Then there were numbers...

SIVA*'S TOTAL POINTS ARE 187 AND HENCE HE IS THE WINNER BY POINTS. NO PRIZES; JUST BRAGGING RIGHTS WITH GURU!!! (NOT ABLE TO UPLOAD THE LATEST PICTURE. BLOGGER ISSUES "-())

Ok, here we go on the various numbers.

Before I go onto the explanations of our BQ functioning, here is my numeric take on the IPL3:

0 Dilscoop impact; we were waiting, are waiting and probably will wait!

1 No. of shirts that India's richest man has... really!

[Honourable mention: No. of hat-tricks in IPL3; kudos to Praveen &
No. of innings that the mongoose ruled; DD is still licking those wounds ;-]

2 No of games that the poor Panjoos won
[Honourable mention: Km worth of Sixes that Robin hit]

3 Sensational Catches (David Hussey, Doug Bollinger and AB de Villiers)

4 Centuries in IPL3 - Vijay, Mahela, Warner and Yusuf; to me Vijay's madness in that maddening Chennai climate takes the cake!!

5 No. of litres that Sachin sweated thus giving CSK a chance!

6 The number that went extinct after the invention of DLF Maximum three years ago!

7 10% of Sunanda Pushkar's, what else, sweat equity, in crores!

8 Vertical distance travelled in km, by the ever-bubbly Preity Zinta... per match!

9 Economy rate of who else, my favourite, Love Ablish from KXIP - there, I have introduced him again!!
 
10 No. of you-beauties by L Siva.... again per match!
 
 
 

 
Now that the razzmataaz is all over, down to further number grind...
 
BQ was a moderate success.
 
A big thanks to all those who participated and made it what it was.
 
Congratulations to Guru for fixing the bets so nicely. (My favourite was the CSK v KXIP super over game, where nobody was able to guess it right, apart from a few other games!)
 
Good job Siva* and Guru, for keeping the quiz tradition running. (My favourite was the school bus question; brought the children in us nicely!)
 
Look out for the email on the settlement details.
 
$25 is for the Special Prize Kitty - to honour the first two quiz winners.
$15.17 is the current charity kitty. Those who want to contribute are more than welcome.

Gita, Zen and Modi...

Well the Cheskies won a game, rather, MIndians lost a game that they should have Pollarded much earlier. Those Raina misses were quite funny. Nayar and Fernando played 'pehele aap' in the fine leg and Zaheer let out MCBCs - one each to the gentlemen! But then Pollard was livid and gave some choicest pidgin invectives to Zaheer as our man caught thin air.

Then there was that inexplicable demotion of Pollard! Did Robin Singh play the Chennai card right?

But then the scene stealer as usual was the Modi-man, Lalit!

From the fact that the winners' medal is not a medal but a fabulous bat emblazoned with the word CHAMPION  at the back, to the laser-induced Chennai Lion in the sky, you have to give it to him - he had the guts and vision to go where only Kapil Dev and the Zee-man had gone before, albeit at a much reduced scale.

Then that speech. In life, one turns philosophical when one is extremely happy or distressed. The fact that within one speech of a total of 542 words, he brought in two philosophical canons - Zen and Gita, indicates clearly the frame of mind that he is in right now.

As suspected, the B part of the play-off and the finals were a wash-out; well not fully, but almost there :-(

Anyways, here is the answer to the BQ-25, our last question for this instalment:

- Indeed the stumps' height was wrongly mentioned. It is not 2 feet and 8 inches but 28 inches. Many a batsman's career would have gone for a toss if the Americans had their way! Reminds me of that one match where Don Bradman played in Sri Lanka and got bowled for a low score, only to find that the pitch was not 66 feet long but something like 60 feet or so!

I shall attribute all other answers such as no umpire, no centre line, the ball is not entirely made of leather etc to enthusiasm.

Anand Re, Ganesh Kumar and Siva* answered this correctly. So...

***Siva* is our Quiz Star for IPL3***

APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE!!

More details tomorrow.

Attaboy, Cheskies!

In the end, Chennai managed to nail the chargers pretty easily. Dhoni definitely won the 4D yesterday with ease.

Highlights of the game:

- Papa Srikkanth would have been proud of his ward's pyrotechnics which was crucial to CSK's 7+ run rate in the end & not to mention the 100K INR to the family kitty ;-)
- Suresh Raina was like Dharmaputra's chariot - always floating on the field!
- Hayden and Gilchrist have pretty much forgotten how to bat.
- Bollinger was all over the place - had hand in five dismissals
- I liked the wicket; enough juice to feed a dehydrated elephant!
- Murali finally became economical - he does need the rest, you see! Oh, his son is as wide-eyed as the dad :-))
- And MSD captained like the king he is; precision bombing through excellent field placing.

3rd place play-off between two completely demoralized teams on Saturday...

Answer to BQ-24:

Yes, the religious question was answered correctly by a few. Jesus is the odd-man out; the other being His apostles. But I also liked Ganesh Kumar's another answer where he said all of them except Judas was referred through their first names. Splendid. Others who got the Jesus part right are: Chets, Ishan and Guru. So, the leader board is a tie between Guru and Siva*. 13 all.

Now for the last question of IPL3: BQ-25: (and you have time till Sunday 25th April 10 pm SGT to answer this).

It is only right to end the IPL3 Q part with a question on cricket.

This is a flyer that was actually prepared by one of the cricket clubs in USA. What is factually wrong here?

Answers to the usual place.

Tomorrow is the game for #3 slot. With the way the IPL is going, not sure whether the Champions League will happen or not! Let us hope for the best! (No, I don't mean the cancellation of the tourney :-)

Be good.

SPK is at $24.70. Just one more jump and we are there. Zhor lagaa ke...

Half Happiness...

Before I go into the details, a couple of apologies.

Ap#1: The five-circles question was answered correctly by Siva* as well.
Ap#2: I had inadvertently missed out Siva*'s semis lineup entry and thus deprived Anand Re of another fiver.

Both these situations have been corrected and you can find it in the amended post.

Thanks to Siva* for bringing these to my notice. (Well, he bought the quiz lead with that fiver ;-)

By the way, the semis line up points were calculated as follows: 2 points for the correct team and correct position combo & 1 point for the correct team but wrong position combo; rest zero.

Now for the semi-finalized life...

There was one shot that Saurabh 'Samson' Tiwary from the steel city Jamshedpur, played against Jumbo which summed up the game. Kumble bowled a fuller one, denying the left-hander any length to get under the ball and it was 'kinda' on the line. Tiwary cleared his front leg - as is the wont of all batsmen these days and clubbed/massacred/bludgeoned/pulverised (you can choose one or any other equivalent euphemism) that ball straight back over the bowler's head. Cruel!

More than talent, the brute strength is frightening. Between him and Kieron Pollard, they just blew RCB out of DY Patil! Remeber what the boy said last time around?


And Bhajji did the unthinkable. Mukesh could never had done that and Neeta would never have imagined that. After the victory, the sardar was so happy that he hugged Mrs Ambani and hoisted her at least 3 feet 7 inches off the ground, much to the chagrin of the lady!! And this time her smile was real, no botox :-)

Was this game fixed as well? Kumble's final over where he was no-balled twice made us to think so. But the ever-reliant, omniscient Harsha Bhogle assured us otherwise. In one of those moments, the camera panned across the Mumbai dugout showing a smiling Lalit Modi next to a happy Ambani. Harsha opined that '...these days there is a storm swirling around IPL but when the two captains went out to toss today, you couldn't help feeling that they are the pillars of integrity...'


But Guru definitely seems to be having the inner connections as he swept the B portion of our pool nonchalantly!


Answer to BQ-23:

I liked Ganesh Kumar's answer: (((2007-4-4-2-2)/3)*2)+4+2 = 1336
Siva* also gave the magical number and is leading the quiz pivot.

Nice work, guys! That will give you four marks in the Singapore Maths Olympiad for the primary school children!!

Now for BQ-24:

Find the odd one out:

Simon, Matthew, Jude, James, Peter, John, Andrew, Jesus, Iscariot

Good response to the B part yesterday. Hope that the same goes for today as well.

SPK is at $24.00. Keep going.

Semis, Here We Come!

(Amended)

Well, after that looong league stage, the semis are on us.

MI vs RCB tonight. Bangalore will be peeved that they will not have the home advantage due to the bomb-induced shift to Mumbai.

I hope that Mallya-ji has cornered at least half of DY Patil for the Reds.

Nice little boxing match this will be - Reds vs Blues. Form points to MIs but as the cliche goes, it is never over until Uthappa says so!

Please send in your entries to the usual place for the Semis. I am opening the plans for all and sundry - no restrictions of minimum number of entries etc. Enjoy.

Now for BQ-23:

What is the value of A?

Answer to BQ-22:

Only Guru, Anand Re and Siva* got the right answer. Rambo did try with some 20% here and stuff like that. By the way, the top circle (6th circle) is more for reference purposes.

Guru leads the pack with 12, along with Siva*. Three more questions to go including today's.

SPK is at $23.10

Was this fixed?

With all the hoo-haahs going on about Shri Lalit Modi and IPL, one would not be wrong to assume the title...:-)

Still a few folks had worked to get the guesses on for this game as well. Talk about desperation!

Hold on to the horses. Semis are on.

1st Game on Wednesday night between Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Same conditions for the semis guesses.

Look out for the results of the pool after incorporating the semis guesses - tomorrow!

No quiz for today.

SPK is at $22.10

Dhoni & Rohit steal the thunder!

Yes, believe it or not! Dhoni landed a solid upper cut on his chin after launching Irfan over the cow corner! And did you see the longest six of the tournament - 108m? Fabulous time for the guy to have hit some form.

Rohit acted as the strongest magnet possible for the ball and before you could finish singing praises of his Warner catch, Viru and Gambhir were back in the dug out due to his brilliance.

IPL has had its first political gaavu (sacrifice) in the form of Twitter Tharoor. The icing on the Modi cake (or adding injury to insult for Tharoor) was when Sunanda denounced the 70C sweat equity! Some sweat!!

Answer to BQ-21:

It is the initials of the Sri Lankan batting order (except Fernando who did not bat) - given in reverse with the word SPOT interspersed after each name.

Guru and Siva* were desperate enough to answer the question! Good.

Now for BQ-22:

The diagram shows 5 identical circles. Draw a straight line to divide the figure into two parts of equal area.

SPK is at $21.90
More guesses needed to make it touch $30. Send them in!

Is that Dada catching?

KKR really fielded like their mascots and gave something for their beleaguered owner to cheer about. Dada fielded like a champion (if he did that this during his international career, he would have ended up with probably the most successful captain ever! Well...) & batted well to ensure the game was well in their pockets!

In the other game, the drunkards did themselves no favour by losing so badly. And the MI juggernaut rolls on relentlessly. Heard in the grapevine that MSD is moving to MI next year and hence is not showing that much interest in CSK's fortunes this year!

Answer to BQ-20:

Have you watched The Weakest Link? Apart from Anne Robinson killing off people with her put-on snobbish remarks, it is a great strategy game. Their in the earlier rounds, the weaker contestants lie low and keep the strong guys around and do not vote them off. The strong guys are needed to bank more money. But in later stages, the weaker guys gang up to vote the smart ones out.

In a similar manner, our truel (yes, there is such a word!) has A as the weakest link. In order to survive, A has to lie low and let B and C duel it out. A knows that if he shoots either at B or C, then he is dead the next round itself as they have better probabilities. And as far as B and C are concerned, their perceived threat is not A but each other and hence they would go for each other's lives as soon as a chance presents itself.

So, the answer is that A just shoots the bullet somewhere not pointing at the people at all - air, ground etc., and intentionally misses the other two persons! One additional thing is that if A does not shoot at B or C, then both of them are not inclined to shoot at a person who is 'inferior' to them and that too not at one who did not try to kill them!! I gave a gist of this answer to Ishan and he confirmed that it is right. Google can always help :-))

Phew! Long explanation. Needless to say, no one got it right. But a number of attempts. Keep trying guys!

Now for BQ-21:

In this age of 'Spot fixing', one book maker sent this text message to his ally, on the eve of a recent India-Sri Lanka game (the one where Sri Lanka almost chased 414 runs!). What was the significance of the message?

WACBMWUPOTSKNDMKPOTSSTTPOTSMDAPOTSKTHSPOTSJDMPDPOTSJTSPOTSSCKPOTSDMTPOTSTUW

I know that you are all good. So send in the guesses for the next two games on Sunday and the answer for the above gobbledegook!


 SPK is at $21.80

Deccan Almost There!

Consider DPMJD's first 14 deliveries. He scored a grand total of 13 runs. Whereas his last 14 yielded 45! And one thought that punch would have knocked out the Deccan guys along with those millions of locusts in Dharamsala!

But Suman (what a resurgence from the youngster for Deccan?) and Rohit managed to clean that total up without much of a fuss. Finally one of the Indian selects is putting his hand up!

Kochi saga is getting murkier and murkier.

Another conspiracy that is doing the round is that MSD convinced GG to go slow while chasing 112. Leave alone the fact that DD almost lost it in that first Bollinger over; but the fact that they made such a heavy weather to score 113 - dragging it to almost the last over, is thoroughly inexplicable and therefore can be explained by the above conspiracy theory. Reason: Of course NRR.

With all the cross-ownerships and such, AyePeaYell will soon degenerate into a fertile ground of 'spot-fixing'. There, that is the doomsday prediction from me.

Answer to BQ-19:

I liked Ganesh Kumar's answer. The Eskimos have not invented a weapon to go that far; yes, Eskimos live in the North Pole and the nice little penguins live in the South Pole.

Number of people got it right: Anand Re, Bob, Ganesh Kumar, Guru, Ishan, Siva* and Sukanti cleaned this up. Siva* and Guru are tied at 10 each, followed by Anand Re on 7.

Now for BQ-20: (A good, interesting one sent in by Ishan; thanks!)

There are three shooters - A, B and C.
They get into a three-way shooting game of shooting each other.

A's probability of killing when he shoots is 1/3
B's probability of killing when he shoots is 2/3
C's probability of killing when he shoots is 3/3

Now A gets to start shooting first; if B is alive after that then B shoots and thereafter C picks up the gun. The game goes on until the only one of them is alive. You get the drift I suppose.

Who should A shoot first so that he maximizes his chance of living? Reasons are always welcome.

Be alert. Lots of good games over the weekend.

Send in the guesses and the answers.

SPK is still at $21.20 (What to do, inspite of five people running for the right guess, no one picked up the booty!)

Cheskies DuDDed!

Chennai's spin plan back-fired badly when Delhi ambushed them with part-timers! KKD tried to enliven things up by throwing his wicket to help his home state but Capt. Gambhir was steady as SGDMYR cross rate to see Delhi through. Only real saving grace is that the NRR did not go drastically pear shaped.

And would you believe it, Bollinger hit the only six of the game and gets one hundred thousand bucks... aaaargh! His grand children will be bored to death on that story and so much for T20 being a bastman's game :-)

Feeling really down...

Answer to BQ-18:

The Hidden Tiger is on the visible tiger itself. Look at the tiger stripes!

Good catch by Guru, Siva* and Anand Re! Sharp eyes, guys!

Now for BQ-19: Easy one.

Eskimos are good hunters. But they do not hunt penguins. Why?

SPK stands at $21.20

NRRs here we come! Same place; same time. Be good.

Fortress Breached!

I did not know that Kamran Khan is a son of a wood-cutter, from somewhere in Uttar Pradesh. Imagine the commotion the guy from RR would have created when he went with a USD 24K contract to sign that boy up!!!

KP just blasted anything in sight - he was in a tearing hurry, lest Warne comes up and spoils the party :-)

The match was very much like yesterday's CSK v KKR. One side was completely outplayed by the other.
RR's loss meant that at least they are pushed down in the NRR game.

Modi is conspicuously absent... and this is my take on why it is so...

• Some set of unt-shunt guys outbid the world for cricket franchise from Kochi; Kochi? where?
• Modi's best laid plans for a Gujju franchise are in shreds.
• Tries to bribe Kochi out of the deal - true shtyle!
• So he does what any self-respecting BCCI man would not do - go check the credentials of the stock holders!
• And horror of horrors - the beautician surfaces as one of the beneficiaries for 70C.
• Seeing that things are getting delayed the third-wife-to-be goes to her fiance' and complains.
• Twitter Tharoor instead of solving geo-political issues decides to call Modi and push some weight around, forgetting that his strength is in tweeting and not calling :-)
• Suddenly remembering that he is a politician also, Twitter Tharoor calls up his Congress buddies and gets Shashank to shoot a mail to Modi citing irregularities in Modi's tweets!
• Modi is no slouch either; dunno what he did but an SMS lands up in Twitter Tharoor's mobile telling him to back off or else Dee Co will be in action!
• Now IT and Enforcement Directorate want to check the source of all AyePeaYell team owners!
• KYC (Know Your Customer) anyone?

Answer to BQ-17:

66 seconds is the right answer. From the first gong to the last gong, there are one-less gaps. So for 12 gongs, 11 gaps are there. Each gap is six seconds and hence the total of 66 seconds - of course, as Bob rightly pointed out the gong itself takes a negligible amount of time.

Anand Re, Bob, Guru, Siva* and Subra cracked it fast and easy! Good show, gentlemen.

Now for an optically illusive BQ-18:

There are two tigers in the picture below. Find out the hidden tiger.

Be good and pray for a CSK win :-))

Usual place and time.

SPK is at $20.80

3 mistakes!

It is rare to see Simon Taufel make a mistake on the field. Yesterday in the CSK v KKR he did not one, not two but three mistakes! First it was the LBW denied against McCullum, then it was the denial of Ashwin hat-trick favouring Angelo Matthews and then then five wides against Chris Gayle when it should have been four leg-byes. Simon, Are You Ready? Having said that, I am assured by all and sundry that he is such a pro and have seen in some of his emails to friends, him readily acknowledging the mistakes that he committed. So, as the saying goes... it does not matter if you make mistakes; own them and move onto the next ball.

SS Hazare also added to the woes of Kolkata by giving the marching orders to Dada for a ball that missed leg by a mile!

Delhi has pushed the self-destruct button so hard, that they are not able to do anything right - bowling, fielding and definitely batting! Imagine Sehwag scoring only 20 off 18! Pathetic. Next time Warne meets Gambhir, he would teach him the spelling and meaning of Ordinary!

And Kieron Pollard killed that game with his 300+ strike rate (I think it is the first one in this IPL). I italicized his first name because someone did not believe that he was called Kieron when I told them so!

And Kalaignar Karunanidhi was there at Chepauk last night to enjoy the proceedings. Chennai did not disappoint him much - except for Murali and Hayden & of course, the two umpires.

You can click here for a poem that MK could have written after the game last night. Sorry, only Tamil version available.


And five teams on 12 points as per my prophecy this morning. CSK in a slightly better position :-) And their NRR is greater than RCB by the proverbial whisker - 0.00494343... - well the whisker is slightly thicker than the Singapore v Nepal run rate that killed Singapore's hopes of promotion to ICC League Div 4. More here.


BQ-16 ka jawaab:

Left of course. And the reason is that there is no door visible. The clue is that the pre-schoolers are in the US. A number of the aficionados had cracked it. Anand Re, Guru, Ishan, Subra and Sukanti cleaned it. Good show!

BQ-17 idhar hai:

At 6 pm, a clock gongs 6 times. The time between the first and last gong is 30 seconds. How long does it gong at 12pm? No tricks.

Normal destinations and expectations.

SPK is at $20.50. Tat-ta-daan!

Power of 12!

Even a 20-20 game is susceptible to the old Warne axiom - "It aint over until the old lady sings!"
I was pretty sure that Deccan are done in this time around, when Steyn blasted off three people in a jiffy. Of particular interest was the mode of Suman dismissal. Pity that they did not try that more on Rohit. Probably, it is being reserved for the game in May ;-)

With four teams already on 12 - possibility of it becoming five tonight if DD loses its plot again, it mind-numbingly shows one thing: All teams are mediocre inspite of all of Danny Morrison's screams & that there are a few sparkles here and there; Kallis' marathon run; Sachin's Nike mantra; Warnie's exhortations and such. Other stuff kind of matches with the axiom: Allow thousand monkeys to pound typewriters and you can get a Shakespearean play. Nothing to take away from the monkeys, that is.

Guru seems to be having a direct line with Modi in fixing the games. Of the seven 10-pointers so far in this edition of BQ, he has got five! No wonder he heads up the winner list by that margin. Boori nazar waale therey mukh kaala!

Answer to BQ-15:

Bhima is the hero who is supposed to have the wolf-like belly - pretty stuck in, even after hogging one full jumbo meal. Hence the name Vrikodara.

Anand Re and Siva* came back fast with the right answers. With that Guru's monopoly at the top has been ended :-)

Ab BQ-16:

Stumbled on this gem on the net.

Pre-schoolers in the US were asked this question: 

Which way is the bus shown travelling? It is either Left or Right. Can you tell the reason?

Be good.
Usual instructions.
SPK is at $19.90

Thus went the last 200 hours...

As I am writing this, there is one team with 14 points; three with 12 and three more with 10. Yuck! And read somewhere that Sachin was 'ordered' to retire against CSK to make them come up... Yuckier!

The week that was in the AyePeaYell-Trey...

• Sachin managed to ensnare the orange cap from Kallis (How can you let go of a record to somebody else?)
• DC and KXIP are out to s***w the s**t out of the other contenders (Isn't DC one of the contenders now?)
• Definite. Neeta A is on Botox. And the brand name is Perma-Smile. (How else can you explain her disposition during those two drab performances from her wards?)
• More definite. MSD has become Ghajini. At the toss, he says that you have to choose the best balanced side rather than the best players. At the loss conference, he says that he was missing a slow bowler. (When did Murali become a tear-away?) 
• Interesting. No major advertisements on 'Bring Home The Cup'  - T20 WC that is. Lalit has allowed any such advertisements only 48 hours after the AyePeaYell-Trey finals.
• Heartening. There has been at least one match which can be called as heart-stopping. Yes, I am referring to that Warnie magic against the Hyderabadis! (Some poker game that was!)
• Even Bhajji and Karthik are not performing from the Indian WC T20 team. (Complete write-off!)

 Answer to BQ-14:

Maanasa, Bob, Siva* and Guru gave the correct answer to the Pictorial Algebra. 24.
Only Siva* was honest to accept that he took 8 minutes; the others did mentally and on foolscap papers!
No, Anand Re: Zero is not accepted.

Anyways, good shows guys and gal...
Btw, Guru and Siva* are tied at six each and Subra at 4.


Here is BQ-15:

Again an easy one. 

According to Hindu mythology, which hero is said to have had a wolf-like-belly and is named as such?

Usual place. Usual time.

SPK is showing a healthy $19.30 at this stage. Need your help to make it a round 30.

Punjab KIX MI...

Continuing from yesterday's sermon, MI seems to be suffering from DLF maximum (Dollar Loaded Fatigue). Ironical they are the lowest sixer-scoring team of the league!

Sachin continues to give his wicket to Piyush - funny, only the ball before his dismissal, I was thinking that Sachin seems to be the only batsman on sight who plays everything with the middle of the bat.

And what a fantastic name: Love Ablish. We (BS, G and yours sincerely) collect some good names and this goes to the list straight away. To give you a jhalak - try naming somebody as Kukka Tuuterri in India...

Cricket yesterday was boring as nothing much was riding on the game and hence the above name digression.

Answer to BQ-13:

Anand Re tried valiantly to say that the months had exactly 13 weeks between them. Good try. But what I was looking was that they all had the notorious Friday the 13th in them. 1st day of a month being a Sunday means that it will have its 13th day on a Friday. Check out for further superstitious details on F13.

On to BQ-14:

What is the value of ? A simple Algebra question. Send in the timings along with your answers. I know that you won't cheat :-)

Usual destination. Have a great weekend. Next update on Monday morning.

PS:

1. Chets also answered the 2 pages question correctly. Missed his name out in the list; Have amended the same.

2. I did not moderate a couple of comments (they are like dot balls = Gold!) earlier. Apologies. Have done so. One of them was a question from Guru on margins. Answered.

3. SPK is at $18.30.

Deccan out of the plateau!

Read this article a few days back.

In reality, the salaries seem to be a pittance if you look at what the players are asked to give back. 14 or 15 games in a little over seven-week period. You can argue that they play for only seven weeks and that is a good time to earn anything from Rs. 20 lakhs to a few crores of rupees.

Flip it around and see. Will you work for 24 hours a day (ok, make it 20 hours...) for two months to be paid your annual salary? Well, I might be OK, provided I don't have to work at least for the next two months. But poor IPYellers have to immediately pack their bags and head to Windies for the WC-T20 only to be followed by myriad of those bilateral series. Tough!

Until the Indian economic powerhouse stepped in, cricket was a poor-man's aristocratic game. Read that in 1964 the BCCI refused to host West Indies for a series because... horror of horrors, they did not have the monies to bear the expenses of a touring team!!!!! It is a different matter that today IPL economy alone can feed a few countries for a year ... Such is the Circle of Life.

What was this long sermon for?

This season, the drunkards' plan has been simple. Lay a fast and bouncy pitch. Use an all pace attack - haven't I told you that Kumble is a medium pacer in a spinner's garb? & get Kallis to knock out the runs.

Yesterday was no different. Only that the first 14 overs yielded a paltry 92 runs. Kohli's heroics in the last six saved the blushes. Having said that Deccan charged well; Symonds amended his 23-run over madness and that was that.

Yes, DC are out of the plateau; whether they run on the flatlands or downhill is to be seen. I definitely want them to run downhill in their next match :-)

And the points table look like a mark-list of a very easy test which every one in the class has cracked - but remember, every class has to have a KXIP!

Answer to BQ-12:

Siva* seems to have found the enthu to give answers & his attempt of "All are different types of batteries" is the correct one. He is tied with Guru now at 5 points. SPK is at $17.80, remember.

Now onto BQ-13:

In 2012, what is common between January, April and July apart from the fact that their 1st day is a Sunday?

TGIF.

Be good and send in the entries.

Choking & Sweating Kills !!

It is still April. Agni Nakshatram (read as super hot hot season) has not yet started. Yet the heat and humidity at Chennai straight away took more than 50% of the capacity off the people. No wonder, one Mr Tendulkar was forced to retire because of dehydration; but by the time he was hydrated, his team was on dysentry!

One interesting sidelight of that match: Stephen Fleming, the erstwhile Kiwi Cool captain, when asked about MSD replied: "Compared to Dhoni, I am high-strung!! He is super cool and never displays his emotions on the field!" It is a different matter that Jagati got an ear- and eye-ful yesterday after a wayward throw...

And, did you notice that Mrs Nita Ambani smiles uncontrollably whenever the camera pans on to her. And, did you also notice that her face was glumness (if there is such a word!) personified when MI were crashing to a sweat-induced second defeat in the league!

KXIP resumed proper services today against the Rajputs whose vigour seems to have been renewed.

And for exactly two Dinda overs KKR were in the game against Gambhir's extra-ordinaries :-) Once he had done his stuff with the new ball, KKR shoulders drooped so much that the purple & gold jerseys fell off Dada's men! Then the Rolls Royce struck Viru out; Dada dived twice to save certain boundaries & took a smart catch at short-extra-cover... maan! Matter over...

For three days in a row, the team batting second choked so badly that they all seem to be playing the choking game rather than cricket!

Pool was understandably low-key. With about a third of the games left, people are conserving.

Answer to BQ-11:

Since the editor is not your politically correct one (which one is?), he decided to print the numbers of those who failed and ended up consuming only 2 pages. Guru, Siva*, Subra, Chets and Anand Re came back quite quickly with disdain. Nice going, guys!

Now for BQ-12:

What do these terms refer to: U2, Baby, Mignon? Answers to the usual destination.

PS: SPK is at $17.5o

Worth the Warne!

Finally, a game worth the late night! (No KXIP v CSK super over does not count :-|)

The heart was literally doing the mobius ring trick throughout. Support DC so that they can also queer the semis pitch a bit more; Support RR on seeing Warnie exhorting his wards to give it one more shot! Pheeewwww!

Dhoni is definitely a very keen reader of the game. At the toss in that run-rain match on Saturday, he answered an inane question from the commentator about how that game is being touted as the captaincy war between Dhoni and Warne. He neatly sidestepped the question and commended Warne for helping Indian cricket and supporting youth and fringe players etc. (Is one Mr Gambhir listening?)

Look at Warne's team yesterday: Except for Shane Watson & Mornie Morkel there are no players - including Yusuf Pathan - who would have walked into any team in the world (Warne might still be welcomed with open arms into the Ozzie dressing room; but that is a different story!)

And they kept coming back with that message "RR have not lost if they have to defend anything above 150".

SELF BELIEF!!

In the other games, Mahela played a blinder - vaguely remember that he did the same recently in one of those umpteen Ind-SL ODI series.

RCB is taking it easy and it might become a Royal Challenge if they are not careful. Drop Dravid!

Michael Lumb joins David Warner for being recalled almost from the shower after the fielders claimed desperate catches only for the third umpire to revoke such claims. If there ever was a 50-50 game, Ryan Harris had one yesterday (2 catches; 2 drops; 1 wicket; 1 dreadful search for that floating legbreak from the Master - tells you a story, isn't it?)

Answer to BQ-10:

The immediate-fail-driving-test-route is Lombard Street in San Francisco.

Guru and Siva* got it right. Good show guys.

After ten questions, Guru leads the pack - here also! with four points; Siva* and Subra are following closely at three each.

Now for BQ-11:

Easy one.

In an examination where 50000 students appeared for, 3000 students passed. The local newspaper published the registered numbers of those who passed over three pages. How many pages would the newspaper editor have allocated for publication of the results if 48000 students have passed?

Keep them coming.

SPK is at $16.50.

Vijay Ho!

In the end, the tiff with the home minister to ensure that one watches the CSK game against the Royals proved to be the ultimate 'paisa vasool!'

Of all those million sixers (no, I will not call them DLF maximums :-) Vijay hit, one shot proved to be the cynosure... 3rd ball of the 13th over; Vijay on 46; Warne floats one on middle and leg; Vijay waltzes down to make it half-leg-break than the full one if he had stayed back, and deposits the ball right beyond the sight screen... then I knew that the boy is in 'da zone'!!

That the Yellow Jellies dropped so many while defending (more like sleep walking) was incidental and hope that they do not make the same mistakes in future!

Deccan was good in patches. Ojha came back strongly after the barracking by Dada; but again the batsmen failed to capitalize. VVS is as comfortable as the cat on a hot tin roof in T20 & his run out was a real comical one. But full spirit-of-the-game marks to Gilly for that non-obstruction movement! And Rohit Sharma is in the WCT20 team.... aaargh!

Answer to BQ-9:

Blind leads Blind - not andhon mein khana raja.

Subra and Ganesh Kumar got this one right.

Answer to BQ-10:

Where is this twister? Name and City please. (and the wife quips: Thank God! my driving test was not on this street!)

Next update on Tuesday morning.

PS: SPK is at $14.70

Hope At Last, I thought. But...

...it ended up as Hope All Lost for KXIP.

I am a firm believer of cycles - if something goes up, it has its time to come down at some time in the future. On that game at Eden Gardens, there was this nice stat on Dada which said that he was one of the three batsmen (whether in KKR or across the IPL3, don't know that) who has a strike rate of less than 100. Then that one over of Ojha corrected that anomaly.

Sachin used to gift his wicket to every left-arm spinner plying his trade - remember Ray Price, Mohd Rafique... and in contrast, Ganguly has buried many a left-arm spinner's careers in the real estate beyond long-on and deep mid-wicket.

The week that was in IPL3:

• Last week saw some big wins from the teams both in terms of wicket margins as well as run margins. Shows that the game is turning to be more digital with lesser and lesser shades of grey in between
  
• DC is running out of steam
• KXIP's signal strength is at a death-whisper level
• KKR is flashing in the plan along with CSK; while Dada is conspicuously present with his gung-ho comments, Dhoni is definitely absent in many aspects - batting, captaincy, winning... Tells you much about the fact that a captain is as good as his team's performance!
• Murali and Malinga are flying the Lankan flag high while Vaas, Sanga and Mahela are trying extremely hard to bring it down!
• Gambhir called the Royals as duds and promptly got reprimanded by the Commissioner - Lalit Modi that is! Heard that Gauti will not be allowed to speak for the rest of IPL including the call at the toss! He will tap his head for "Heads" and do a coily-motion with his hand from the posterior to indicate "Tails"
• Except for Bhajji and Karthik the Indian team for T20 failed consistently last week
  

Answer for BQ-8:

The answer is Batsman No. 8. Not 2 or 7 or 11. Finally good response to the quiz. Seven, oops got it wrong, eight got it right. Bhargav, Bob, Guru, Ishan, Rambo, Siva*, Sivasubs and Yadavalli are those magnificent seven! Kudos, fellers.

Now on to BQ-9:

What is the correct - or the more common, form of this re-written idiom?

• One suffering from macular degeneration is guiding one with less than 10% normal vision

Answers to the usual mail box.

PS: SPK is at $13.70 and will make it to at least 25, I hope.