Massive Chokes In Indian Cricket History

Tied test, 1986.

Chetan Sharma last ball six to Miandad at Sharjah

Chennai - Gavaskar game.

Chennai again, v Pakistan ten years later.

Barbados, West Indies Test Series 1997.

Zimbabwe, World Cup 1999

Hyderabad, 2009 v Australia. Tendulkar's shot was silly and the tail choked as well. 19 to win off 17 balls. Massively dire.

Movies I Watched Last Fortnight

Antichrist - This sexually graphic movie from Denmark has received mixed reviews polarizing views. The Danish critics have been mostly very positive while the general world reaction is mixed. The movie is sad, intense and has a few great scenes with brilliant imagery. I loved the way the film portrayed pain. However, mostly, the movie falls short. Fellow blogger Nathaniel Rogers sums it up nicely when he says - in the end this psycho-horror film felt like a 45 minute story that kept repeating itself as the director dragged his actors sadistically through their grotesque marks. The praise for the twin (lead) performances seems excessive. I will give it a 3/10.

Firaaq - Nandita Das' debut venture as a director is brave, stunning and path breaking. Set a month after muslims are killed in the 2002 post Godhra Gujarat violence, the movie spares no punches in showing how muslims were treated in an inhuman manner, the prejudices which people held against them and the climate during these troubled times. This is easily the best movie to come out of India this year among those which I have seen. A solid 9/10.

Zombieland - The opening scene is nice and promises a lot. The movie has it's moments. For instance, the Bill Murray segment was hilarious. However, over all, it is not that funny overall. There is a love angle throw in which distracts from the comic element. More importantly, the movie is more about the main actors in the movie than the encounter between them and the Zombies. We do not see enough Zombie scenes and the jokes fall flat after a while. A disappointing 2.5/10.

Why Indian Teams Have Not Done Well In The Champions League T20

As we move towards the semi final stages of the Champions League T20, we find that there are no Indian teams left. They have been long gone and it comes as a surprise to many as they were packed with four international players while other teams didn't have that privelege.

The main reason for the Indian teams not doing well is that the IPL teams play one month a year together while the teams of the other countries play in their domestic competition day in and day out. You don't form a cohesive unit playing just a month and a half a year.

The team work is lacking. Team work is an often understated asset of cricket. We found that the World XI playing v Australia a few years back performed poorly and the main reason was that they didn't gel as a team.

Packing a team with international stars and thinking they will thus do well just doesn't work. Lalit Modi talks about removing the limit of 4 international players for the Indian teams in the next IPL but the strength of a team like Trinidad and Tobago is not in it's stars - it's in the way it works as a team. This is an important distinction needed to be understood.

On The Indian Team Selected To Play Versus Australia

I am very happy with the over all selections. Dravid never should have been recalled and one can't help but feel sad for him to be treated in this manner but really, the way forward is the likes of Badrinath and Murali Vijay, not Dravid. Dravid wouldn't make the first XI any way now with Yuvraj and Sehwag back and Kohli, a youngster sitting on the bench is a better option than Dravid doing that.

Regarding the bowling, Tyagi impressed me a lot during the Challenger series and it is excellent to see him earn a place in the squad so soon. Munaf Patel has a very good career economy rate in ODIs and proved during the Challenger Trophy that he can bowl on the right spots. He still has it in him to be at least in the squad for ODIs.

Praveen Kumar should be a lock in for a first XI place given that he is a crafty bowler, can swing it, is very economical and can bat too. RP Singh is useless in subcontinental conditions and it is only fair that he has been shown the door.

Nayar was also treated harshly but really, he is a nothing all rounder who can neither bat, nor bowl that well. Yusuf Pathan needs to improve his bowling if he has to be in the frame and can't expect to be selected in despite his good hitting if he can't take a few wickets with the ball. Till then, Ravindra Jadeja is the better option.

My first XI to play in the first ODI would be as follows -

Sachin Tendulkar
Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir
Yuvraj Singh
MS Dhoni
Suresh Raina
Ravindra Jadeja
Praveen Kumar
Harbhajan Singh
Amit Mishra
Ashish Nehra

Movies I Saw Watched Fortnight

The Gold Rush and City Lights - The problem of assessing Charlie Chaplin movies is the same as assessing Citizen Kane - both have revolutionized cinema and the comedy genre respectively so much that it is difficult to separate the original from the copy. The jokes have been repeated loads of times (for example the photographer telling you to go back and the man in the picture falling from a height) and they don't seem funny any more. I can't possibly evaluate these films properly because of this. The scene where Chaplin literally eats a shoe in The Gold Rush is hilarious though. Pure gold.

Goodbye Solo - Superb movie. The acting by the lead, Souleymane Sy Savane, is breathtaking. His charisma carries the whole movie in almost every single scene. The story itself is very interesting and you are left with a what happens next tinge every moment. In the end, it is a very moving film which leaves an impact. My second favorite film of the year so far after The Hurt Locker. A must see. 8/10.

Inglourious Basterds - A lot of style, very little substance. The first scene was superb. The performance by Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa was brilliant as you might have heard a thousand times. However, there isn't the gore of a Kill Bill in the movie, nor is there a story line which is compelling enough. A simple plot line like revenge often works but in this case, it doesn't I think. Still worth a watch. 4/10.

Baabarr - I wanted to see this Lucknow gangster flick as I love Gangster films, from Cagney to Scorcesse, to our very own bollywood's Company to the not so popular D. The movie is good in parts but is one generation behind. We have moved after creating movies like Company and Ab Tak Chhappan and a standard crime flick doesn't hold the appeal it would have 15 years back. It is still a good movie, though stretches towards the second half. 3/10.

Do Knot Disturb - The promos looked promising and I went for the movie despite the reviews. It was an embarassingly poor movie where standard scenes which have been acted out several times over in hindi cinema are repeated in long spasms of torture. I walked out after the first half and I give it a 1 and not a 0 only because Riteish Deshmukh was promising in the little role he was given. 1/10

PS - I have decided (decided a fair few days ago actually) that I will watch the Top 100 and not just the Top 50 of the IMDB list. The Top 100 contains movies which I really want to watch, the likes of LA Confidential. This adds 25-30 more movies to my to watch list. I will only be watching the Top 50 from the Theyshootpictures list as planned. So my movie watching of the three film lists I am pursuing should be complete in about a year and a half.

Movies To See List Update

An update on my to watch film list which I posted previously... My plan is to watch two movies a week, one from my all time list (57 in all, so should be complete by 2010 end) and one from my current list (or others if there is none in the current list).

All Time List

Theyshootpictures Top 50

Some Like it Hot (22)
City Lights (23)
The Third MAn (24)
Grand Illusion (25)
La Dolce Vita (26)
The Gold Rush (27)
Sunset Boulevard (29)
The General (30)
Children of Paradise (31)
Breathless (33)
Ordet (34)
Chinatown (36)
Night of the Hunter (37)
L'Avventura (38)
Dr. Strangelove (39)
Persona (40)
Andrei Rublev (41)
Jules and Jim (42)
The Magnificent Ambersons (43)
The 400 Blows (44)
It's a Wonderful Life (45)
Bladerunner (46)
Modern Times (48)
La Strada (50)

Theyshootpictures 21st century Top 50

Adaptation (23)
You Can Count on Me (27)
Flight of the Red Balloon (30)
Moulin Rouge! (31)
American Splendor (32)
The Squid and the Whale (33)
2046 (34)
Brokeback Mountain (35)
Mystic River (38)
Dancer in the Dark (39)
Capturing the Friedmans (42)
Dogville (43)
In the Bedroom (44)
Cache (Hidden) (45)
Artifical Intelligence: AI (46)
Grizzly Man (47)
Kings and Queen (48)
Donnie Darko (49)
Syndromes and a Century (50)


IMDB Top 50

LOTR (14) - I consider this as 1 movie
Indiana Jones (18) - I consider this as 3 movies

Sunset Boulevard (26)
Dr. Strangelove (27)
The Matrix (28)
It's a Wonderful Life (31)
Leon (35)
American Beauty (37) (rewatch)
M (46)
Double Indemnity (47)
To Kill a Mockingbird (48)
Alien (49)

Current List

Non-Indian Films

Goodbye Solo
Inglourious Basterds
Moon
(500) Days of Summer
Lebanon
A White Ribbon
Precious
Up In The Air
A Serious Man
Bright Star
Beaches of Agnes
Still Walking
New York, I Love You

Indian Films

Do Knot Disturb
Baabarr
Yeh Mera India
Firaaq
Gaghricha Paus
Harishchandrachi Factory
Three Idiots
Kites

Others

Positive (Short)
Sea Inside, The
Dark City
About a Boy
The Pianist
Synecdoche, New York
Paris, I love You
21
L.A.Confidential
Glengarry Glen Ross
Das Boot
Life is Beautiful
The Basketball Diaries
Cool Runnings
Nayak
Cries and Whispers
Changeling

Time To Drop Harbhajan Singh

Harbhajan Singh averages 36 this year in 14 matches. If we remove the Compaq Cup Final versus Sri Lanka where he took 5 wickets, his average goes up to 49 from 13 matches. He had a decent 2008 but his averages in 2007 and 2006 were 48.6 and 34 respectively.

Now let's come back to 2008. He averages, as I said, decently at 28.7 in 2008 in 19 games. However, if we remove the games versus Sri Lanka, he averages 33.6 in 11 games. So apart from his performances versus Sri Lanka in the Compaq Cup final and in 2008 (a grand total of 9 games in 4 years), he has done diddly squat the last four years.

In the game versus Pakistan, he was unable to extract extravagant turn on a pitch which proved very useful later on for Ajmal and Afridi. In the game versus Australia, he was bowling all over the place where Mishra was doing a decent job at the other end.

What are the alternatives? Let's look at Pragyan Ojha. He averages 28 in 9 games at an economy rate of 4.20. He was dropped from the ODI squad, not because of his poor performances, but because Amit Mishra had been superb in the IPL.

Amit Mishra is an extremely crafty leg spinner who gets purchase off the wicket on most of the pitches. He is good enough to play at the international level from what I have seen of him. He has been unlucky not to pick up wickets in his international ODI career so far but his economy of 4.86 shows that he has the ability to contain the batsmen. Most importantly, he is an attacking leg spinner who will get you wickets.

I don't see why we can't drop Harbhajan Singh and play Mishra as our number one spinner with Ojha in partnership (wherever we need two spinners - a must in the subcontinent). It is time to leave behind the reputations and take a brave call. It is certainly worth a shot.