Day 9: Phir bhi bowling hai Hindustani...

The signs were ominous. Got my first parking offence ticket on Sunday. Thought that an Indian win will wash that sorrow away. But it was not to be.

And to talk of the power of one - Remember: India wasted one ball and there was a one-short off the penultimate ball of the Indian innings.

This is what I wrote before the England P3 was taken. Rest, as they say, is history.

Also, there has to be a first. The highest run chase in a world cup game cannot be just 313-7.

In this day and age that had to be much more and India has corrected that little piece of history :-)

Well, for those who are Hindi-challenged, the title means 'still we are talking about Indian bowling!'

In the end, it was a game between two very weak bowling attacks and India came out weaker!

All said and done, Andrew Strauss played a fantastic innings; worthy of a captain. And Sachin restored regular service, by adding one more to his century count. 

Thankfully, this need not be the epitaph of Indian cricket in this world cup, as there are two more minnows to slay and secure that quarter final line up.

Somewhere in Dhaka, Shakib and his boys will be kicking themselves for missing that golden opportunity in the first match :-))

But this game should make ICC happy - 50 overs is still alive and kicking.

Q Part:

The video question has indeed proved to be quite a tough one.

So will keep it open for one more day.

No, it is not Idaho Potato Marathon.

The clue is based on what the video is all about and relating it to a game.

Ok, let me be more explicit. What is the four letter verb that the video is all about. Use that and trawl the web. (no, not that one:-)

So as a repeat...

Check the video. To which game can you associate this with?

(c) Idahopotatoes

*******

B Part:

Here is the current status on the 'B' portion. Shiv cracked it by betting on England and cleaning up the booty.

Note the timings for the next games.

Canada vs Zimbabwe by 11:25 hours SGT Monday

Netherlands vs West Indies by 16:25 hours SGT Monday

Answers and guesses to the usual place. (The usual place is my email address, which you can find in the this post!)

Have a great week ahead!

Day 8: So Un-Pakistani!

The N-Western neighbours did a very un-Pakistani job.

No flamboyance.
No come-back-from-the-brink (they did try gallantly to lose it in the end; habits die hard, you see!)
Just plain professional game.

Firstly set a very competitive total - may be a score of runs short; but thereafter apply the bowling brakes like no one's business. The ever-huffing-and-puffing Akthar bowled well and then Boom^2 did a fabulous job. As a bowler he has improved so much; looks like he has had a complete mental make-over :-)

In a way, the Lankans got psyched by the occasion more than anything else. Chamara played an innings worthy of a five-day game. I guess that the islanders will have a good wake-up call after this and are still tipped to do very well in this tournament.

Q Part:

What I thought to be a tough one proved to be a reasonably tough one indeed.

The graph belongs to the big man, Sir Don. The dots on the graph indicate the games that Australia won. The problem in the graph was of course in the right-side scale which indicated the runs-per-inning figure. We know that the Don ended with an average of 99.94 and even if you include the not-outs, he had an average of 87.75. Either way, the graph failed to represent that.

For an innings list, check cricinfo.

Raghav, Aditya, Yuva, Siva* and AdarshB: all got the fact that it was Don's graph and something is wrong with the right scale. Only AdarshB got the answer right without any prompting. Full point to him while the others get half.

Honourable mention: Karthik who came in with the fact that it is the Don's graph.

Now for today's quiz - an easy one

Drumrolls pleazzzz...

Check the video. To which game can you associate this with?

(c) Idahopotatoes

*******

B Part:

Here is the current status on the 'B' portion:

Now for the match that a billion and sundry have been waiting for. Please send in your entries asap. Note the timings.

India v England by 16:25 hours SGT Sunday

Answers and guesses to the usual place. (The usual place is my email address, which you can find in the this post!)

Have a great Sunday!

PS: There is an apology in yesterday's post for you to read. Thanks.

Day 7: Jumma Sizzle by Ozzie & Bangla

Q Part:

What I thought to be a tough one proved to be an easy one for these google-ka-puthras :-(

One man's meat is...

Yes, the four gentlemen in question - Abdul Razzaq, Shoaib Malik, Lance Klusener and Hashan Tillakaratne have all batted at 10 different positions in ODIs. While Abdul Razzaq has batted from no 2 to no 11 postion in ODI, the other 3 have batted from Nos.1 to 10 in ODI.

Siva* and Guru gave the full answers, and the latter was honest enough to say that Steven Lynch from Cricinfo helped him :-)) I shall give them a full point and for AdarshB and Raghav, half a point for giving the first part of the answer alone.

Now for today's quiz - an easy one

Drumrolls pleazzzz...

This is a true career graph. But something is wrong. What is it? 

*******

The Chappell-Hadlee trophy game petered out into a tame draw - oops - a tame affair, I meant. Johnson caused enough woes to the Kiwis adding to the shock and sorrow due to the natural calamity back home at Christchurch. Aussies are ripe for picking by the Lankans and thereafter by everybody else. Just kidding, lah!

(Lesson 101 in writing: Take into consideration the sentiments of people who read what you write. I seem to have, inadvertently though, caused concern and anguish in certain sections of the readers about my comment on equating the Nagpur drubbing to the Christchurch calamity. What was written in jest seems to have touched a raw nerve. I apologise unreservedly for any anguish caused. I am with all the thousands who are suffering due to this and my prayers for a speedy return back to normalcy for the affected.)

And then the most exciting match of the tournament so far (well after the England v Netherlands game ;-))

Believe that the Irish are going to complain to ICC that they did not issue ear-muffs along with the kit!! 

Shob Bangla khoob balo! And oh, those bindis :-))

Interesting that both the teams that batted first scored pretty much the same score. Fixed?

B Part:

* Thanks Guru, for pointing out the mistake. Honesty pays!

The B portion had a lean crop. I think people could not decide between BAN and IRL. That showed.

Two big games over the weekend. Please send in your entries asap. Note the timings.

Sri Lanka v Pakistan by 16:25 hours SGT Saturday

India v England by 16:25 hours SGDT Sunday

(Shows how materialistic we are; even time zones morph into currency codes. Tch Tch Tch...)

Answers and guesses to the usual place. (The usual place is my email address, which you can find in the this post!)

We have the weekend on us. And definitely the crackers as well. SL v PAK and IND v ENG coming up. Let us rock!

Day 6: ABsolutely dWIndied!

Q Part:

Thought that I will start with the quiz today.

Well, the last question was indeed an easier one. A number of people got the Statue of Liberty portion right. But was that the question? Sleep-deprived, my brain is. But memory-less, it isn't. What we wanted was the mailing address and the ever-reliable mail-man (no, not Karl Malone from Utah Jazz) from US Postal Services says that the said lady can be reached via snail mail at the following address:

Statue of Liberty

1 Liberty IS FRNT 1

New York NY

10004-1467

So, only a few of the multitude got it right.

I can accept 10004 but not the Brooklyn code 11231

(Perils of using Google earth and other such contraptions!)

Aditya, AdarshB, Sandeep, Shreyas and Siva* got the full point. 

Now for today's quiz - a tough one (courtesy: BSNL Sports Quiz on Doordarshan recently - they also give some very good programmes!)

Drumrolls pleazzzz...

What is common between all these cricketers?  OR 

What is the special cricketing achievement that they share?

Just in case you are wondering who the fourth guy is... Hashan Tillakaratne.

*******

Well, there was a pseudo-Lara during the Windies innings in the form of Darren Bravo; he was good on the eyes; but once the Tahir-boy (or the old man; he is after all 30+) got going, matter was over!

ABdV was sensational.as usual. After all, he was playing at his home ground (Delhi Daredevils, you see!)

Gayle was easy on the eyes while bowling and Benn was looking like he would fight with Sammy any time. And what was Kieron Pollard doing, batting at 9? Remember SRT keeping him till late in last year's IPL. And we are told that we should learn from the past mistakes. Hayyaah!

B Part:

The B portion had a bumper crop. 13 people got in. Raghavendra even tried to hedge. Good approach.

A few new entrants. All are welcome to make merry.

Tomorrow there are two games. Please send in your entries asap. Note the timings.

Australia v New Zealand by 11:25 hours SGT Friday

Bangladesh v Ireland by 15:55 hours SGT Friday

Trans-tasman rivalry and QF aspirants clash...

Answers and guesses to the usual place. (The usual place is my email address, which you can find in the Day 0 post!) 

There is the Weekend Dhamaka of SL v PAK and IND v ENG coming up. Sharpen your voices, folks!

Day 5: Ken Ya? Nah!!

B Part:

Here is the B situation after yet another one-sided affair. Bhargav, in his fever-induced delirium, kept commenting that this is a cup that counts not the performance, but the money! And there was a comment on cricinfo that it might be better to have the best associate players to form a team to compete with the full members... sigh! 

Well, for almost the entire second innings, Wasim Akram and Ramiz Raja kept talking about what kind of team compositions should Pakistan have for the rest of the tournament. Talk of joblessness!

Please send in your details for the next game asap.

South Africa v West Indies by 16:25 hours SGT Wednesday

The first game between two full-member teams. Well if it takes six days to reach this stage...grrrr....

Q Part:

Give people a small window of opportunity to google and they jump at it.

As soon as the first of the symbols looked like a currency, then everybody worked google and lo and behold! I had eight, yessir, eight correct answers. 

The two symbols represent the currency symbols of Mongolia (Tugrik) and Israel (New Sheqel) (somebody even gave the hex code - no, not Raghav!)

Aditya, AdarshB, Ganesh K, Guru, Raghav, Rambo, Reddy, Siva* got the full point. 

Now here is the next one.

Drumrolls pleazzzz...

Today's bossun is here...

Give me the complete mailing address of this place.

Answers to the usual place. (The usual place is my email address, which you can find in the Day 0 post!)

Two more days to weekend!

Day 4: ten's Ton Does Cause Hate :-)

Law of averages had to catch up. An Associate nation had to pull a scare somehow. The Oranje did cause many many problems for the Pommies. But the experience of playing the game for centuries had to count for something, after all.

ten Doeschate was fabulous. Ian Bishop during the innings break said that his name kept coming up for the best Associate allrounder award; I would even go and say that the guy is good enough to be considered for the best allrounder - period.

Pity that the Dutch did not have one more good bowler.

All in all, Group B is proving to be a tougher group than what was envisaged earlier. Bawwwwww...

BQ welcomes few more new entrants to both sections. That is the Bacardi... keep at it, amigos!

B Part:

Here is the B situation....

Please send in your details for the next game asap.

Kenya v Pakistan by 16:25 hours SGT Wednesday

Battle of the greens at Hambantota - the New Pakistani Home ;-)

Q Part:

The fourth question did get a number of correct answers. 

The three pictures are the molecular structure of Diamond, Graphite and Amorphous Carbon. (no not Gold, not Benzene, not nanotube, not wood...)

Aditya and AdarshB got the full point; Guru and Raghav get half-a-point. Btw, have given the additional 0.5 point to Raghav for the octal cracking of the Mayan number. (he sent a two-sentence long explanation for his answer and even my hare-brain could understand that :-) 

Now here is the next one.

Drumrolls pleazzzz...

Today's yorker is here...

What are these? (you could guess what they could be, by looking at the first one)

Answers to the usual place. (The usual place is my email address, which you can find in the Day 0 post!)

Have a good week ahead.

Day 3: Changed Run Margins, no thanks to ZIM!

For almost 50% of the game, Zimbabwe was in it, well and truly. The way the Aussie batsmen played the spinners, it was as if they were throwing grenades and not a spherical object made of leather and jute. Hmmmm...

Tait and Lee served enough notice to all and sundry about the kind of liquid pace that they can generate even on the dead-as-a-dodo Motera pitch.

After all that nonsense, I love that Aussie colours - lemony yellow... hope they are not going to be the lemons of the tournament - not much hope there, actually!

BQ welcomes several new entrants to both sections. That is the spirit... keep it coming fellas.

B Part:

Not much to write home about. Everybody and his uncle got the margin right. That reminded me of the problem that I was having. Since all the recent tournaments when BQ ran were all T20, the run margins were relatively tighter. But in a 50-50 game, the run margins can be a bit wider. Old timers will remember that we used to have a margin-slot for every 50 runs. But then that is too wide. So, the new run margins are:

1-30

31-60

61-90

91+

Kindly stick to this new sets of run margins starting from the match on Tuesday.

All other margins remain the same.

Here is how the B portion stands after the ZIM drubbing.

Please send in your details for the next game asap.

England v Netherlands by 16:25 hours SGT Tuesday

Can the Oranje cause another upset similar to the WC - T20?

Q Part:

The third question did make life interesting for many. 

Apart from the random answers such as 797, 7187 etc.

There was a 'nerdy' answer from Raghav; couldn't understand it. So reproducing his point as it is.

427 in octal number = 117 in hex. a dot represents 1 and line rep 5So going by that next col in hex = 7(16)5 = 805 in oct = 4005.

But Subra came into the Q portion for the first time and cracked it.

Here is his succint response. Good show, mate!

Answer is 3125.
It indicates 20s base numbering, with dot = unit, horzontal line = 5units and layers from bottom go upwards for each number place units bottom-most, next up is 20s, next up is 400s
Right Column = [ (400 x 7) + (20 x 16) + 5 ] = 3125
Left Column adds to 427 as = [ (400 x 1) + (20 x 1) + 7 ] = 427

Oh, by the way, that number system was used by the Mayans - yes, the same guys who predicted that the world ends in 2012! Yaaaawwwnnn...

Now here is the next one.

Drumrolls pleazzzz...

An simple half-volley outside the off-stump. Let us see whether you are a tail-ender or an opening batsman... 

The three structures below represent which material(s)?

Answers to the usual place. (The usual place is my email address, which you can find in the Day 0 post!)

Have a good week ahead.