will be called according to Rearset.

Looks great, especially in this shade of grey. A whole lot of attention seems to have gone into the details, which is how it should have been in the 1st place. The ungainly rear overhang is gone & it also features clip-ons!

Wish they could have given it dual headlights .... that would have made it impossible to resist.

M G is back in India. Called me up & set a new talk time record as usual .... 1 hour 21 seconds.

IR's new loco Part 2

Got these pics off an Indian Railway thread on Bharat Rakshak! The 1st pic is that of the engine for the new lines to Kashmir being taken there by road.

The others are of a new train (new engine & new carriages) taken at a station in A.P. This one looks even better, especially the red & blue color scheme.

Impressive.

Got music

Downloaded the tracks of the this new movie called 'The Train' on Thursday. The name sounds silly, but Mithoon's name on the composer's credits promised something good & it turned out exactly so. Almost all the tracks are good & I've been listening to them continuously ever since.

K.K. & Kshitij Tarey form a soulful combo on Beete Lamhe. In Teri Tamanna, K.K. again combines with Zubeen to belt out a superb fast-paced, high-pitched number set to a rocking baseline.

Besides, Mithoon himself makes his playback debut on Woh Ajnabee & the pensive Mausam. His voice sounds uncannily similar to Atif's.

There have been some nicely composed OSTs so far this year (case in point being Metro). It's good to see the new direction Hindi film music is taking.

End of an era

Lara to quit international cricket.

It seems like he had been playing since as long back as I can remember .... so long, Lara.

Sexy New Apache

Just when you thought that the Pulsar was running away with the market, guess who decides to put on some aggro .... the normally placid TVS!

Rearset reports that a new 165 c.c. Apache is gonna be out soon & will feature among others, this ....

.... petal disc in front and this ....

.... digital speedo console. Note the 'TVS Racing' logo on the tacho.

Superb!

Bhargavi dropped a bolt from the blue when she informed that she's getting married on the 2nd of next month .... & moving on to California thereafter!

What is it with Telugu girls getting married to U.S. based N.R.I.s? Perhaps Sittu could shed some light on this ;-)

Chevrolet Spark

Almost five years after it's Daewoo-d incarnation went the way of the dodo in India, GM has released the latest iteration of the Matiz.

It's a good looking car & I hear the price starts at 3.09 lakhs. Looks like GM has a winner on it's hands .... maybe that's the reason why it was released by none other than the global big boss of GM, Rick Wagoner.

Another one. The worst one in fact. And this time it's at a top place like Virginia Tech, not some rural high school. And they say that the shooter was Asian.

Could it have been a terrorist attack?

EDIT: The shooter was a 23 year old South Korean. The current toll is 33 including him. It's all over the internet & TV.

In Iraq one gets to see 100s die every week from terrifying suicide blasts & yet, those are treated as matters of routine. You can't help but compare & contrast the reactions of CNN/BBC etc to those incidents & this case. Maybe it's time this part of the world got it's own news network.

Not a good day

Sittu had his cell stolen, Milind was involved in an accident & I got pasted in an interview.

Ferrari have hit back with a 1-3 at Bahrain.

Right now, at the Kensington Oval in Barbados, Bangladesh are playing Ireland in a Super 8s match. This match would have seen India take on Pakistan had both teams managed to reach the 2nd round. Oh well.

Yamaha Alba

Rearset reports that this is going to be Yamaha India's next model release.

Hmmm, looks like a from-the-parts-bin job what with the Gladiator's blinkers, the Libero's engine & alloys & maybe even it's side panels! So what's new .... well the rear light for one, although it doesn't look well integrated with the rest of the design.

Price is suggested to be very competitive & that could be it's saving grace. Overall, it looks like another unexciting, average bike from Yamaha. Hope they come out with that long rumoured 165 c.c. model soon.

Agni 3

The 3,000 km range Agni 3 was test launched successfully today. Success at last for a very important part of DRDO's missile program.


What this means is India is 1 step closer to the holy grail .... ICBMs, which is the very next upgrade from here. China & the Middle East are now within range, & I think that should be good enough for the next 1-2 years at least, to put the fear of God into the Chink's hearts.

Almost exactly a year after "Patrick" left B'lore for The City of Joy, he'll be back for a 3 month stint at EC. Lunch times should be more entertaining from now on.

Sittu must be in the air somewhere above India right now. He reaches B'lore tonight after his 1st ever plane ride.

Pritish is living it up in Prague, but the dude is fed up of the Southie bunch of losers working under him. I guess things aren't too bad since he says that 'the fish are biting'.

Anand is on long term onsite at Amsterdam, trying his best to get some .... hasn't got too far yet.

Neeral too seems to have had it with the Bong babes he's forced to jhelo in Seattle. All of 'em are 'committed' .... Bong babes & committed! .... that's a new one. Poor guy has been trying to get someone to partner him for the trip down to the local strip club .... with no luck so far.

IR's new loco

The photo of this loco being transported by road to Kashmir came out in today's ToI. Must say it's a huge leap over the boxy-looking locos used by the Indian railways so far .... at least in terms of looks. Good!

Malaysian GP

It's a 1-2 by McLaren. Yes!

Happy easter to me. Called up everyone .... they're all fine.

The winds of change

The BCCI's much-awaited 'review meeting' is over & it seems they've done some credible house-cleaning.

The best thing .... graded contracts are out. All players will now get the same match fees plus handsome bonuses on winning. Good, this should bring down some people to ground level.

Only 3 endorsements will be allowed for each player .... that too after the Board's approval.

Venky is the new bowling coach.

Robin Singh is the new fielding coach.

Shastri will be the team manager on their tour to Bangladesh & maybe even after that.

Chapell has been asked to continue his services in an advisory capacity.

Among the names being bandied about for the coach's post are those of Dave Whatmore, Sunny Gavaskar & Viv Richards. Personally, I'd prefer Whatmore. He's a proven performer.

A beginning has thus been made & a good one at that. Who knows, the 2007 World Cup disaster might just have been the wake-up call that Indian cricket sorely needed.

Bollywood & NASCAR

Rani & Saif's latest, Tara Rum Pum, uses NASCAR as a backdrop to the story. Interestingly, the car he drives is labelled as an Aveo .... although I'm sure Chevy doesn't use NASCAR in advertisements for the Aveo in the U.S.

Bangladesh beat SA

In another stunning upset, the Bangladeshis beat the current #1 ranked ODI team. I think they've proved that their group match win against India was no flash in the pan. The players' passion & commitment on the field today was to be seen to be believed.


I am impressed. No two ways about it .... this is THE most improved team in this World Cup.

Sittu left for Kolkata on Wednesday, Arnab left for Jamshedpur on Thursday & Praveen left for Ranchi this morning.

The house feels silent as a tomb.

Super 8s - halfway through

I'd predicted Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka & Pakistan for the semis. Looks like I'll get 75%.

Achiever upgrade

And now the slow-selling Achiever gets the alloy wheel treatment. With this, the alloy-isation of the Indian 150 cc & above bike segment is complete.

Greg Chappell ends tenure with India.

That's that then.

Logan launched

Today saw the launch of probably THE most awaited car of the year, the Mahindra-Renault Logan.


Looks kinda okay, although I'd have preferred the original Dacia front grille.

This also marks the advent of the only French car company in India, Renault. I hope this outing for Renault isn't as deadly as it was for the last French company that tried to sell it's cars here ..... Peugeot.

Getz Prime

Sania Mirza (wearing the belt over her dress, like the 1970s Rajesh Khanna) stands by the new Getz Prime. The 'Prime' in the new Getz is a less powerful engine, which helps in getting the car some excise reductions, leading to lower cost.

The case of the missing ads

A lot of companies had splurged on a lot of ads & campaigns that were to run concurrent with India's progress in the world cup, but India's 1st round exit put paid to all that. Here's some of the stuff I've noticed during the commercial breaks in the Super 8s matches.

Sachin's Sunfeast Fit-Kit biscuit ads (with the tag line 'ab har ghar mein Sachin' .... lol) has been replaced by ads featuring SRK smiling around in some animated world eating cream biscuits.

Pepsi's 'ladega to jeetega' ..... even greater lol, has been totally taken off air. I wonder what'll happen today if the kind of mob shown in that ad gets it's hands on the cricketers, hmmm .....

Sansui's campaign featuring Dravid has stopped.

Anchor's ads featuring Dravid are off.

Rbk's ads featuring Yuvraj & Dhoni among others have stopped.

Can't remember anymore, but there is 1 cricketer whose ads are still running .... Irfan Pathan for IOC Extra Premium. Probably because the poor guy never got to play during the world cup. Poor guy? Lucky guy is more like it!

I hope the BCCI suspends all current player contracts & redrafts them to include a huge performance based differential. That would go a long way in setting priorities right.

Annnnd ..... the dirt starts flyin .....

After a prolonged silence following the Indian cricket team's gargantuan world cup debacle, finger pointing season has begun in earnest. Chappel says he won't resign ..... since his contract was till the end of the world cup anyway! This guy is one smart Aussie.

More depressing is the stuff he reveals about the senior players' 'mafia' ..... how they go about 'hammering' the juniors, suppress new talent & undermine bechara Dravid. I'm tempted to name one particular 'senior' who is almost always in my crosshairs, but I'll refrain from doing so since the news report itself hasn't named names.

The weekend

Watched the whole of Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi on Saturday night. Had always seen it in parts before, never completely .... something I regret since it's a superbly made film.

Sid's Mexican Tequila finally poured out of the bottle on Sunday night, accompanied by a screening of The Angrez. Total timepass it was.

I miss home.