What are some mind-blowing facts about cricket?
"Saurav's greatest strength is his mind.He is hard working not only in the nets but also mentally.He bounces back." -Sachin Tendulkar"When you see an Indian side with Ganguly in the line-up ,you know it is game on.You don't have to like or dislike him.You have to respect him." -Steve Waugh"Saurav's best quality is that he has the ability to remain unperturbed even when he faces severe criticism" -Javagal SrinathIndia currently is doing an excellent job wining all the matches from the group stage even after failing to perform in the test series against the Aussies and then again in the tri-series with Australia and England earlier this year.This reminds me of 2003 world cup.After suffering a huge defeat against black caps(New Zealand) earlier 2003 (2-0 in tests and 5-2 in ODIs) , India swiftly made it's way into the finals.Unfortunately India lost the final but what were the key factors that lead this young brigade comprising of Harbhajan, Zaheer Khan,Yuvraj Singh , Mohammad Kaif hardly in their early twenties to achieve such a mammoth task.Well there were many factors like introducing Sachin-Sehwag as an opening pair, team huddles etc.My favorite above all was calling Srinath back from his retirement!!!Srinath announced his retirement after a test match against West Indies in June,2002.But after looking at inexperience Indian bowling had at that time and that too before the world cup in the coming year,Ganguly requested Srinath to join the squad for India's tour of New Zealand. As a result Srinath took 18 wickets in ODI series even though India suffered 5-2 loss.But his form didn't stop here, he ultimately went on to add further 16 wickets in this tally in the world cup which played a key role in India's road to finals. His key performance were 35/4 against Sri Lanka in super six and then giving off only 11 runs in 7 overs with an economy of 1.57 against Kenya in the semi finals.But at last this was not possible without the vision of SAURAV GANGULY. 4 OUT OF 5 EARLY WICKETS WERE TAKEN BY SRINATH ITSELF (Atappattu , Mubarak , Arvinda de Silva & Jayasuriya) DADA(Saurav Ganguly) with his team :)
What is it like to travel sitting next to a celebrity?
I was flying back from South Africa with my college students on the London to Minneapolis leg. I was surprised to be bumped up to first class because they oversold coach. (lucky me!) Since the seat next to me was unoccupied, I asked the stewardess if it was okay if my students could come up, one at a time, and sit next to me for 10 - 15 minutes each while I talked quietly with them about what they learned on the trip. She said it would be no problem. After about an hour an elderly lady in the middle section of first class (who had apparently been drinking a little too much) began making loud comments about allowing the riffraff up in first class. We were speaking quietly so as not to bother anyone, (even people across the isle could not hear us much less someone in the back of the middle section 5 rows back. But this old gal just didn't like the idea of sharing first class with any commoners. She continued to get louder, the more she drank. The stewardess went over to her and explained what we were doing and she began to argue with her. The stewardess finally had to threaten her that she would be arrested if she did not quiet down. At that point I told the student to go back and that we'd finish our conversation the next day. The stewardess apologized and thanked me. I wondered who this cranky old lady was and went over to her to talk and explain what I was doing and apologized if I had offended her. She'd have none of it and began to curse at me too - so I went back to my seat and ignored her the rest of the trip. She looked vaguely familiar but I didn't know who she was. That weekend I went to see the movie, “Harry Potter” and lo and behold, there was my friend from the flight! I saw her on the screen - "Professor Minerva McGonagall" - Maggie Smith! I said to my wife, "That's her!" She said, "Who?" and explained the whole thing to her. We had quite a laugh. So I guess even the rich and famous have off days. Dear old Maggie. I felt a little sorry for her but at least she was flying first class with unlimited beverages.