Indian Cricket Team: Hot News

It is exciting to read about the possibles changes in the Indian Cricket Team for the West Indies Tour. India would be playing One T20, Five ODIs & Three Tests.

I am jotting down some of the interesting things related to the Indian Cricket Team doing the rounds:

• West Indies are currently ranked No.7 in Tests and No.9 in ODIs. While India is ranked 1st in Test & 2nd in ODIs.
• Windsor Park, Roseau, Dominica will host its 1st ever Test. That would be the 3rd Test of this tour.
• Telegraph India has quoted one of the national selector - 

"Left to us, we’d probably rest only Zaheer Khan, as we can’t do without him in England"

• Virender Sehwag might again require surgery on his right shoulder and may miss the tour completely. He didn’t bowl in the World Cup and hasn’t bowled in the IPL, either.
• There is a speculation that Eric Simons, India’s bowling consultant, will be appointed as chief coach for the Tour. He is believed to have the backing of the seniors in the national team.
• Robin Singh could be the assistant coach.
• Names of Lalchand Rajput, Zimbabwean Duncan Fletcher, New Zealander Stephen Fleming and Andy Flower as the Chief Coach.are also doing the rounds.
• Fleming is the current coach of IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings which is owned by N. Srinivasan, the Secretary of BCCI. CSK's Brand ambassador is Kris Srikkanth, the current chairman of the National Selection Committee. CSK's Captain is the National Captain Dhoni.
• Latest media reports suggest that Andy Flower has been offered a new three-year deal by England Cricket Board.
• If Seniors of the India Team are rested for the Tour of West Indies then there could be some curious changes in the team like

Ø  Yuvraj Singh might be selected for the Test Team.

Ø  Yuvraj Singh might captain the squad for the Tour.

Ø  Mumbai Indians’ Ambati Rayudu could be included in the ODI squad.

Ø  Kings XI Punjab’s Paul Valthaty could get selected for the T20 game.

• Nike extends Team India uniform sponsorship with BCCI for 5yrs. As Nike had the first right of refusal, no other bid was entertained.

Champions League  updates: BCCI is mulling to include a 4th IPL team in the Champions League. CL will have a total of 10 teams this time. It will have 3 teams from India, 2 each from Australia & South Africa and 1 from England. For the last 2 slots, it is planned to have a qualifying round of matches between the fourth IPL team and a team each from West Indies, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

Indian Grand Prix circuit has been named as Buddh International Circuit

The Formula 1 circuit at Jaypee Integarted Sports Complex in Greater Noida for the Indian Grand Prix has been named as Buddh International Circuit (BIC). 


The 5.14 Km circuit has been designed by Herman Tilke. The 1st Indian Grand Prix will happen on October 28-30 2011. The approximate cost to develop the circuit has been $400 million.

The circuit's official logo has been designed by Prasoon Joshi. The stylized ‘B’ of the circuit’s logo stands for ‘Buddh’ and for ‘Bharat'.


It is said that the initial seating capacity would be 110,000 which can later be increased to 200,000. Jaypee Greens Sports City, where this circuit is situated, plans to host a 100,000 seat cricket stadium, 18-hole golf course, 25,000 seat hockey stadium and a sports academy.

SkyNet has become self-aware

Just saw this message on Facebook:

Beware of electronic appliances around you, Skynet is supposed to be self aware from today :)

For a few seconds I really got a bit scared or you can say I got curious. Instantly I searched it on Google. I found the following things:

• Skynet may refer to: Skynet (satellites), a UK military communications system. And,
• Skynet is the main antagonist in the Terminator franchise - an artificially intelligent system which became self-aware and revolted against its creators.

Finally the mystery got solved when I read a post about it on HuffingtonPost. It is telling that on April 21, 2011, SkyNet became self-aware and began its worldwide attack on humanity.

Read the post on HuffingtonPost @ Friday Talking Points -- Skynet Attacks!

Think twice before opting for the HTML version of email subscriptions

Though I always dislike subscribing to newsletters, I find several times Newsletters from Respected firms sneaking into my Inbox.
You would have noticed that while Subscribing to Newsletters, they ask whether you want plain-text 'boring' Newsletters or 'rich & colorful' HTML version of it. Please never fall for the HTML version. HTML helps in tracking user's activities like which link in the mail has been clicked or whether the mail is getting landed up in the Junk folder or when it has been actually read or not etc etc.

Please read the complete article on Forbes: Newsletters: HTML or Plain Text

Just to add to the story, I had once tried a third-part software which used to go along with a plain-text email in Outlook. The free version of it used to send me exact time when a particular mail was read, the internet service provider etc etc.
So be careful before subscribing to Newsletters from even Well-Known firms.

Bihar roads are better than in many parts of Europe: EU MPs

A delegation of European Union (EU) MPs recently met Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and told that the roads in the state are better than those in many European countries like Belgium and Romania.
Wow!! It seems those days are over when Bihar's roads were compared with the cheeks of Om Puri.

I don't know how much Bihar is progressing or whether it will get counted among the most developed states of India in the near future, however one thing is very obvious that it is getting much good press along with Nitish Kumar.
Recently only Anna Hazare took Nitish's name along with Narendra Modi's name in the same breath while talking about development in India. The initial report of Census 2011 too is showing tremendous progress for Bihar, though still it is trailing behind the rest of India.

People are talking about the Bihar's model of development!!
Lets hope that Bihar progresses fast and uniformly.

Jharkhand Players in IPL 4

I have compiled a list of players I know who are now playing with different teams of IPL's 4th season.

. Name IPL Team Playing Style Profile on CricInfo . Mahendra Singh Dhoni Chennai Super Kings Wicketkeeper, Right-hand bat Mahendra Singh Dhoni . Saurabh Tiwary Royal Challengers Bangalore Left-hand bat Saurabh Tiwary . Varun Aaron Delhi Daredevils Right-arm medium Varun Aaron . Ishank Jaggi Deccan Chargers Right-hand bat Ishank Jaggi . Shahbaz Nadeem Delhi Daredevils Slow left-arm orthodox Shahbaz Nadeem .

Outsmart the Airlines to Get the Best Seat in Coach

The Middle Seat: Outsmart the Airlines to Get the Best Seat in Coach - WSJ.com: "Where others saw tiny tush space, SeatGuru.com saw opportunity. With seat layouts and ratings for 720 different airplanes flown by 100 different airlines, the website has become the authoritative source for cabin information. Using internal research and feedback from fliers, SeatGuru highlights the gems, like seats with unlimited legroom, and flags the duds, like window seats with no windows. Information is so thorough that SeatGuru says airline reservation centers use its site for information on their own planes. (Airlines confirm that.)"

Format of IPL 4 - Group Stage & KnockOut

Format of IPL IV (taken from Wikipedia)

With the introduction of 2 new teams, a new ten-team format was created. This new format consists of 74 matches and was introduced as retaining the previous format would result in 94 matches, significantly greater than the 60 matches from the previous season, where teams compete in a double round-robin tournament. The knockout stage was changed to a playoff format. If a match ends in a tie, a Super Over will be played to determine the winner.

KnockOut Format

Four games will be played in the playoffs:

• Qualifier 1: between the teams ranked first and second in the group stage.
• Eliminator: between the teams ranked third and fourth in the group stage.
• Qualifier 2: between the loser of the Qualifier 1 and winner of the Eliminator.
• Final: between the winners of the Qualifiers 1 and 2.

The top three teams from the tournament qualify for the 2011 Champions League Twenty20.

Group Stage Format

The ten teams are divided into two groups of five. In the group stage, each team plays 14 games: facing the other four teams in their group two times each (one home and one away game), four teams in the other group once, and the remaining team two times. A random draw was used to determine the groups and who plays whom across the groups once and twice.

Each team plays the team in the same row and the same column twice, and all others once. For instance, Pune Warriors will play Chennai Super Kings and the other Group A teams twice but the other teams from Group B (Kolkata Knight Riders, Kochi Tuskers Kerala, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals) only once. Similarly Kochi Tuskers Kerala will play Delhi Daredevils and the other Group B teams twice but all other teams from Group A only once.

Group A	Group B
Deccan Chargers	Kolkata Knight Riders
Delhi Daredevils	Kochi Tuskers Kerala
Kings XI Punjab	Royal Challengers Bangalore
Mumbai Indians	Rajasthan Royals
Pune Warriors India	Chennai Super Kings

Brazil stares down the US on Libya - Al Jazeera

Brazil stares down the US on Libya - Al Jazeera: "he Washington Post, the New York Times, and National Public Radio, along with a host of other newspapers, cable news commentators, and blogs, all predicted that Obama, the US's first African American president, and Rousseff, Brazil's first woman leader, would find common ground, reversing the deterioration of diplomatic relations that had begun under Rousseff's predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The bad blood started, or so the story went, when Lula refused to listen to the administration of George W. Bush and isolate Venezuela's populist leader, Hugo Chávez. Before long, Brasilia was opposing or, worse, offering alternatives to Washington's position on a growing number of issues: climate change, opposition to the 2009 coup in Honduras, Cuba, trade and tariffs."

Is there anything to cheer about Bihar’s literacy rate?

Is there anything to cheer about Bihar’s literacy rate?: "True, according to Census 2011 data, Bihar’s literacy figure jumped from 47.5 per cent to 63.82 per cent in the last ten years. But this does not mean that there is something to celebrate about as the state has long way to go."

GoDaddy CEO Shoots Elephant, Posts Video: Critics Outraged - TIME

We all shoot vacation videos, but most of us choose to keep them to ourselves — or, at worst, share them with our Facebook friends. Bob Parsons, CEO of the Internet-hosting firm GoDaddy.com, which you know from its lame Super Bowl ads and absolutely nothing else — likes bigger exposure. Parsons recently posted a video of his trip to Zimbabwe, where he shot an elephant.

Check the video in the link:

GoDaddy CEO Shoots Elephant, Posts Video: Critics Outraged

Ferrari of space probes

Goce satellite maps the Earth's gravity in unprecedented precision | Science | guardian.co.uk: "A European spacecraft that skims the upper reaches of the atmosphere has mapped Earth's gravity with unrivalled precision. The map shows how the pull of gravity varies minutely over the surface of the Earth, from deep ocean trenches to majestic mountain ranges."

Cricket diplomacy: Mocking memory of 26/11

Cricket diplomacy: Mocking memory of 26/11 - The Economic Times: "Spanish-born US philosopher George Santayana's saying is particularly applicable to India: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'. Ad hoc, personality-driven policy-making has long been India's curse. Pakistan, although widely perceived to be a failing state, is still able to outwit India diplomatically. It is India, not Pakistan, that has climbed down diplomatically and sought a cricket-inspired thaw in relations."