Sachin's 5 Best Test Knocks....

Hmm.. this is quite interesting...

SACHIN RAMESH TENDULKAR has played a lot many magnificent test innings... some of them are really really special....
I found this one on the Internet.. which is quite interesting to sit and look back at the down-forgotten memory lane of SACHIN's unforgettable innings.... Here it goes..........

1989-1990 Pakistan v India, 1st Test, National Stadium
Picture this: Pakistan's National Stadium, packed to the rafters with home team supporters roaring their team on against the hated enemy. In the middle, easily the most fearsome pace attack of the time - the young Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram, backed by the legendary Imran Khan. Krish Srikkanth, Navjot Sidhu and Sanjay Manjrekar are blasted out in rapid succession (13/3). Prabhakar is fourth out - and a young lad of just over 16 years walks out into the cauldron.
Imran sets an attacking field, and the two fearsome young fast bowlers go for blood, with a barrage of short-pitched deliveries that buzz around the tyke's head. A ball from Younis rears up and smacks the youngster on the helmet. Concerned, the close in fielders and the bowler rush up to render assistance. The youngster shakes his head to clear it - and through the visor of his helmet, boyish eyes glare in defiance. He scored only 15 that day - but in the nerveless fashion in which he took guard again after having his bell rung, he announced himself a man among men.
Don't ask me why I picked this short-lived innings. Instead, ask yourself two questions: How many feet did Orville and Wilbur Wright traverse in their first flight? And what was your own biggest accomplishment at age 16?

1990, England v India, 2nd Test, Old Trafford
England 519. India - powered by a swashbuckling 179 from Mohammad Azharuddin - 432. England in the second innings, 320 for 4 declared, leaving India 408 to make to win. What follows, is a sorry procession: Ravi Shastri, Navjot Sidhu, Sanjay Manjrekar, Dilip Vengsarkar and Azharuddin back in the hut with 109 on the board. Kapil Dev follows, 18 runs later.
And then a lad not yet old enough to qualify for a driving license drives England's attack to distraction. While Manoj Prabhakar (67 not out) holds his end up with dogged determination, the boy wonder cuts loose. A defensive innings at that point would have been hailed as a masterpiece - but 17-year-old Tendulkar attacks, shots of scintillating brilliance punctuating an unbeaten innings of 119 that carries his team to safety.

1996-1997, South Africa v India, 2nd Test, Newlands, Cape Town
Consider the backdrop: A day after Christmas 1996, India found itself on a green top against South Africa's finest fast bowlers - and lost, by 328 runs, with two days to spare. On the second day of the New Year, the demoralized side found itself in Newlands - wilting as the home side, powered by centuries from Gary Kirsten, Brian McMillan and Lance Klusener, ratcheted up 529 on the board, then dismissed three Indian batsmen for 29.On day three, Sourav Ganguly fell with the score on 33. V V S Laxman was fifth out, at 58. Another three day drubbing was on the cards. And then came a display that is unparalleled in contemporary annals for sheer majesty. Tendulkar added 222 in a pulsating sixth wicket partnership with Mohammad Azharuddin. 176 of these runs were scored in 120 minutes of unmitigated mayhem between lunch and tea. Azhar-uddin, batting with the artistry of a conjurer, contributed 115 runs off just 110 deliveries.Tendulkar went on - to be last man out for 169 off 253 deliveries, after having shepherded the tail past the follow on mark. One word describes this innings: Control. On the day, he batted in a zone where nothing could intrude, where none could follow.

1998-1999 India v Pakistan, 1st Test, M A Chidambaram Stadium
India versus Pakistan is as electric as it gets. For four days, the bitter rivals fight it out on a pitch affording pace, bounce, and turn. India, batting second, ekes out a narrow 16-run lead in the first innings. A flamboyant century by Shahid Afridi powers Pakistan to 286 in the second - giving India 271 runs to score to win. The Pakistan attack is spearheaded by Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis - backed by Saqlain Mushtaq at the height of his pomp. Younis blasts V V S Laxman out for 0, Sadagoppan Ramesh for 5. Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid put on 44 runs - of which the latter contributes 10. Azharuddin and Ganguly are quickly winkled out by Mushtaq and India, at 82 for five, is down and almost out.Tendulkar takes the stage to provide a master class - taming seam and spin alike with effortless ease, all the while shepherding Nayan Mongia. Until an attempt to hit Mushtaq over midwicket ends up as a skier down the throat of point. Tendulkar has, at that point, scored 136 - in a team score of 217 for six. It is not the impeccable defense you remember today, or the stunning range of strokeplay. What you recall, vividly, is the sight of Tendulkar with his head down in despair, walking back excruciatingly slowly after his dismissal.Against the sweat-streaked white of his clothing, a vivid red slash stands out - the red of a back brace. He had been advised by his doctor not to play that day.

1997-1998, India v Australia, 1st Test, M A Chidambaram Stadium
Long before Mark Taylor led his team out in Chennai, the battle lines had been clearly drawn - it was master spinner Shane Warne against master batsman Sachin Tendulkar. In the first innings, Tendulkar goes after Warne - and goes back, caught Taylor at slip off a stupid slash, with just four runs against his name.India are 71 behind when they begin their second innings. Tendulkar walks out after Navjot Sidhu and Dravid have taken the score to 115 - and launches an assault that Warne still sees, by his own admission, in his worst nightmares. A merciless, relentless exhibition of barely controlled savagery powers the side to 418 for four declared.The contest is over. Two sets of figures tell the story: Warne 30-7-122-1; Tendulkar 155 not out off 191 deliveries.

Pattiyal - The (Hit) List

Pattiyal as we can translate in English as "The List" is certainly not the list alone, its more of a "Hit List".

This Vishnu-vardhan directed and the superb foursome starrer has been a much-awaited movie for quite sometime now. If Hollywood & Bollywood had used the Underworld theme very effectively in lots of movies, Kollywood, though slow in using that, has started using the same plot, thanks to Vishnu-Vardhan's this new Venture.

Koshy (Arya) & Selva (Bharath), both are contracted-killers, and the latter being deaf & dumb,who are working undercover for a Contractor Samy (Cochin Haneefa).Samy has continuously been using these two to get rid of some high-profile people.Pattiyal showcases the list of their happiness, sorrows & the list of people to be eliminated by them.The lady-love of them are Saroja (PadmaPriya) and Sandhya (Pooja) respectively.And, they are proved to be perfect for the roles.

The Director has succeeded in choosing the right starcast for the roles which needed much zest.For more than once, you might get to feel like this is one of those movies which depicted friendship at its best.And,the Director, by making Selva a Deaf & Dumb has made the character strong & it allowed him to make their relationship much stronger.

Though the heroines had less to offer when compared to the Heroes (which often is the case with these kind of movies), they had tried their heart-out to match the lead's performances.I must say, they had thrived in a couple of scenes.

The best part of the movie is its Music Composition.A couple of songs are quite foot-tapping and the rest are very well hearable.Especially the song sung by Ilayaraja, "Namma Kaatula..." and the opening song "Dei, Namma..." are very well composed. The background music is at its best with Yuvan showing yet again that he is one of the best composers in the present bunch of young musicians.

Finally, though, the movie was hyped to be the Sholay of our times,its not that bad to compare this movie with Sholay.The Friendship shown by Arya & Bharath Stands out amongst the best Friendship movies ever made in Indian Cinema.

A pat on Vishnu-Vardhan's Back would be ideal for making this movie a very good Interesting Entertainer.

From the day I saw…

The perfect translation to the title stated would be, “Kanda Naal Mudhal”. Yes. It’s the title of the movie I recently saw. I don’t normally blog about movies a lot. Only the fittest of those, would automatically fit itself in my blogs. This movie definitely fits in my blogs cadre.

This movie produced by Prakashraj and directed by Priya (erstwhile assistant to Mani Ratnam), where the storyline offered nothing very special. It’s the usual cine stuff like boy-meets-girl and boy-girl-quarrel and boy-girl-romance and situation-as-villain and climax-as-expected. But, what makes the storyline interesting is the cast used for the story. The hero is the 5-Star Fame “Prasanna” who has done yet-again a decent enough performance justifying the role offered to him. (One can recollect the other movie he did for Prakashraj named, “Azhagiya Theeye” where he did a splendid performance to the role). The heroine is Laila and she has also tried her best to match Prasanna’s performance and she has done it with flair & maturity.

Prasanna seems to be doing the roles at ease. He neither is as charming as Surya nor as dazzling as Vikram, Yet, he is doing the job neatly and he certainly knows his limitations. Especially, when he feels for his love for her, he really creates a lot of strength to that character. One can notice that Prasanna is becoming matured and more of a character-artiste doing these kinds of roles neat enough. If given time, he can prove to be a very good actor in the course of his career.

Laila, on the other hand, showing the facial expressions better than her previous movies, has got a lot to gain from this movie. The rest of the casts are penned fair enough to support the main characters & story. For instance, Revathy, mother of Laila, has done her usual best. And, one can understand Laila & Revathy have got a lot of similarities in their looks and it looked as if they were mom & daughter in real.

The music by Yuvan Shankar Raja is scintillating. The songs are very good to hear especially the Carnatic based “Kanda Naal Mudhalaai…”.

The director has taken a lot of pains to create a neat love-story with some twists & turns and the casting has been perfect which could possibly be a launch-pad for her future as a director.

As a whole, this movie is really worth watching more than once.

All I can say, “From the day I saw….. I couldn’t resist seeing once again…”

Mission Accomplished for Pakistanis…

Though, before the beginning of the Ind-Pak Test Series, the Pakistanis had gained a lot from their outing with the Englishmen, they were more into defensive mode against India preparing flat wickets which offered no assistance for the bowlers whatsoever to either of the teams. Such a defensive tactics would always be a negative ploy for the side visiting there especially a team like India, which was rejuvenated after its series-winning victory against the visiting Sri Lankans earlier.

The first two tests offered nothing for the bowlers, be it for pacemen or spinners. A lot had been said about the pitches and its makers. And, one can surely notice that Pakistan was definitely taking a step back towards its future, by not making juicy pitches.

Pakistan would not have forgotten what happened in India’s last tour to Pakistan, where it won both the tests & ODI’s against the host. So, I am sure that Pakistan would have taken into account its failures in the last tour and while making amends to those failures, they were forced to make a pitch like that for the first two tests.

And, it was a mere gamble when they prepared a nice bowler-friendly wicket in the third test at Karachi which could have backfired onto them, had India put them on the mat when they were trembling at 39 for 6 but for an exuberant effort from its wicket-keeper batsman Kamran Akmal, they could make 245 and bundling out India for a score of 238, thanks to its bowlers. They needed to score rapidly & heavily in the II innings and they did it with style scoring 599declared leaving India no chance of winning the contest and a very little chance of drawing it.

The Indian batsmen did not show any kind of resistance except Yuvraj Singh who scored yet another century. And, within 58.4 overs their innings got over for a paltry 265, giving Pakistanis the much-needed series victory.

Now, all eyes are on the 5-Match ODI’s, which are going to follow immediately next week. As one can expect, the Indians will have to pull up their socks and give them the necessary fight and not letting the pressure mount on them. After winning the home series against Sri Lanka 6-1, Indians should be aiming to do better against their arch-rivals.

The L(o)ast Frontier

And, the evening was beginning to fade away the triumphs and failures for the particular Battle day.He was feeling all sick and tired with a day full of battles.Though, he had been the last person to enter the army, the Dictator had made it a strict rule that one from the family should serve the army.
Initially, the idea had fancied him many chances to serve for his country.But, lateron, when it all had happened, he had to admit that his country was completely greedy to attack and acquire the land of the neighbouring tiny country.Though, he had tried to stop himself from helping his country hurt the neighbours, he had very less chances to protest for the same.
And, yes, he had enrolled himself into the army and this present day had been his 7th day of War. He could see through his brown eyes that lots of lives had been lost during the day.And, he had found himself one of the culprits for the loss of lives.
From the very first day of his battle-field, he had vowed to himself this would be the last time he would ever appear for his country's army.He hated the whole system of war and though the need for protecting our own land remained stationary and imperative.Silently, he had prayed for his country's defeat, being a nice citizen who considered other country's benefits as well.
And, all of a sudden, it happened the next day.It was the eighth day of war and suddenly his side were losing lot of armymen with the introduction of tanks aplenty by the so-called tiny country.He wondered what fortune would it require to the tiny country to make or buy such tanks and why his country never depended on such tanks to protect itself, if not to attack the neighbours.
He tried his heart-out to be loyal to his own country by being brave in the front..But, all he left with was, the loss of lives of his compatriots.Then, came the announcement from his side that the war had been lost and the tiny neighbour country has acquired his country and from the next day onwards his country would be a republic effectively electing the President & Prime-Minister through Peoples' Elections.

He silently thanked God that his prayer had been heard by him.
And, so, it was his Lost and Last Frontier.

Ganguly's Exclusion

The present issue rocking the Indian Cricket Board and Our Parliament, the Ganguly's Exclusion from Indian team has got to be considered with different perspectives.Though, the most-likely reason might be Politics inside the Board, there are no evidences for its existence.Moreover, Politics is not an Alien term for our Indian Cricket Team.

When I speak FOR his Exclusion,I doubt, only because it was Ganguly, the issue has taken such a U-Turn.Otherwise,because of this dirty politics involved inside our Board, the cricket team have had to sacrifice lots of talented individuals during the past 2 decades or so.There were times when everybody knew without an inch of doubt that because of Politics a particular Individual had been shown door and their names never got into for discussion once again later.But, Ganguly's case was in with a different Scenario. The Board claimed that they had to give opportunities to a few young talents at the expense of such a senior Cricketer like Ganguly.It made sense when they didn't select him for the One-Day series against South Africa.

When I speak AGAINST his Exclusion, the immediate word that comes to my mind is "Everybody is entitled to a Fair-Deal" and Ganguly deserved a better treatment.As the famous quote goes,"Class is permanent and Form is Temporary".Ganguly is certainly a CLASSY player and his present form raised lots of doubts about his class.But, everybody can never perform on consistently in every match. He was having a bad-patch, which, if given proper time, he could have got into his own ways of making big runs.The Board had shown him door during the South Africa series and when they knew there wouldn't be a match without Ganguly at Kolkata, they selected him(Politics, Again !!!) and had him play a match(where, he performed reasonably well to have got scores of 39 & 40 in both the Innings).Then, again leaving him out and raising many an eyebrows whether Saurav can ever find his place in the team.

As a whole, it seemed, though the board denied any political involvement,Ganguly was not treated fair enough for his Image.Looking ahead the future,hope the Board Corrects its policies about selecting and Omitting the Players and make our Indian Team a Very strong one to watch out for during the next World-Cup.

---Indian Cricket Fan

Office Use....

I couldn't believe that I spent the past few months not being so attentive to my friends and not being so addicted to my blogs. Dont ask me "What happened to U..?!?!" rather.. ask me .."What happened to ur Office?!?!".. As we all know we dont wanna spend a penny towards anything regding Internet... We all have the same view in this one thing.. ie., Lets Use Our Office Computer... That was what i also had in my mind.... But, Due to some Godforsaken Cost Control, my Company preferred some other Connection, through which their Office needs were satisfied to the fullest keeping us away from the Internet....

Gone are those Days... !!!

I will, in all probabilities, be in India in Feb-March. So, i think, i will be back to my Usuals with Blogs..So, till then, lets shake our Hands and bless me to be back again soon.... :-)

That Final Over

18 runs to get off my last over.They still had 3 wickets left in the bench apart from the wicket in the middle.It was pretty obvious that my captain would depend on me to bowl the last over, as it had always been.Thankfully, on previous 2 occasions, my bowling proved to be tough for the opponents to score off in such crunch situations.
He passed on the ball to me and made a winning smile already, simply because 18 runs off the 6 possible balls is tough enought for any team considering the hot conditions.Frankly, I was a bit over-confident about myself, thanks to my own best performances previously.
I knew already that the batsmen who were up against me were capable of stunning anybody.But, i was (over)-confident about myself.
The first ball, i thought would decide the fate of the game, i bowled was just outside the offstump and just short enough for any batsman. And, he pulled it off effortlessly through the long-on boundary for a huge six. I was stunned as well as worried. I had never thought he could score off with such an effortless ease.
12 off 5 balls.....
I was almost sure, everything depended on this very ball. If he could put one through again, then they would be home.This time, I bowled a very juicy middle-length over-pitched delivery and anyone could have hit that for a double-six. That was what happened as the result.It sailed into the Square-leg Stance.
I could realise my captain came running at me.. and was asking, "what's happening, huh?? Cant u contain a batsman when 18 to get off the last over??" i had never seen him worried and angry.I knew it was the perfect time to prove myself !!!
I realised, I had to deliberately apply some tactics to contain him, if not i cud get his wicket.So, i thought of my usual weapon -- The Slower One. The one i was famous for.
I bowled this one into the middle & off and a bit slower in pace. The batsman was caught into twin-minds and he tried to hit into the stance again and couldnt connect the ball, had to settle for a single. At that time, i knew I had a upper hand, since i knew the batsman now on strike was less-dangerous compared to the other one.
The last 3 balls i bowled were just simple normal deliveries. The best part was,the final ball being a full-toss and the batsman could only get a single and we were home by about 3 runs.I was particularly jubilant about my own record of bowling the last over was in tact and it helped our team to win such crunch games...