Day 19 - Coetzer's fort BANged!

The title of this post for about 55 overs today was 'Banged by Coetzer'. Then India's neighbours decided that I have to rewrite the title ;-) 

Bangladesh played as usual. Bad bowling; worse fielding. lot of slow bowlers; injury to players while fielding.

But their batting was a mini-revelation. Granted it was a small ground; flat wicket; the Scottish bowling was a true pop-gun attack (still wondering how NZ gifted those seven wickets to them! If you list the fastest bowlers in the match, then all Scot bowlers including the dibbly-dobblies, will come after Shakib Al Hasan!)

Yet, to hunt down 319 takes some nous. Tamim played a beautiful game. While he was cramping, the uncharitable amongst us did say, "Yes, he is not used to staying this long at the wicket ;-)!' Yet, all their batters showed enough application and went through the chase professionally. Ominous signs for England on Monday.

G-Section:


Tomorrow is the rang-barse Holi game between the blues and the maroons. Sammy has fired the warning shot saying that while India plays Holi, Windies will play cricket - or some such trash. Bowl first; bounce'em out. Chase & win. Simple? You bet!

And since nobody expected BAN to do so well....

And I expect more active participation in the guess part tomorrow... :-)

India vs West Indies @ Perth by 1400 SGT

Q-Section:

ManiacG will get a special point for getting the right answer before AngelAsh. An achievement in itself! Good show man! Oh, btw, he has the only right answer today!

The right answer is MERCAPTAN. It is that chemical that gives the pungent smell to the cooking gas world over. (Ha, remembered something from my 12th standard chemistry book! Thank You Sampath Sir!)

Dick King-Smith's primate = Mr Ape (incidentally he wrote the more famous Babe too)
Anagram it with 'cant' you get the name of the stinking gas.

Now for today's question. An easy one for 4 points. How is this equation right? Explanations as well please.

__

+

 会う 

+

150MMKm

+

= 

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 18 - What? Pakistan scored 300+ ?!?!?!

It was that kind of a day.
Martin Crowe wants a ten-week World Cup with 18 teams.
Not to be out-done, Sachin wants a 25-team world cup.
And when God speaks, everyone listens. Will ICC?
To top it all, a journalist goes and complains to ICC/BCCI about Kohli abusing him. Give me a break! Jasvinder Sidhu must be new to cricket!

Interestingly, once again England has taken the lead in (a) thinking out of the box and thereby (b) giving courage for people to go and talk about tinkering the biggest cash-cow that cricket has seen so far - ODIs. Yeah, yeah. T20 has the potential. But to have reached that stage, ODIs laid the financial foundation for the big-3 to dream $$$$.

But then, cricket's biggest problem is that it is being played across three formats and the reluctance of people to bell the 'Test' cat! Today only Australia and England attract crowds for a test match and that is that. And frankly, the *zai's from Kabul or *Khans from Dubai are not worrying about Test matches now! They want to play any cricket - as long as they have a good team to play against!

Today's games were another advertisement of book-cricket. Complete mismatches. In spite of that, Nasir Jamshed managed to get out cheaply yet again. The spoof-tweet from somebody with his name, just about summarizes life for a Pakistani batsman these days...

Q-Section:

AngelAsh was the only one to get the right answer first time around; while Raghav got it after the clues. The correct answer is:

A jain monk is known as Yati. And Yati also refers to the arrangement of rhythmic phrases in South/North Indian music/dance. There are many types of Yati: some are Cow's tail, River, Barrel Drum - in each of them, the rhythmic phrases follow a pattern similar to those entities.

Today's question finds me trying my hand at a crossword clue.

Dick King-Smith's primate can't stink. (9) [3 points]

G-Section:

Congrats to the brave-hearts who ventured out to guess for the mismatches. Good show ;-)!

Tomorrow's game can be interesting. Go ahead and wear your guessing hats!

Bangladesh vs Scotland @ Nelson by 0530 SGT

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 17 - So Boring! Another 400+

My mother tongue is Tamil. Being a classic language, it has a saying for almost any occasion that you can imagine. One such saying is: அளவுக்கு மிஞ்சினால் அமுதமும் நஞ்சு! (and one of the web translators came up with this epic: Septic! If excess elixir!) 

Roughly translated by human beings, it means: an excess of something can turn out to be detrimental for your health/well-being. Any English equivalent?

This saying came to my mind repeatedly during today's game between the Proteas and Shamrocks. With so much of fire-power at their disposal, it was no wonder SA got another 400+ score and a 200+ margin victory.

Amla and Faf enjoyed those drops and Amla even went ahead to complete an arm-pit catch - talk about rubbing salt on your wounds...

All these drubbings mean that only ICC will be happy in the end: "I told you so!"

Apparently, Steyn's home in Cape Town is in danger of being razed down by mountain fires. He showed some part of that fire during his first spell.

Another tough day for the umpires - three missed edges. Oh, the twitterati is agog!

G-Section:

I don't know how people could have guessed the runs-margin and the sixers-count as anything but 91+ and 12++ when SA is batting in the pool stages? Still people do and then lose credits!

Tomorrow's double header is more likely to hearten ICC than anyone else. Still as inveterate guessers your choice is only to guess the outcome :-)

Pakistan vs UAE @ Napier by 0830 SGT

Australia vs Afghanistan @ Perth by 1400 SGT

Q-Section:

AngelAsh gets it (Did you say, "Tell me something new!" ?). 4 points.

But for two points, I will keep the question for one more day with the following clue:

Think Indian Dance Rhythms. And I am looking for a four letter word - no not that!

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 16A - While we catch our breaths...

So after a shade over two weeks, the world cup has thrown up some interesting vignettes.

Here are my top-ten:

1. Those mauka-mauka advertisements and their innumerable spoofs.
2. The Irish tenacity and the Irish smile after their not-too-close game against WI and a close game against UAE!
3. Those flying catches by Steven Smith, Craig Ervine, Jerome Taylor
4. If Adelaide was a blue Bay-of-Bengal, then MCG was the Indian Ocean (oh! why didn't I take up the invitation, why?)
5. Shoaib Akthar's tirade against Pakistan in specific and anybody in general
6. The swell of public opinion against 'thou-shall-have-only-ten-teams-next-world-cup' - of course, backed by wonderful performances by the Associates
7. Afghan snow-leopards' passion and their incongruous story of success
8. Bravado of two kinds - Kiwi variety and the English variety ;-)
9. Gayle's double & ABdV's 1.5 coupled with those crazy 2nd wicket partnerships
10. Ok, gotta fill the ten with that 19 wicket game between the hosts

Onto the second half of the group stage.

G-Section:

I am keeping the QF line-up entry submission open till 11:00 SGT 3rd March 2015. If you have to change yours please do so. If you have not submitted yours, please do so too.

Oh, there is the nice little game of 

South Africa vs Ireland @ Canberra by 1100 SGT 

(remember the place? CG slammed a 215 here!)

Q-Section:

After great struggle, AngelAsh cracked the question for 2 points. Importantly, she takes the lead from Raghav in the Q-Section. Fabulous effort!

Yes, the equation referred to shoe-sizes in different countries. Mexico - 6, UK/Australia - 7, US&Canada - 7.5, Europe - 40 and Korea - 254. And that symbol means 'equivalent to'.

Her stumbling did have a bit of serendipity to it...

And then there was this tag sticking out of my colleague's boots! :D Size 40. Googled it up. 

Now for today's question:

The ascetic has a rhythmic connection with the other three. What is it? Explanation needed pliss! [4 points]

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 16 - Limping Pak & Lurking Lanka

Hello! Free DRS review lessons to Matthews, anyone?

(Source FoxSports)

• Five centuries in the tournament by the top-4.
• Malinga is nicely settling in after the injury.
• A rare triple-century chase and that too only by losing a wicket.

Sri Lanka is smoothly easing into yet another ICC tournament. Remember they were the finalists in the last two editions of CWC. And one can't help thinking what would happen to Sri Lanka after Mahela, Sanga and Dilshan retire?

Over the weekend, I was telling an English friend that I backed England for today's game. No, I was not drunk ;-) But, such a flat performance after that brilliant Root century. Travesty of justice. The rate at which things are going, England are probably happy to win the remaining minnow games and get to the quarters to meet India @ the G. After the tri-series and the test series, they must be fancying their chances against India! But Bangladesh will be ready to hack any such thoughts. That match on March 9th is going to be important.

The PAK-ZIM game was more absorbing. At the start of batting powerplay, it was Zim's game to lose and they promptly lost it. Irfan did bowl from the 2nd floor for those four wickets. 

Some ordinary umpiring in this game, though. Tsk, Tsk.

The last match of the group stage PAK vs IRE will be a key one too. The organizers can boast that until the last match the QF line-up was not finalized :-]

G-Section:

ManiacG is on a real hot streak. He is close to 1000 credits and we are just half-way down the pool-stage.

No games tomorrow.

However, please send in your QF line-ups by 6pm SGT Monday 2nd March.

Status now:

Q-Section:

Ok, for two points, the equation gets changed now. Hints from yesterday + this should help you deduct the answer.

6≍7≍7≍7.5≍40≍254

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 15 - Boult - The Starc Contrast!

RIP, Mr Spock.

I had three titles for this post before settling on the above.

Boult Screws Ozzies (a Cricinfo writer went to twitter with that; so gave that up)
Fat Lady sings Advance Australia Fair (then KaneW nailed that beaut of a six)
Fat Lady loves Boult & not Starc (no, too fat)

Such was the intensity of the game; so many mini-battles inside the 56-over-game; it was so emotionally draining that one slept through the Indian victory - well, the first half of it that is. At the end of it all, the thriller felt contrived. Uncharitable, ain't I? Something tells me that these two will be at the G in about a month's time :-}

After the dinner break at Auckland, I was rooting for Australia and wifey not-so-politely opined that my mental make-up should be checked.  For a change, I was able to make a cogent reply to the better-half: I support the under-dogs! (and India are underdogs irrespective of whoever they play!)

So, there it goes. I have called Oz as the under-dogs; but to have reduced them to that, albeit temporarily, hats off to NZ - The bravado team of CWC15.

India mauled UAE. Karate and Swapnil did not have their Andy Warhol moments. I suppose the collective IPL-induced Indian might was more than sufficient to overcome the prayers of Kollangode and Vasai residents from where these two gentlemen originate from.

And the green-award goes to NZ (2nd time) and Ind (1st time) for saving electricity.

G-Section:

A healthy turnout. Good harvest for ManiacG in the first game while India proved to be unlucky to all the punters!

Here are the results:

You have time till Monday 2nd March 1800 SGT to send the quarter-final lineups.

Tomorrow's games are slurp slurp... mouth-watering:

England vs Sri Lanka @ Wellington by 0530 SGT

Pakistan vs Zimbabwe @ Brisbane by 1100 SGT

Q-Section:

Somebody commented: "aah, is this the way that you get back at us for doing picture-based google search?"

That 'equation' seems to have stumped every one.

So keeping it open for one more day. It is not mathematical and think countries.

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 14 - Devil Service Restored!

You grow that awful beard.You get overwhelmed by a noisy Indian crowd at the G.You are that close to a suspension.You have kids telling your star bowler on how to bowl.You have Crow(e)s writing unsolicited letters to you.

What do you do, ABdV, what do you do?

Score the fastest ODI 150.Treat the opposite captain like a kid.Cramp or no cramp, take sharp catches.Make people wonder, what would have happened if he had come in three overs earlier :-)? 

Well, he has scored 311 runs in the last 110 balls against WI!!!!!! 

That is a triple in T20 ^*&#@^$*

At the 30-over mark (first innings that is!), I was thinking that this is indeed going to be a game of attrition. Nossir! Said SA and gave such a drubbing to Windies that they are jumping up and down in Lahore!

Q-Section:

That was reasonably an easy one - AngelAsh, Raghav, ManiacG & Guru get the right answer which is...

The first picture is from Second Boer War - the battle of Spion Kop (which is a hill in South Africa). Some of the stands in the football stadia around the UK looked like Spion Kop and people started calling them as Kop. The second picture shows one such Kop in Hillsborough (of course the most famous one is at Anfield). The third picture is that of Koppers Towers in Pittsburgh and is the headquarters of Koppers Holdings Inc (NYSE trading symbol: KOP)

So, the three letter word is KOP and you can direct your four letter and five letter words towards all and sundry!

For today's question: 

Under what circumstance does the following equation hold true? [4 points]

6≍7≍7≍7.5

G-Section:

ManiacG and Vishal guessed the correct nature of the West Indian capitulation.

And our Saturday is going to be regaled by: 

New Zealand vs Australia @ Auckland by 0830 SGT

India vs UAE @ Perth by 1400 SGT

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 13 - Afghan Dastarkhan!

Two matches. Two victories. One will remain in your mind for ever. And you will be pardoned if you feign ignorance about the other result!

The Afghans gave us a spread of veritable feast - great bowling, spirited fielding, shambolic batting, gutsy batting, jangled nerves and finally the just desserts of a sweet victory!

An Afghan win - and by corollary the top performances by the Associates this World Cup has proved one thing. When your backs are to the wall, you throw caution to the wind and perform. The Irish, Scots, Emiratis, Afghans and even the Zimbabweans - all of them knew of one thing: this is probably the last time that they might play in a Cricket World Cup. They must have thought: while we are at it, let us throw some eggs on the faces of the powers-that-be!

What was missing so far from the so-called Elites (or super-8s, for the pedantic ones!) is the visible passion, discernible romanticism and above all their indomitable spirit. One may say that their tanks will run dry sooner than later; that their initial enthusiasm will wear off next week. However likely that may be - I doubt that though, it is only right that we give due respect and more opportunities to the teams that have managed to produce the only two close games of this cup!

As somebody tweeted, "the big 3 should allow these guys to tour them!"

In the meantime, MCG saw the third one-sided game this tournament...tsk tsk...

G-Section:

A couple of brave souls put their money on AFG and one bravado-soul thought that SL will thulp BAN.

So, Guru, Yadavalli and Siva* reap the harvest.

Tomorrow's game might see another testimony of Newton's law of Universal Gayle force. No Philander. No Bravo. No boredom.

South Africa vs West Indies @ Sydney by 1100 SGT

Your guesses are as usual, always welcome!

Q-Section:

When I think that a question is tough, the answers pour in. And if I expect a down-pour it scorches. So this easy question seems to have stumped more. Only Raghav, AngelAsh, Bhuvana  (these three are quite busy with work, I suppose :-)) got the answer after substantial struggle.

So, get ready with your missiles to throw at me after you read the answer :-)

Now, the clue had a book's name written by Fukuyama which also happens to be the name of a city in Japan and that city's flag has a...you got it right! - a bat.

I initially thought that I will leave the question open for one more day. But two of the three above, came with the right answer as I was writing this. So here goes the next question:

An easy one. [3 points]

What is the three letter word that you would associate with these three? Need the explanations too.

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 12 - Finally an Irish Thriller!

UAE might be 'feeling sad' a-la-ABdeV and might be asking the following questions over the shawarma tonight:

- What if their top-order batsmen showed a bit more urgency?

- What if Guruge did not get that hamstring problem making him not complete his overs?

- What if that bail had fallen off for Joyce?

- What if that catch of KO'B was taken before he went berserk?

- What if one of those zillion run-out chances were taken?

Of course, what if life has a rewind button?

Pool B table looks un-recognizable... India, WI, Ireland, South Africa. Early days.

And in line with today's theme, what if UAE had won today? It would have been : India, WI, Ireland, UAE. Sacrilegious!

G-Section:

ManiacG and Vishal hit pay-dirt. I had a small correction to be made from yesterday's results. Corrected in y'day's blog as well as following table.

Tomorrow's games include another Associate clash.

Afghanistan vs Scotland @ Dunedin by 0530 SGT

Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka @ Melbourne by 1100 SGT

Q-Section:

Six people got the places right.

AngelAsh, Raghav, Rambo, Guru, Siva* & Yuva

But is that the question? The last three tried their best (all except Canberra have dedicated cricket ground OR all except Canberra are forts...) but could not get the link. For trying they get 3 points each.

However the first three got the correct link that all the places except Chennai have had a ODI double-century scored in them.

And the places are:

1. Fort St George, Chennai

2. Gwalior Fort, Gwalior

3. Dhar Fort, Indore

4. Bangalore palace, Bangalore

5. Fort William, Kolkata

6. Parliament House, Canberra

8 points to the first three. Good show folks! Impressive.

Here is the current state of the quiz board. AngelAsh and Raghav are up there. One slip the lead goes off!

Now for today's question:

Was this the last man to flag the end of history? Of course there is a connection. What is it? [4 points]

 Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 11 - CeeGee tees off!

(c) Santabanta

Meanwhile, somewhere in the IPL-land, SRK laments!

West Indies' innings was book-ended by two wickets in the first and last over the afternoon. Only problem for the ZIM was a small matter of 372 runs in between.

Chris Gayle (called CeeGee by his colleagues) decided to erupt today. A typical innings. Was biding his time until around the power-play (had his 100 by then) and then mayhem. Very interesting innings by Samuels too - it was almost as if WI have decided to copy India's blueprint to have their #3 stay there and clobber later.

Zim have conceded 300+ in two games and almost 300 in the other game. But their batting is quite capable of working on anything that you throw at them.

And those DRS reviews...aaarghh!! As Gayle said in his mid-innings - "You can't be serious?"

Q-Section:

That was the real free-hit that people wanted. 8 people answered it right! AngelAsh, Bhuvana, Guru, Muthiah, Raghav, Rambo, Siva* and Yuva got the full four points.

The youngster was Aaron Swartz invented RSS (Rich Site Summary) and Keshav Baliram Hedgewar founded RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). Of course, both could be called an activist in their own right.

Now for today's question. 8 points.

http://youtu.be/JVCZlC8a_II

G-Section:

Vishal and Yuva cleaned up. Almost a full house today.

Tomorrow's game:

Ireland vs UAE @ Brisbane by 1100 SGT

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)

Day 10 - Eng...Stutter...Land!

Drawing (c) RachelGold

For about 25 overs the English thought that they had turned the tide and a 350 beckoned. Then the familiar English malaise set in and the innings progressed akin to 410G bus driven by an apprentice driver from Bishan to Marymount. 

For those of you who are unaware of bus mechanics in Singapore:
They are very cold. Very. They stink of diesel and engine oil. The average distance between bus-stops is about 73.2 metres (I made that up!). And the buses are driven by bus-captains who think that they should hit a speed of 60 kmph within that long distance of 73.2 metres. Result? Your knuckles turn white holding those rails tight to avoid those start-speed-stop-speed-stop jerks!

No, don't want to talk about Moeen or any other English players yet. Coetzer was good. Oh, the Scot uniform is beautiful. Wouldn't mind acquiring one :-)

And by the way, this is the first match of this WC where the minnows were thoroughly beaten. AFG v BAN doesn't count ;-)

G-Section:

Shanky cleaned up the pool today and jumps to third place after languishing in the red till yesterday.

Tomorrow's game is going to be a cracker:

West Indies vs Zimbabwe @ Canberra by 1100 SGT

Q-Section:

The un-thinkables happen. AngelAsh (2 points) did NOT give the full answer. Bhuvana (5 points) did give the full answer. Tonight's dinner is turning out to be delicious!

The five pictures are:

Chandu (as in Bukit Chandu)
M - from James Bond
Ice-cream
Kit Kat
Snow White

I am sure you will check SANA's website to find out that these are the street names of five 'deadly' drugs.

And today's question is:

State the link between the youngster and the old man - may their souls rest in peace. [4 points]

Answers and guesses to the usual place.

(The usual place is my email address/FB PM/Whatsapp; details of rules/ranges etc., are at http://sribees.blogspot.sg/2015/02/gq-15-here-we-come.html)