Its all over for now.. Whats next?

There is already lot been said and done to show over anger and frustration. Every news channel I turn, they show people torching the players pictures and taking rally to show their rage on this shocking failure by our Indian team. As a country men, I would have to say that their outburst is expected and reasonable. I even showed mine in the discussion forum as soon as we lost to Srilanka.

I think we are failed by our fellow country men in this cricket battle. A long awaited dream to hold the world cup for another time is been spoiled and vanished just at the first gate/step by the poor showcase of men in blue.

There are 'n' number of blogs all over this internet floating around to cruse and complain about our teams poor performance in this world cup. There are also blogs which starting to talk about the new team india, how to revamp the team, who will be our next coach and so forth. There is also some news and blogs on how players shed tears and trying to cop-up with all this happening. They are also human and they are the first to get impacted by all these failure. They are the reason and they are the cause for all these things.

In Sulekha, I been seeing lots and lots of bloggers coming out of their caves to show their anger in words to shut off their burning fire inside them which is totally understandable. Cricket is been a life blood for most of us including me since we are kids. Its been feed thru our body as another protein like milk to enrich our life in someways. So I have to say that their anger towards our team is expected but that doesn't mean that we have to go out of our limit to trouble their family. There is always a limit for everything. I will never support that kinda of activity.

I think enough being said and its time to say enough is enough. We showed our outburst and anger in lot of ways and we leave the rest to be handled in a proper manner.. Being said that, we wonder and ponder on whats next for us and for the Team India..

As true cricketers, I think there is still lot more matches yet to be played in this world cup. We should start to let go of the sad moments and try to get out of the dull zone. We should start cherishing this time of world cup moments by picking your own favorite team in the super 8 and start supporting it. We only get this chance once in 4 years and we should not just shut our interest that our team is out and whatelse is there.

I know its easy to say then done. Time will always help to heal and makes things better. So doesn't sweat on the past, just try to dwell on the current moment and cherish it. We can always go back to support our team when they are ready to take on the next battle. We will always be there. So go and pickup your team in the super 8, let it be any good sub-continent team like SL or BL(like to give preference since they are our close neighbors.) or W.I who was an underdog or 2 time loser RSA. Try to enjoy this worldcup. There is lot more left to watch and cheer.

For the Team India, there are lot of speculation about revamping the whole team. Throwing out veterans, finding new blood, fining them heavily, banning them from adverstisement and much more.. There is still lot to come.. I don't want to comment anything on it. If its all for good reason, it always encouraged..

Whatever it may be, our chance for this world cup ran out and we have to wait for our next one. There is still 1460 days left and lot will happen during this timeframe. I hope things will change, they will fall in place and surely pave a way to a strong team which we can believe and support for the next world cup..

Lets cherish this moment as there is lot left to be played.. Be a sportman, a true cricketer. Join us in the sulekha discussion form for more fun talks...

Dravid Captiancy: What can he do better ?

A historical unforgettable defeat and a historical unimaginable win, these are 2 extreme end of our team under Dravid Captaincy.

Indian Cricket fans all over the world are mauling about how Dravid fared as a captain in the last 2 world cup matches. They are neophytes who didn't even know anything about cricket going loquacious on this topic. On the other end, there are experts(including chappel I hope) who are analyzing the data and digging to the bottom of it to suggest some valuable advices to him for the next match.

We been seeing lots of blogs lately in this cricket section talking about these matches and Dravid captaincy. I even published blogs on the match results and commented about his captaincy in my blogs.(http://houstonvijai.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/03/we-will-be-back-back-with-vigor-and-vengeance.htm, http://houstonvijai.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/03/bravo-india-but-its-not-over-yet.htm)

The important question we all wanted to be answered is, Did Dravid prevail successfully as a captain under pressure?

He is king'ed as the captain more than a year ago. He was able to bring on some good wins both in our home soil and some outside the territory. He managed to lead the team in difficult and failure times. Since those matches are just league matches, we didn't put those under our microscopic view to test find faults.

As soon it comes to worldcup, every matches falls under our radar screen for the clean lab test on each department. We start to complain about bowling, batting, fielding and captaincy all together. We as fans always do this and its common for any fans in any sport I have seen. There is anything wrong in it. But we should also appreciate the fact he took over the captiancy without much of an experience and he is been doing pretty good job.

Captaincy is a leadership skill which can't be learn thru books. It has to be gained thru experiences. You can be a good team player but it doesn't mean that you can take on as a leader and be captain. It didn't work well for Sachin. Leadership skill needs people management ability to go friendly at the same time hard on your teammates to accomplish the best for your team. Its a special skill.

" A good leader is not one who creates best followers. He is the one who creates best leaders"

As per me, he still miss lots of hard capabilities which is important for a captain to excel. We have seen good captiancy's from Kapil, Azy & Ganguly. They had the aggresiveness, power to move the team for their purpose, survive under tensed situation and make wise decisions. All these capabilities are a must for a good captain.

Things he should have done in the last 2 matches as per the critics are,

Bangladesh Match: He didn't make the proper decision after winning the Toss as per the pitch condition. He did make proper bowler options and didn't use them well enough to get the wickets to give pressure to the opponents.

Bermuda match: He made a good decision on changing the batting position to get a good score. Also why Agarkar was included in the 11man team. Why can't we use Sreesthanth or Irfan ? He also missed on using Sachin earlier to get some break to bundle them soon. Also I wonder why he don't want to use Ganguly as an extra bowler.. These are some vital questions from these matches.

On SL match, taking all the past into consideration, we all have different match options in our mind ready to suggest to our indian team. I am seeing a strong discussion in the sulekha forum about it.

Some say, we should dump Harbhajan & Agarkar and have Irfan and Kumble. Others say we should have a good batting lineup not the one we used against Bermuda. Experts mention, we should bowl first to restrict them for low score and chase it with our strong batting line up.. Its really locaquios topic at this time since we have only one match to decide on our future in Worldcup.

I think, we should make use of Irfan's all rounder capability to add extra batsment strength to the team with the bowling ability. Kumble would be my choice against Harbhajan.

Who knows, whats going in the Carribean dressing room ?! No one knows.. But as a vivid cricket fans, did we ever miss a chance to brainstorm options for our team in this situations. So why waste thinking about, lets do it.

If you were Dravid at this moment, What do you think is your best squad for the D-Day against SL? What do you do best to win the match? Shoot it out...

Bravo India. Its not over yet..

Didn't I tell you in my previous blog(http://houstonvijai.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/03/we-will-be-back-back-with-vigor-and-vengeance.htm) we will be back and back with vigor and vengeance. I think they heard us. Heard our countrymen cry for a good showcase. They didn't fail us, atleast this time..

What a splendid, spectacular innings by Indians? It not only created the marks in the world cup history but also given a big alarm and threat signal for SL's. This might even play against by wakening the wild side of SL to perform well on Friday. I can already hear some scaristic comments already that we can only make this kinda of score with minnow teams like Bermuda which no one can easily spot in the map.

There is always somebody to complain and comment about everything our team does. We really went mad at them on the way they played last saturday but we never lost our confidence against them. They came back up to prove that they will try to make our dreams come true. Whatever it may be nobody can change what had happened. Great Innings and unbeatable total marked the books of the World cup history.

I really saw the total sulekha forum went wild tracking the himalaya score. Everybody starts to share their joy with different posting on the world record. Its a good time to cherish. Its a great team effort and good decision made by the captain(atleast this time he thought of something better).

Uttapa seems to be the scapegoat this time. He had a good chance to shine but didn't materialize it.. If we can give second chance for sehwag, we sure definitely can give you one more chance, hold on Uttapa :-)

A very good partnership for the 2nd wicket. Ganguly did struggle a lot but got the act together finally after his 50 and smashed some good sixers. He has lots of dot balls in the first half of is innings which got compensated by the sixers on the next half. He gave a good standin for sehwag. Sehwag did play a good innings to prove that his skippers believe didn't go in vain. :::I would root for W.I.: :what's going on with this match ?! : never checked this one yet. Good variety of shots to score 114 of 87 balls including 17 4's and 3 6's. We hope to see this continue through the innings..

The change of positions to send Dhoni next played to maintain the RR was a good decision. He didn't play is natural game but try to rotate the strike to give Ganguly more to bat. Expected some flying shots by ended with a mere 29. Next comes Yuvi. I expected our WALL(Dravid) to walk down but another surprise to see Yuvi. He played an outstanding matured innings with lots of SIXERS. Next comes Sachin to the field. I even forgot that he is still there. It was not his usual game but he played a real sensible cricket to keep the run ticking and rotating the strikes with Yuvi.

It was a great knock by Yuvi scoring 83 or 46 balls with 7 6's and 4 4's. I was hoping to see the fastest century in this world cup but it proved to be too greedy at this time. He should have contained himself and stayed for another 2overs. Then comes Dravid. Just gave strike to Sachin and at the last ball hit SIX which is really fantastic.. Good finish by the captain.

All-in-all a great show putup by our Indian team. It made history in all aspect. Highest score, Highest number of SIXERS etc.,

Being said all that and getting carried away with this record and praising our boys innings, India still has lot of work to do. If we can play with this confidence, vigor, determination and aggressiveness. We can sure to beat SL and then cross our fingers and pray for the SL/BL to fail. First thing first, we just need to get that job done by defeating SL with a good margin and wait for other things to fall in place.

Worst case - Calculations are on :

If we win SL - India - 4 points

If Sl win BL - SL - 4 points

If BL wins Bermuda - BL - 4points.

All team will have equal points and RR comes to play. This match should give us a boost in the rate. We should be able get to Super 8 convincingly if BL and SL fail in their matches or rain spoils to give us advantages or we have to watch out for their low RR's.

We always digged deep hole to ourselves and get to a tense moment like this one and tried to get out of it. Its not new for us. We never entered convincingly to super 8 one time but we always made it there. So like anything country men, I am also hoping we will make it this time too..

Lets cherish this wonderful and start worrying about the other permutation & combinations later.. Any thoughts about the other options in the calculation ?!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We just won Bermuda by 257 runs and that is the highest margin of win in terms of runs in ODIs.

There is still lot to worry about our bowling and Captiancy. Can we fight against SL with this bowling which doesn't have power and aggressivenes.We should have bowled them out long back. We got 8 wickets and couldn't finish the last 2 wkts tail enders. Is it worries yo uand gives sign to other teams that our bowling loses strenght.

Why dravid wants to keep trying Agarkar if he is expensive ? Why can't he try Sachin earlier ? Why he didn't try Ganguly. Lots of questions to be answered..

Lets hope he sort out these questions and get ready for the big one yet to come..

We will be back. Back with vigor and vengeance.

What went wrong today? What had happened out there? Why didn't we bat well? Does these teens just outplayed us? These are the questions that should have been discussed by Dravid with his boys and analyse the fact to get to the bottom before we step forward to our next one.

We all know there is lot of pressure and a big load on Dravid's shoulder because we as country men as great expectation to win WC. But we also need to understand they can only get there one step at a time. I share same frustration that every other for our team losing to Bangladesh.

One day we blew out everything and play the very best to beat top of the line. Before we digest that, we are swept away by getting beaten up a thriving/minow teams. I know it had happened to us many times and we let it happen to us again today. Did we always need a eye opener everytime?

I am might not be an expert but as common sense cricketer sharing some similar with other cricket fans in the discussion forum. We all feel that there are lots of things which went wrong in today's match. Lets get to the bottom of it, atleast just for our satisfaction. Hope chappel, dravid and the boys would have done this analysis before they go to the next 2 matches. Lets hope so.

Toss: We are lucky to win the toss. Caribbean salty wind blowed to favor us to get the tails and Dravid won the toss. He knows the pitch is dry and he is sure that its going to hard for 10-20 overs. Why didn't he take the advantage of that to thrash the Bangladesh team for low score and win by chasing it. He already set his mind to bat first to score like S.A against Holland but it didn't happen. Its a failure.. Also why he didn't pick up 2 spinners as the pitch is favoring it. Did Dravid should change and make proper decision game plan as per the conditions prevailed not just taking the preplan?

Batting Lineup: Its good to see Ganguly back in WC with Sehwag. We expected to see a good first wicket partnership. But something got paltry and we ended up losing one wicket after other. Is it because the Ist wicket didn't give the confidence boost?

I know we need to give chance for Sehwag to try and get back to his form. But there were lots of warning inside and outside the cricket circle about bangladesh bowling. Did Dravid should have reconsidered the opening options? Did you think Sachin and Ganguly opening might have worked better ?

Sachin couldn't prevail the good pace bowling. Dravid(The wall) himself failed to stop the fall of wickets. But Yuvaraj with Ganguly helped us to reach a respectabe score. Dhoni also failed today. We have 3 ducks. We have to depend on the Bowlers to do the batsmen job. If they can stand for 6 overs and score 30 runs. We should not blame the pitch after 20-30 overs. We should blame the team confidence and mentality to stay there to play hard.

Bowling:Bowling was just mere ok. How come Agarkar came in the 11men team ? where did Pathan and others go ? He was always expensive and never played line and length. Zaheer did try hard to get it straight and bowled 2 maidens. Munaf tried hard but not at his best in his second spell and got few wickets but he became expensive too. Dravid tried Yuvaraj and Sehwag. Luckily Sehwag got 2 wickets when its just merely 20 runs to win when its all over.

Why didn't he want to try Ganguly's medium pace ?? Harbhajan bowling didn't make any good impression. He couldn't get the ball to spin at all. I think Kumble will never get to retire. He is the googly man we wanted..

Overall, our bowling doesn't come close too Bangladesh teens.

Fielding: You all know how we fielded. There is no aggression. There is no power. There were missing catches. Runs kept coming in singles and doubles except few dot overs.. We still should be able to defend the score if we bowled well in the first spel and field well.

As a captain and team, I don't see vigor and aggressiveness. Something is missing in the team. We have to find the mising factor and sketch down the power game plan for the next 2 matches. Otherwise we will fail hard and will let our country mens dream fail too.

I surely want to commend and give kudos's to the teen(tiger) team. They really played as well matured game with lots of composure. They really bowled well. They just played their natural game that what they all said in the post game interview. Rassak and Rafique stroke again to get more wickets to restrict the team. I know there don't have nothing to lose and they played just their best.

We failed in all the departments comparing to them. They really showed maturity and good composure as a team. But they still have long way to go..

To Conclude, our team has to wake up now otherwise it will be too late. We have to come back hard and hard enough with vengeance to win every game..

There is no need to get to the extreme to torce their houses and so forth. I know we love our team a lot and thats the reason we couldn't just take this defeat. Lets give them some space and hope they will be back. They will be back with vigor and vengeance.

Worldcup 2007 - Collection of Important Match Highlighs

This blog has some creative video previews of Worldcup 2007. It will also get updated with important Match highlights from Youtube..
http://crickettivo.blogspot.com/

Interesting Astrologer Prediction

This is a interesting forecast from Ganeshspeaks.com website which came as the news in Sulekha. Looks like the time well spent to figure out totally a different scenorio and tried to be on the safe side. He is a true Astrologer :-) I won't recommend him. Please Read on and add your funny comments...

*******************

Millions of cricket fans are desperately waiting for the kick-off of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007, scheduled on 13 March 2007 in Jamaica, West Indies.

Taking the charts of all the Countries participating and the foundation dates of respective boards along with the all the available data of their Captain and Coach Ganesha has following observations and predictions about World Cup 2007.

Group Matches
Considering the planetary positions on the match day and their effects on match playing countries and their players Ganesha feels that in this round 8 teams that qualify for the next round would be

Australia
South Africa
India
Sri Lanka
New Zealand
England
Pakistan
West Indies
Semi Finals
Astrological aspects favour following countries for Semi Finals

South Africa
New Zealand
West Indies
Australia, Sri Lanka and India almost have same chances to qualify for the 4th spot.
India's Fate for Super Eight Matches
India's fate will heavily depend on the 4th game of the super eight matches. Toss will become very important and to chose bating/ balling will have strong impact over the game's outcome.

Probabilities of winning
If Australia reaches semi final as a Second or 3rd team they may have better chances to make it to the final.

If Australia reaches final they might not able to win.

If New Zealand reaches semi final as a 4th team they may not able to enter Final.

Even though New Zealand is playing extra ordinarily these days, they may not able to become World Champion.

Ganesha feels that South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies do have very good chances to make it to the final. Toss and choosing correct alternatives will decide the outcome of the game on that particular Day.

Ganesha feels that we will have a new world champion this time. Considering recent history of world cup winning country, even if logically it seems that a particular country might win, this time with surprise this logic may go wrong and we may have a new world cup champion emerging.

West Indies might be the Dark Horse in world cup 2007.

*******************

To read more, visit http://cricketworldcup.ganeshaspeaks.com/worldcup_forecast.jsp

A True World Championship

Can you imagine calling Ranji Troply as World Championship Cricket or think of calling Nehru Hockey Tournament as World champion Hockey Cup. No way right!! We can't really name that way because its all local trophies played within a country and between different states.

Only in America, you hear about World championships all the time. Let say their American Football. Hold on, its not soccer :-) I am right on saying it. Its american football which only people live in america can understand(i am slowly getting into it). If you watch, it similar to rugby but more physical than that.

Then comes Baseball World championship. They play Baseball leagues from Apr till Oct which overlaps with Football season from Sep - Feb. You might have a slight thought that they are playing with some other countries who knows how to play basefall and football. No, they are not. Its all played between different sponsored and well payed teams only in Americas.

When I got to know(7-8years back) about the World championship for football, I immediately asked my american friend. How many countries do they participate in this tournament? He is like, Did you ask how many countries ? No, its all inside America. We play between different teams all over America and who ever gets to win the final game are called World Champions.

I am like WHAT ?! My question as you all can guess, then why do you call World champions if you don't play with any other country. He is like "I don't know ?" The usual word I don't care answer which you hear from any american. They been calling it that way because the media calls it that way to get more sponsors and publicity.

Then he asks me about CRICKET. You play a game similar to baseball with Wicket. And I tried to explain to him more in detail. He is like, "You guys play for the 5 days or one full day". Thats too much work and too long of a play. I said, may be. I know, you want everything easy and simple.Thats what makes it more exciting. So I figured they don't like our CRICKET. I think they don't like it not for game sake, they won't like because its from Britain.

Truely speaking, are these Football and Baseball world championship up to other worldcup level ? May be the hype, publicity and money floats around can match up to the other worldcups but I don't think these cups can't be truely compared to other worldcups. The other aspect of it, you only have people from America watching these football & baseball championships. Compared to other worldcupls like Soccer and Cricket are watched by people all over the world.

Why do they call World Championship? I guess because nobody in this world plays these games and they don't have anybody else to beat outside their terriotory. Most of all, they don't open their eyes to see outside world. Funny fact of the matter is most people in America don't know anything outside of America. They always think America is their only world.

When President Bush was asked in 2000 election campaign about India, he couldn't able answer. May be he might have answered like, 'Is it in Europe?!. Who knows. Yeah right, It was in Europe now its in Africa. If the President itself couldn't answer about the outside world, how can we expect others to thing outside America. I know its changed a lot since then.

A True World championship is anything but a true fight between different countries from all over world to take away a CUP worthy of lifetime. There is more than the sports aspect in the world championships. It has sharing of culture between different countries, spreading the sport, bringing people and players together from different countries and much more..

Thats what I call a World Championship and thats what it's all about.

Bangladesh: Can India take them for granted ?!

World cup is on its way with a great start. We already saw W.I beating PAK comfortably with their mediacore bowling. Today, we have some interesting match between Canada and Kenya. I am betting on Kenya to win this one. They bowled out Canada for a low score of 199. Australia is taking on its first match in this world cup with Scotland. My guesses, they have to win with a great margin.

Most of all, we all are eagerly waiting to see our boys in the first match to be played with Bangladesh on Mar 17th. I know Indian team is totally prepared to rock and roll in this world cup. We hope to start our tally with a convincing and comfortable victory over bangladesh. But I am just bit worried about the way Bangladesh is been playing all these days.

As the other blogger(Naked Cricket) mentioned in his blog
http://nakedcricket.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/03/the-a-player-in-a-b-team-bangla-v-s-ind.htm, they have some good players on their side.

Do we have to be concerned a bit and not to take them for granted ? I guess so. They a have the small history on their side to upset big teams. Lets back up a bit and take a look at the warm-up matches they played.

They took on New Zealand in their first warm-up match. The Asian minnows pulled off the first shock of the ICC CWC by beating the Kiwis by two wickets in a warm-up game on Tuesday leaving Fleming to carry out an immediate inquest on what went wrong for his highly-touted team.

New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming, who came here celebrating a whitewash of world champions Australia, admitted they had been brought down to earth by Bangladesh. He said,

"It was a poor performance," said Fleming who had a miserable day with the bat failing to get of the mark.

"Nothing went right. We batted poorly at the beginning (the Kiwis were 34-4 at one stage) and did not assess conditions that well. We knew it was going to be tricky at the start and we fell flat on our faces.

Pace bowler Mashrafe Mortaza proved to be the hero with bat and ball along with left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak. For Bangladesh, it was a morale-boost to have a win ahead of their first round matches. It don't matter whether they won in warm-up match or actual league match. Its a good win thats all it counts.

Next they played with SCOTLAND. They sent them spinning to a seven-wicket defeat to make it two wins out of two. The slow left-armers Abdur Razzak (3-25) stuck again in this second match in succession along with Mohammad Rafique (2-16) who proved to be good.

They restricted Scotland to th mere 152-9 off their 50 overs at the 3Ws Oval before Bangladesh stormed to victory with the best part of 16 overs left thanks to an unbeaten 57 from Captain played a very responsible cricket played to bring the team back to win this match.

Overall, they have a good improved and balanced team under Dav Whatmoore as the coach. They have good pace and spin bowler as their main arsnel support by an improved batting line up.

Being said all that, I know we(Indians) are also a greatly balanced team as the coach GREG CHAPPELL mentioned. May be we shouldn't be much worried about this minows beating us but at the same time we shouldn't take them for granted.

This tiny fire ant squad can really pinch hard which might hurt us in the long run. So at first place, India shouldn't give them a chance to think about winning. am I right ?

Bets on for today's matches - Mar 14th

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Current Points:

Start Betting on:

Match: March 14th AUS vs SCOT

How will Aus win(like in 25overs and runs) ?

Please put your bet scores either as comments or in the forum for each betting questions.. Let me know of any suggestions...

Quick Team Health Checkup

AUSTRALIA

Key players: Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey, Stuart Clark

Notable absence: Brett Lee (injury)

Strengths: Professionalism, superior fielding, depth in batting

Weaknesses: Arrogance, stubbornness when things go awry, recent poor form of Bowlers

Overall WC record: 41-17-1

World champions in 1987, 1999 and 2003

SCOTLAND

Key players: Dougie Brown, Gavin Hamilton

Notable absence: Ian Stanger (not selected)

Strengths: The professional experience of the likes of Brown and Hamilton

Weaknesses: Another team that is out of its depth at the international level.

Overall WC record: 0-5

Match: March 14th CAN vs KEN

Who will win this match and How they will win ?
Please put your bet scores either as comments or in the forum for each betting questions.. Let me know of any suggestions...
Quick Team Health Checkup

CANADA

Key players: John Davison, Ashish Bagai, Umar Bhatti
Notable absence: Don Maxwell (not selected)

Strengths: Arguably the best bowling attack among the minnows

Weaknesses: Mostly amateur batsmen who will be out of their depth against international bowling sides

KENYA

Key players: Steve Tikolo, Thomas Odoyo

Notable absence: Martin Suji (injury), Kennedy Otieno (not selected)

Strengths: A tendency to punch above their weight class

Weaknesses: Not enough recent cricket against top sides

Overall WC record: 5-14-1

Check out the list of live score links at

http://houstonvijai.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/03/live-streaming-live-scorecard-useful-website-cheatsheet.htm

Live Streaming and Live Scorecards - Useful Weblinks Cheatsheet

Most of the matches starting around 13.30 GMT time except the matches in Jamica which starts at 14:30 GMT. I know the timing works better in favor of people in india since its falls during the night time. They can watch every match live on the television in their bed.

 

But for people in USA like me and other places, the match timings might fall during the workday. We might have to sneak thru the work hours to check scores in the web while we are working. So I thought my list of website collection will be of great use. I have experienced some problems when I only dependent on one site. Sometimes they might be slow during the peak. Its always good to have a list so you can try out different sites whenever needed.

 

 

To check your broadcast timings, I added the chart which helps you to convert and get your local timings according to the zones. http://atm.geo.nsf.gov/ieis/time.html

 

Here is the list of websites. I have used few of them so I am adding my ratings for your purpose.

Live Streaming:

http://www.action8cricket.com/watch_live_cricket_online.htm

(looks promissing, I am going to try)

Live scoreboard:

http://www.sulekha.com/cricket

http://www.cricinfo.com/worldcup2007/ Rating:slow at peak http://www.rediff.com/cricket/index.html Rating:Good and faster - vastly used http://thatscricket.oneindia.in/ Rating: fast - not used

http://in.sports.yahoo.com/cricket/ Rating: slow
http://worldcup.cricket365.com/live/ Rating:seems to be fast - not used http://cricket.expressindia.com/worldcup/07/ Rating-seems to be fast -not used http://www.chennaionline.com/cricket/Worldcup07/index.aspx Rating:Good & faster

http://cricket.123india.com/ Rating:seems to be fast

May be Highlights:

http://crickettube.com
http://cricketvideosunplugged.blogspot.com/2007/03/world-cup-opening-ceremony.html

 

Track the points using user friendly excel:

http://www.excely.com/cricket/world-cup-schedule.html

 

 

Please try out these sites and add your experience as comments for others benefits. Also please don't hesitate to add any new sites if you find it useful.I will try to add more links if I come across few more..

Bet and Benefit:Start betting on WI vs PAK match

Whats Bet & Benefit?
Please visit this blog  Sulekhites, Are you ready to gamble?  for more information.

Note: This is not a scam or scandal. This is legitimate and not anyway connected to Sulekha.  Also I am not trying to boost my ranks in the blog by doing this game. Its sole purpose to have fun and help the non-profit organizations in our country. Its a WIN WIN for all.

All proceeds go to NGO's. Please participate and have fun and help us to raise fund.

Current Donor Lists:

 

Ashwin- $25

Match: March 13 - W.I vs PAK

 

Start Betting  on:

 

Ist Session

If W.I plays first, What will be score on 25th & 50th Over ?

If PAK Plays first,What will be score on 25th & 50th Over ?

 

IInd Session: Chasers

If W.I chasing, What will be score on 25th & 50th Over ?

If PAK chasing,What will be score on 25th & 50th Over ?

 

Finally, who will win the match?

 

Please put your bet scores as comments for each betting questions..  Or any suggestions let me know..

Quick Team Health Checkup
PAKISTAN

Key players: Inzamamul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf, Shahid Afridi

Notable absence: Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif and Abdul Razzaq (all injured)

Strengths: Unmatched ability to score heavily in the last few overs and uncanny knack for coming back strongly after defeat

Weaknesses: Without Shoaib and Asif the bowling loses its teeth; tendency in the team for infighting

Overall WC record: 29-11-2

World champions in 1992

WEST INDIES

Key players: Brian Lara, Chris Gayle, Shiv Chanderpaul

Notable absence: Runako Morton, Fidel Edwards (not selected)

Strengths: Experienced top order batting lineup; confidence high playing at home

Weaknesses: Bowling attack that is no more than average among the top teams, with no quality spinner; tendency for the batting to collapse when victory is in sight

Overall WC record: 31-16-1
World champions in 1975 and 1979

 

(Courtesy - Toronoto Stars)

 

 

 

Are you ready to Gamble & lets make a difference..

Note: Non-Cricket lovers please don't leave, there is something for you too.. Ready On.

Fellow Sulekhites,

Worldcup 2007 is almost started with a big bang and Grand opening ceremony held on Sunday March 11. With performers dances and fireworks illuminating the sky in Trelawny,WI its all set to roll . The much awaited WC 2007 is finally here for us. The days we all been eagerly waiting atleast for a year or so. The official start of the cup will be on Tuesday with the explosive opening match between the host West Indies and Pakistan.

With the first ball yet to be bowled, all the cricket lovers eyes are now waiting to witness the big days ahead of them. The CRICKET FEVER is officially ON.

The cricket lovers all over the world are praying for the favorite teams to do well and win the cup. Especially we Indian are doing whatever we can to help boost the moral of our boys. Some people are doing yaga to keep our boys healthy and strong during this period. Some are doing a candle light march to support our teams. In the temples, chruchs and mosque all over our country, there are prayers going on to get the blessings of God for our team.

Everybody is doing something to be a part of this big event. Before we even notice, these 46 days is going to be behind our back within a blink of an eye. Lets take a deep breath and grap this moment slowly and enjoy. We should make use of this wonderful opportunity to have great fun and at the same time make a difference and show the world that Sulekhites are different.

Bet & Benefit - Lets make a difference

Alright, let me talk about the actual topic. How can you make a difference?

First of all, lets me make it clear for legal purposes. This is not a Gambling to bet and earn money on the matches. The sole purpose of this program/event is to have great fun at same time raise funds to help people in our country.

With all your support, I am hoping that we all can make a difference and go into the books of history together with this Worldcup 2007. Are you ready to be a make a difference and part of the history ?

About Bet & Benefit

Its similar to betting on matches except there is no money on the line. Instead we are going to allot points for each game for each betters participating in this fun game and they will be tracked through out the tournament. Everyday they will have the chance to increase their points by betting on the match as per each rules and regulation. This is the first part.

Next important part is the donations. While we are accepting the bets, we open the floor for any Sulekhite to sponor or donate towards this game. At this point, we will be happy if we can collect $1000 at end of the world cup final match. This donation will be set to be donated to any non-profit organization in our country which will be decided by polling our sulekhites at the end of world cup.

The Top 10 winners or winners of important games will be allowed to nominate any of their own or related non-profit organizations which will be considered to be listed for polling.We will let you know how you can donate at the end of this post.

How it Works:

Every important match will be set for betting a day before or 2 days ahead of the match. In the Preliminary round, Important matches(two good teams) might have more points to be earned compared to simple matches.

Important Matches: Play between two big teams (out of 8 teams)

Simple matches: Play between one big team and an weak team or play between 2 weak teams.

Important matches might have betting opened for scores on 20th over, 40th over and 50th overs for each session of the match.

Simple matches might only have betting for the winner and how they will win.

For example:

Lets take tomorrow match W.I Vs Pak. You have chance to bet,

On Ist session, If W.I played first, whats their score on 25th(5points) and 50th over (10points) ?

If Pak played first, whats their score on 25th(5points) and 50th over (10points) ?

On the IInd session, If W.I played first, whats their score on 25th(5points) and 50th over (10points) ? If Pak played first, whats their score on 25th(5points) and 50th over (10points) ?

Finally who will win the match? (25 Points)

You don't need to bet for all the options, you can only bet for one option if you want. But if you bet for more, you have chance to get more points.

Participants

Bet'rs:

Any sulekhites can participate in this game. They can bet on the each of the match opened for betting. The betting will be opened before the day of the game and closed before the match starts.

Sponsor/Donor:

Any sulekhite can be a sponsor or Donate. No advertisement of sponsorship will be done. We will only honor the donor by mentioning their name and donated amount. The donated amount will all be collected and will set to be donated by any of the non-profit organization in India.

Organizing Team:

Currently I am setting this up and trying to test the waters. I made need some volunteer blogger with whom I will eventually tie with to get some help. I am also planning to setup the forum for any questions.. Please check out a forum on the same topic and let me know if you have any questions.

Sulekha team, you guys can also participate and be sponsors and betters.

WIIFM: Whats in it for me ?

Its a question everybody wants to be answered. First of all, you will have great satisfaction is participating in a fun betting game and at same time helping to raise money. You also have chance to promote any local organization near your home to get part of this donation.You don't have to be sponsor. You can just participate and have fun and bring more people. We will welcome sponsors so we can reach our target and benefit our people. If we end up collecting more than our target, we will think about some world cup souviers.

How you can Donate?

As a start , I am donating $25. There is no limit for the donation. We will be open for donation during the whole tournament. You can donate or pledge to donate any amount. This a great opportunity to have fun at same time donate for a good cause. You can donate using paypal at helpindia2007@yahoo.com or you can send me a check. People outside US can send me a check to my citibank account. I would be happy those to send information if you are interested. Please contact us at helpindia2007@yahoo.com

Rules & Regulations

1. 
   
   
   Its only for fun loving cricketers and non-cricketers who like to have great fun on playing and helping others.
   
   
   
2. 
   
   
   Please do only one bet for a match. No multiple bets with different user ids. All the bets will have to be done as comments only.
   
   
   
3. 
   
   
   Any bet after the match started won't be counted.All the bets are off before the match starts.
   
   
   
4. 
   
   
   Whoever has the bet for the closest score gets the points. Others will get 0 points.
   
   
   
5. 
   
   
   We will try to post the Points will be published on a seperate blog and will be tracked periodically.
   
   
   
6. 
   
   
   The Top 10 winners at the end of WC will be given a chance to nomimate their own Non-Profit organization. If we end up with a good support, we might even have winner during Super 8 and quater and semifinal matches who will be given chance to select their choice.
   
   
   
7. 
   
   
   Any changes or decision will be solely made by the organizing team only.
   
   

We are setting the stage to show the world that Sulekhites are different and can do something different. We should be Thankful for Sulekha team to have given this opportunity by setting a seperate site especially for Worldcup 2007. I hope it will be a great success with all your support, if not I would be atleast be happy to have tried this one rather not.

Check out the first betting started on

http://houstonvijai.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/03/bet-benefit-betting-started-for-wi-vs-pak-on-mar.htm

P.S: This is not a scam or scandal. This is legitimate and not anyway connected to Sulekha. I am open to any background check by either Sulekha or any person willing to know about it. Also I am not trying to boost my ranks in the blog by doing this game. Its sole purpose to have fun and help our country people. I am going to contact sulekha anyways to have their support.

Good Start and Strong step forward...

We started off with a good first step by beating W.I. in the warm match. Especially thrashing them in 26 overs to win comfortably by chasing them. Totaly an astonishing start to boost the moral of Dravid boys. We needed this push before we get started with the big days ahead.

This really is a good display which has good sign to send message to the indian hearts all over the world, that our team is well ready and equipment in all departments to give a good fight to make all our dreams come true. The dream we all been waiting to make it live to have our second World cup.

While we cherish this moment, we just have to hold back and say that its just a warmup match and we havn't even started the real show yet.

This should also send a strong message to other teams that we are coming and get ready..

Real quick analysis:

A very promising bowling by our young first timers - Munuf, Pathan and Agarkar. Especially impressive bowling by Munaf 4 for 10. Zaheer did make good impression by starting first with some early wickets and giving pressure to W.I. team. This what we want . We should stop the hitting before it even starts and slow down the run rates.

Real showcase by D Karthik who struck 38 and R Uthappa who made 35 runs. Sehwag still not caught up to the speed and trying to settle down to find his form.

Lesson learned:
Good team effort. We should continue this one. Dravid should watch out for Sehwag and try to come with a batting place where he can settle down to find his form. May be he will be better off batting after him before Sachin. We have to get settled before we start playing the big league matches.

Overall, Good show by boys and hope to see more of this coming...

Taste the Essence of Success

BRAVEHEART - "A Heart brave enough to lead a team with confidence to fight against opponents and taste the essence of success"

I am not sure how many of you watched this famous movie "BRAVEHEART" which received lots of accolades for its cinematography and originality of its direction. It came out in 1995 directed by Mel Gibson. Yep, the same famous Mel who directed "The Passion of the Christ (2004)". BRAVEHEART is a kinda of movie which needs to be seen at least once by everybody and I would recommend it to anybody.

You might wondering why am I telling this in relation with the Indian World Cup Team. May be I am silly to correlate the story of the movie with our Indian team heading towards the WC 2007. But I feel they go very well together.

Let me give a quick synopsis on the movie for the benefit of people who haven't seen the movie so it will help to co-relate easily.

BRAVEHEART is about a man who bravely start to oppose the strong British dictatorship and tried to fight against them with very less man power and very little support as allies. He built a small force with men who has only their work axes to fight. He believed in them and they believed in him. He won the first war against the local dictator which gave the path to build a big organized war front by uniting people with the advise of elders to oppose the king. He could have gone all the way to defeat the king but he got betrayed by his allies and ended up getting caught and hanged. The takeaway from this movie, a leader should be brave enough and should have belief in him. He also should have great confidence about his people who can win any wars without any fear.

Now lets talk about team. Do we have a great lead/good captain who can lead the team ? Yes we do have a good captain who won few series both at home and outside. Is he have the courage and charisma to lead them to the World cup? I think he does.

First he needs to believe that we can win the World cup. He should have great confidence about his teammates and should believe that we all can win the opponents one at a time. Like our Mahatma Gandhi said,

“Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.”

Once you start believing in you which will provoke the thoughts. Thoughts will become your mantra(words) and mantra become your action to accomplish your destiny.

Next comes the team, we have very good diversified team with good batsmen(Sehwag, Sachin, Ganguly, Yuvraj, Dhoni), bowlers(Zaheer,Seeshanth,Agarkar, Kumble, Harbajan) and a full time wicket keeper(Dhoni). They should believe that our captain can lead the team to great success. They should have confidence in themselves and also should show their full commitment toward wining every step of the game to beat the opponent. They should shine in every match in what they are good at.

Next comes the war field, Leader should be able to judge the war field which is the game field at this instance. In Braveheart, William Wallace(Leader) judges the war field and plan it accordingly and he own without any big weapons. Similarly, if Captain can judge the play field and not taking the opponent for granted and plan to have correct team in hand to fight, we have easily taste the fruit of success.

Next, taking the experienced people advice. Leader shouldn't hesitate to opt for suggestion and advice from the experienced folks. We have Ganguly who is well matured with lots of matches on his cap and lead our team to 2004 WC. He should be capable of giving advices on critical moments. There shouldn't be any ego to request and take the advice.

Finally, Patience and Perseverance can lead any man to success. As a leader he should be patient enough to withstand on any opposition and shouldn't get frustrated to apply his techniques as per the situation. Also he should be great perseverance to keep on what he is doing and never quit until reach the success.

With all the above proper mantra's in hand, we can easily taste the essence of success slowly to win the world cup. One Small step at a time and one match at a time without thinking about the cup should get us closer. I wish all the very best to them.