Posts from — December 2005

Given the state of the second Test between India and SL (at the time of writing) and just under two days left in it, India should look to build upon the lead and pile up a real biggie!

Why so?! … you may wonder!

Well… India’s second innings has shown that if one is prepared to be positive on this Kotla pitch, there’s very little the opposition bowlers can do! Even Murali is, yet, wicketless! And in contrast, if one tries to be too defensive, the pitch suddenly takes on a different character! Ball keeps low, the odd ball spins and bounces when it catches one of the few indentations on the pitch. Essentially… defense, however compact, is fraught with dangers edges or getting trapped in front.

Now if the Indians give the Sri Lankans a sniff of victory by setting a modest target, achievable in over 3 sessions, the Lankans will go for it! And they have enough talent and skill in the top order to render the Indian bowling toothless. So India’s best chance is to put them on the defensive! And the best way to do that is to rack up a huge total that seems imposing right at the outset and which will make the Lankans opt for the safety of a draw! In any case, Arjuna Ranatunga did say in one of the pre-match programmes on Zee Sports that Sri Lanka would rather go back with a drawn series than a lost one! Indians need to build on the insecurity of the Lankans by batting them out of the match.

Once Sri Lanka is on the defensive, Kumble and Pathan can hope to go through the batting line up with relative ease.

In any case, it is now just over 80 overs in the Indian innings and it is about this time that Murali seemed to suddenly turn vicious with his spinners in the first innings. Something for Ganguly and Yuvraj and indeed the rest of the Indian batsmen to think about!

Update: Ahaa!!… Damn!! I’m good! Just after I published this post, I noticed that Murali’s ‘doosra’ had accounted for Ganguly!! Hmmm… another interesting thing to note is how similar Ganguly’s two efforts in this match have been. 40 off 129 balls in the first innings and 39 off 115 in the second!

13 wickets fell on the second day of the Ind v SL test match at Delhi, yesterday. 11 of them to spin!

And all this after the commentators (most of them ex-cricketers) had fallen over themselves in trying to assure us that this would be the best day, of the five, for batting and that the pitch was dead as a dodo!

Hmmm… makes you question the ability of these so called ‘experts’, doesn’t it?!

But then… masters like Muralitharan and Kumble don’t really care about what’s in store between the two sets of stumps, as much as what’s between the two ears!

Even though the product it advertises is hardly better than a toilet roll, the new ad campaign for The Times of India hits the spot quite well!

For those who haven’t seen it yet, it shows the newspaper publishing the news of the selection of Prakash Mirajkar (aka Pakya) in the hockey team. The ad starts with a celebratory mood amongst Pakya’s friends… who reach his home where his parents come to know of this good news. The happy couple are excited and the mother takes the copy of the newspaper to Pakya’s grandfather. Grandpa reads the news and suddenly nostalgia overcomes him as he goes up to the attic/store-room where he fishes out an old sepia-tinted copy of TOI. The headline on this copy breaks the news of his exclusion from the hockey camp. The old man slides the current newspaper with the good news, on top of the old one… and breaks out into a silent dance… while the impromptu music played by the celebrating crowd plays outside… in the background.

As far as newspapers go… this ad campaign, handled excellently by JWT, conveys the timelessness and loyalty that TOI wants to associate with itself and its readers. Therefore, it is such a pity that the product being advertised is TOI!!