99

The crowd at the Chinnaswamy stadium was it's usual boisterous self, all 100,000 of them. They know a good test match when they see one, and Aussies always put on a great show. Mitchell Johnson bowls to Murali Vijay. It was a crucial match for Vijay, trying to cement his place in this strong Indian batting lineup. Vijay lets the ball alone, crowd responds with a mild mannered disapproval. You can sense their excited impatience.

Next ball, Johnson to Vijay, 87.7 mph, closer to the off, still outside and no need to play a shot; Vijay doesn't. Fourth ball of the over, Johnson to Vijay, 88.2 mph, It lands outside off and goes further away, left alone by Vijay. The crowd is now restless, one might think that Vijay is batting very well, playing ball on it's merit, but that leave didn't seem to impress the crowd. Infact, you can hear a few boos going around, murmurings of disapproval. Poor Vijay! his own countrymen seem to be imploring him, no, taunting him to take a run.

Vijay seems anxious to get to the other end too as if he were facing the deadly Holding, but he wasn't and Johnson is medium-pace at best. You can sense that he doesn't want to be facing the bowler right now. Johnson to Vijay, 86.3 mph, on the middle stump line, that round-armish action brings the ball into the middle and leg line. This was gold, Vijay's eyes light up and he clips it away for a single. Stadium erupts and a huge roar goes up as if Vijay scored the winning run for the match. Surely he did, since the crowd has assumed a life of it's own and have started to cheer wildly. The crowd raise in unison as a relieved Vijay completes the run. Running from the non-striker's end was Sachin Tendulkar, on 99.

Quotes

I have this habit of collecting quotes I find interesting. Here's a dump:

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National anthems can be learnt, but can't be felt. - Figo
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Forget Ram Temple, let's build a temple for Laxman.
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Its not like they know what I am bowling, its like they don't care what I am bowling. - Brad Hogg's thoughts on the Indians' mastery over spin on one of his tours to India
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Anna (Annadurai) wanted to gain power to bring about reforms. However, in his own time he saw the decadence of power. He saw how power corrupts. So he was a disillusioned man at the end.
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Only people who have lived under Riots, bombings and ethnic murder will realise Prabhakaran's role. Good or Bad .. he will be in memory and remembered.
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The bureaucracy is strong in this country (USA), and unlike other countries, hard to bribe.
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When one woman asked whether it was safe to leave (during the 2008 Mumbai attacks at Taj), the commando replied: "Don't worry, you have nothing to fear. The first bullets have to go through me."
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Perhaps it is possible to create more net evil by poorly chosen efforts to keep evil in check.
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The more I see him, the more I want to see him. - Azhar on Sachin
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His life seems to be stillness in a frantic world... [When he goes out to bat], it is beyond chaos, it is a frantic appeal by a nation to one man. - Matt Hayden on Sachin
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Sachin, the man we all want to be. - Andrew Symonds
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Nobody does solos better than Sachin Tendulkar, nor, perhaps, has anyone endured as much heartbreak during those solos.
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CEO Eric Schmidt told: while he assumed that "Google would be an important company; the founders always assumed that Google would be a defining company."
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A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. - Thomas Jefferson
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Sachin didn't sleep well for 15 days leading up to the match against Pakistan in the 2003 World Cup. He would stay awake planning how to handle each bowler. He admits that he played the entire innings in his head way before it happened on the field. - Akash Chopra in his cricinfo article
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If to be alive is to be remembered by others, Rajeev will always live amongst all of us. - Tribute to Rajeev Motwani
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20,000 people die from novel 2009-H1N1 and everybody wants to wear a mask. 9 million people die from AIDS and no one wants to wear a condom.
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What I'm saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.” - Harry Burns in When Harry Met Sally
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Well innovation is how America works. The characteristic of America that is different from other countries is that we have more jobs lost and more jobs created per year than anybody else. Literally the creative destruction, this constant process of layoffs and new jobs and new companies and so forth is key to America's competitiveness. We don't want to lose that. - Eric Schmidt
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Once you’ve found the global optimal, why waste time looking for something else? - Rajeev Motwani
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My own theory of attitude of intellectuals is that the market is too big to control, so massive that it can't be understood in conventional frames of thought too caught up with the overt symptoms to delve into the underlying framework. If it can't be easily controlled, or easily understood, it evokes fear. This fear prompts calls for regulation and state intervention. I wish it prompted a fresh look at the frames of thought. Alas...
--

The Beautiful Game

"Football is for people who play with cunning...so to put technology like a chip in the ball to see if it went in...I think you take away the cunning and then football ends for the great players...it takes away what football is about, Football is for the cunning, not for technology." - Sergio Romero (Argentinian keeper)

Argentinian goal keeper suggests that you have to be cunning to play football, and might be hinting that introducing technology might take that away from the game. I have to admit that I agree with him. I think for a contact sport like football, pushing, shoving, handballs etc. are integral to the game. I played a little bit of high-school soccer to understand the inevitability of leg-kicks, shoulder-pushes in these tight spaces, and the necessity of these things to win games. Lesson 101: say you are in position to meet and head-in a corner kick, how do you get elevation? You put your hands on the defenders' shoulders and help yourself up as you push him down.

If you have played a totally non-contact sport like cricket, the goalkeepers' view might not make sense. Essentially, in cricket, you play in isolation in your own personal space. Now in Soccer, if we introduce camera reviews of certain incidents, it becomes so much harder...what with every kick, shove, shirt-grab being reviewed and judgements passed. It could lead to situation where players are compelled to give each other space and that isn't soccer anymore. Worse, if these reviews are done during live matches it disrupts the very flow that makes the game so beautiful to watch.

One might object saying that we *start* with simple things like goal line technology, offside calls etc. But question is, what other incidents will you include as we go on, and more importantly will you stop there?

I feel that a few 'Hand of God' incidents make soccer unpredictable while being delightful and we don't need an all seeing 'Eye of God'.

Late Night Wars

Having been a fan of Late night talk shows, I have been religiously following Letterman, Leno and Conan 'o Brien all these years. Being a comedy geek, I was particularly excited when Conan took over the coveted 'Tonight Show' last year and was looking forward to some innovative comedy moments from one of the genuinely brilliant comedic minds of this generation.

So when NBC decided to move Leno to 11:35Pm, pushing Conan to past mid-night, everyone looked up at Conan to see how he would respond, and respond he did -- with a mind-blowing press release statement that was a lesson in class, dignity and self-respect. The ingenuity in the release started with the way it was addressed: "People of the earth". (I have reprinted his statement at the end of this blog). His response/press-release was so amazing that people have called for it to be encased in glass to be studied at graduate programs.

I have always liked Conan O'Brien. He is goofy, funny and insightful in a way that doesn't appeal to everyone. But my respect for him grew exponentially with his stand, and what 'Tonight Show' meant to him. Conan's monologue bits, since then, has followed it up with scathing bits ripping NBC and it's execs, and does not even spare Leno.

Ironically, his particular monologue bit where he said "NBC put him and Jay Leno in a pit and told them to fight it out with sharpened weapons, the winner gets to leave NBC", might actually be in his best interest.
--

Conan's statement on the Tonight Show fiasco:

"People of Earth:

In the last few days, I've been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I've been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I've been absurdly lucky. That said, I've been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn't the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn't matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it's always been that way."