New addition to the periodic table........

A new element called woman
A new element has to be added in the Periodic Table which is recommended by my scientists

Element : Woman
Symbol : Wo
Discoverer : Adam Edenwarden
Atomic mass: Accepted as 53.6 kg; isotopes vary from 35 - 200 kg.
Occurrence : Copious quantities in all urban areas.


PHYSICAL PROPERTIES:
1. Surface usually covered with thin painted film
2. Boils at room Temperature
3. Freezes without any known reason
4. Melts if given special treatment
5. Bitter if incorrectly used
6. Sweeter under certain conditions
7. Found in various states, ranging from metals to common ore
8. Ductile if moulded properly
9. Yields to pressure applied at correct points

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES:
1. Have great affinity for gold, silver and a range of precious stones and absorbs great quantities of expensive substances
2. May explode spontaneously without prior warning and for no known reason
3. Insoluble in liquids, but activity greatly increases by saturation in alcohol
4. Most powerful money non-reducing agent known to man

COMMON USES:
1. Highly ornamental, especially in bikes and cars
2. Can be a great aid to relaxation
3. Very effective cleaning agent

TESTS:
1. Pure specimen turns rosy pink when happy
2. Turns green when placed beside a better specimen

AVAILABLITY:
1. Available in wide different forms and varieties
2. Can be easily seen in all busy areas


POTENTIAL HAZARDS:
1. Highly dangerous except in experienced hands
2. Illegal to posses more than one, although several can be maintained at different locations as long as specimens do not come into direct contact with each other

!!! WARNING !!! PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO THIS ELEMENT CAN CAUSE SEVERE FINANCIAL HEMORRHAGE AND MENTAL DISTRESS. BE CAUTIOUS.

NOTE: New properties are still being discovered. Please wait for updates. If you have found some properties not listed above,please suggest.

Pogs

Most of you must be wondering what or who this pogs is.........for all the people who were at Phani's place last night you can understand the word immediately......but for all those who werent there.....its the new nickname for our own.......Hari......yes u have guessed it right.....

Let me explain the origin of the name......it is analogous to our last year cricketing Hero's off the field scoring....I mean....Manti Ram .......he was referred by that name becoz he was from Tamil Nadu.......studied in Karnataka......fell for a Telugu Babe in Akron....... a part of her name was Manti .......so does Pogs......our own man Hari is following Ram's footsteps.....from Tamil Nadu ......studied in Karnataka.......felll for a Telugu Babe in Akron.......they were the fastest bowlers on the team and very reliable batsman.......well my dear friend Hari.....here start ur days of misery as ur DIL TO POGAL HAI and ur days as AWARA POGAL DEEWANA have started....

Most of us know who the girl is but if u want to know who that is please come to cricket field for practice.....heheheheheh

Hey Guys...I am sorry that have not yet written abt our brilliant batting performance......that will be up soon

University's article

Hey Guys......remember that I had mentioned that the University PR had interviewed me for a press release???????? well they have publised an article on the U Akron web-site...... Racquetball Champ. they said that they have submitted it to the local press and hope some news paper picks it up. I guess I may get 3 lines as I expected but I am happy that an article related to me (and not written by me) ......heheheheheh...has been published....please read it at ur leisure.

Thank you very much for ur constant support and encouragement...

Phani and Hemant.........

They are my friends from Polymer Engineering......they have just defended their theses yesterday (Phani) and today (Hemant). Both of them worked on some nano-composite stuff which i have no clue about. I coudln't attend Phani's defence as I was in a meeting with the person who will be stepping in for my advisor but I heard it was great. good job Phani. I could make it to Hemant's defence this morning. He did a great job with the slides. He started off tentatively (he was understandably nervous) and the fact that a Taklu prof (apparantly Brijesh's boss) didnt let Hemant start till he got the copies of the pages from the Thesis he had asked for. Pankaj had gone to get the copies. But anyways, he started off on a nervous note, like most, and then settled down and spoke more confidently. His was a pretty long presentation....abt 45 mins....usually a Master's defence should be about 30 mins...atleast thats what I have been told and thats what I have seen. But he did a great job except for the fact that he had yellow lines in some of the graphs which didnt show up well on the white background (sorry dude, couldnt resist the itch to point out a mistake). There were only a couple of questions from the audience...Hemant looked confident in answering them but I am not sure if he answered them right as I couldnt understand a single word of his explanation. But....the best question of the day was from Kiran (which he didnt ask in the room)...."How is this whole thing that u said for the past 45 mins going to be of any use to me or my life?????".....great question!!!!!!!!

Phani got a lot of corrections in his thesis......dont think that its odd..its normal to get lot of corrections but sometimes u tend to get a lot from the committee which irrtates u as u think u are done with everything but U still have to get the corrections done. hmmm....I hope hemya doesnt have too many of those corrections.

I have a lot to write abt the two of them but I dont have the time right now.....so more abt them later...

Congrats both of u now u can be called:

PhaniRaj Nagraj, Yum Yes
Hemant Thakkar, Yum Yes

My Advisor.....

On Saturday night at 9 PM my advisor, Dr.Njus, fell off a ladder and fractured his skull !!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, its very unfortunate but right now he is still in the ICU . He has been in the ICU since saturday night and has been in a critical but stable condition. His condition has not improved but Thank God his conditioned has not worsened. I got a call from Dr. Taylor (my Master's advisor) on Sunday afternoon....I was fast asleep as I had not slept the whole night on saturday, I answered the phone in a sleepy tone and once I heard what he said I was wide awake in a shock!!!!! It took sometime for the news to sink in.....I mean I was going to meet him that afternoon to test some samples in the lab......I could not believe that it happened....I told Bhaddhu and he was shocked toooo.....he was Bhaddhu's advisor too when he was in school. Both of us then decided to go to the hospital to see him......Rajesh had met Dr.Taylor in the department and he got the news and I called Dustin, Avinash and Mrityunjay (rest of the lab mates)....to let them know abt the sad news. They were all shocked and didnt know how to react. It was an awkward situation to be in. All of us went to the hospital but we weren't allowed to see him as we got there during the non-visiting hours...we waited for an hour as the visiting hours started from 4:30 PM. We were all very tensed and all we could get from the nurse was that ....."he is still in a critical but stable condition and I cannot give any more information as I am tied down by the HIPAA rules"....the rules forbid the hospital employees to give information regarding the patients to non-family members. THat was very very frustrating as we were probably 30 feet from him but still could not see him.......then at 4:30 Pm we were hoping to go inside and see how he was doing.....the nurse walked in and I had high hopes but she said....

"I just got off the phone with Nina Njus (My advisor's wife, she is a hand surgeon) and she wanted to let us know that she will keep us updated about Dr.Njus's condition." The nurse also told us that we would not be allowed to enter the ICU as he was on a Respirator (external breathing device).....it means he is not able t control his air-ducts.....we knew it at once that he wasnt in a good shape. Then she told us that he wasnt responding to verbal stimulus so they could not allow us to go and see him. I spoke to Dr.Nina Njus later that night and she updated me abt the details of his condition and how he fell.....she said "I wanted him to rest for a while and take a shower as he had been painting the deck all day.....but he would not listen and said that he would take a break in 10 mins....the next thing I know is.....I hear a thud and see Glen (Dr.Njus ) on the floor " she was really brave to keep her compsure and comfort their children. I flet very very sad and I found myself in a helpless position......I mean all of us want to do something for him but we cant do anything......that feeling of helplessness is very frustrating.....

Dr.Njus has been the most encouraging person I have met and he is one of the nicest and the most intelligent guys I have met in my whole life. I mean, he is smart, intelligent and rich.......welll lot of people have these characteristics but what separates him from the others is that......he is nice, kind, understanding, down to earth, sensible, helpful, jovial etc etc.......how many of these characteristics can u see in a single person....thats how wonderful a person he is......the fact that I have already started to miss him tells how much of an influence he has been in my life.....the lab looks completely deserted and empty without him........I feel that the lab is without its life...I still keeep imagining him sitting at his desk (which I hope he soon will). Throughout my time in the lab here (the past 2 years) he has been very helpful and very patient to listen to my ideas abt the project......he was always there when I needed him and guided me through my project, thesis and defence of my thesis like a true advisor should......though he wasnt my advisor officially but I considered him to be my advisor.....he was such a jovial and down to earth person that I could talk abt anything with him....studies, project, cricket (I taught him the rules), racquetball (he always encouraged me to play in tournaments even couple of days before my thesis defence), movies, books, cuisines, restaurants, wildlife, politics, religion etc etc etc......

I hope he gets better soon......its an injury to the brain so its pretty serious and may take a long time to recover....I hope he is out of the ICU soon and is back in the lab ......I miss him a lot...even while writing this blog I see his smiling face (rather smoking and smiling).

I hope all my friends reading this blog will keep him in his prayers...........

Our Batting......

After having a dismal day on the field the bowlers were hoping that their generosity in gifting the opposition with wides will be offsetted by the batsmen. THe batsmen tried hard but we fell short of the target by 17 runs!!!!! Yes......had the bowlers given that many lesser wides we could have easily won the game but I dont blame the bowlers completely for the loss as 167 is not a big target to chase.

Phani and PUneet walked into the middle with me and Raj as umpires.....the CCC team were all set to have a go at our team. Both Phani and Puneet started on a cautious note and it was a good decision considering the circumstances...the was swinging a lot!!!!
Both of them were very solid in defence and were very good in leaving the ball outside off-stump. THe CCC opening bowlers....unlike our bowlers....bowled with lot of control..they hardly gave anything away. They were bowling with impeccable line and length and we in control of the swing. they didnt try to do much, all they did was pitch the ball of middl and off and the ball did the rest. It was very disciplined bowling. We got to 34/0 in 10 overs. It was a slow but steady start. Then a spinner was introduced into the attack....Puneet who was playing very confidently and was composed went down the track for the spinner and was stumped!!!!!!!! That was a blow for us as he was well set and had been in the middle for quite sometime....this was a gifted wicket....there were many more gifts to follow. In walked our batsman in form....HARI...he had been the mainstay of the batting lately. He was high on confidence as he was coming off of an unbeaten 65 from the last game. He and phani played well and made sure that no more wickets fell before the break.....one thing that they did annoyed me.....they played the last three overs before the break for the break...i mean they completely blocked everything and concentrated more on saving the wicket than forcing the pace of the game. Had they played the last over before the break with caution it was understandable but playing three overs was simply unacceptable due to fact that we were around 50/1 in 17 overs!!!!!!!!! what ever people may think abt these comments I dont care as I have my opinion. I guess people got a bit over excited and there was an exchange of words and unneccesary comment during the break regarding Phani's batting...he was on 14 in 17 overs!!!!!!!!!!!! He was playing very well and was looking comfortable in the middle.....my opinion is that once u are in the middle for 10 overs u should be able to see the ball well and should be able to take singles freely or atleast be confident enough to improvise so that the field is spread rather than for choking the singles . Well, again thats my opinion. I am saying that its my opinion becoz we had big argument the other day abt this issue and again there were differences in opinion.

well, everything said and done....Phani got a but aggressive in the second half and started with a couple of sixes...the first was a pull on the leg side on a bad delivery.....it was meant to be hit and he hit it well but the second six was a beauty !!! he hit the ball over the long-on boundary!!!!!!!! and what more.....there was a long on!!!!!!!! that made the shot look more elegant. It showed that he was oozing with confidence and was ready to play a big knock.....in the mean time Hari settled in and was playing well and hit a boundary and was looking really good in the middle. Just when things were going well again and the match was turning in our favor.......Phani tried to be aggressive once too often and got a top edge.....he was caugth by the keeper. He made his highest score of the tournament 27......in the past two year he had invariably made it to the double figures in every game but was jinxed to get out before reaching the 20's. Anyways......it was not the kind of shot u expect from a player who had been playing well and was well set. BUt his innings surely gave us the boost and the base we needed to launch. Exactly..... Launch .....thats the reason I had asked Kiran to come in instead of Baji or Myself.......thats becoz if he plays with his head down and wait for the bad balls.....he can hit the ball very hard.....we would get close to the target in no time:):). He tried to do exactly that...he was playing a sedate knock and was just begining to look good with Hari on the other end playing his usual workman like innings.He was running hard and was trying to puch the fielders to making mistakes.....but Kiran is not ideal person for running between the wickets....he has been trying hard to improve on that. He runs the 1's well but when it comes to 2's he is not a very big fan of running 2's and 3's. Just when Kiran was begining to open his shoulders and the victory was in sight....with Hari hitting a 4 and a Six......Kiran got out unfortunately.....he got an inside edge on to his pads but was given LBW by the umpire!!!!!!!!! So he was very disappointed and angry that his well composed innings came to an end in the wrong way he made 12 runs. In walked Avinash he had looked good in the previous game but was runout so he had the ideal platform to prove that he was back in form. It was 50 odd runs in 50 balls. It was very very attainable as we had 7 wickets in hand. Then in that very over Hari played a meek shot on the leg side and was caught!!!!!!!!! He made 33 runs with a couple of 4's and a huge 6. He played very well and was very very disappointed by the way he got out. I walked in once again with run a ball situation.....I have not been a big hitter of the ball ever and I rely on my running so run a ball is sometimes a difficult thing for me to do when its more than 30. I was coming off of a 50 tooo so I was confident when I went in and played my first two shorts on the leg side....anybody surprised ???????. Avinash was running hard and was responding to my calls very well and in like 2 overs we got 15 runs and were almost even with the balls. then it happened again......I tried to play the shot over midwicket and played with a cross bat.....the ball hit high on the bat and popped up for a simple catch in the mid-off region. I got out once again when the team needed me to stay there......especially when Baji was playing so well on the other side. Adi walked in.....he is the kind of played like Robin Singh....he doesnt have a big range of shots and plays predominantly on the leg side but runs very well between the wickets...that was the key from now on.......but unfortunately for Adi, when he tried to pull one of the balls he mistimes it and gave a simple catch to the midwicket.....manpreet walked in to join Baji....from then on Avinash took over and started batting briliantly......he was able to take singles of almost every ball and was willing to go over the top. He plays the inside-out shot very well and he used it to good effect .....and with manpreet also running very welll the brought the equation down to 19 runs from 16 balls!!!!!!!!! WE thought with 4 wickets in hand and the way Baji and Manpreet were playing the game is in our pocket........but that was not to be....Avinash got out meekly as he played straigght into the hands of the point fielder....he played really well for his near run-a-ball 16. Raj and Manpreet could do it I thought as Raj batted well in the nets and Manpreet had already proved his worth in such situations.....but now he didnt have his winning-combo budddy Sunny (he was rested for the game). THe next ball was a disaster...Manpreet went for a non-existent single and was run-out!!!!!!! SO in two balls we lost two big wickets and didnt score any runs!!!!!!! We still had hope as Sirish walked in.....he did exactly what we told him not to do....but thats the pressure which gets to u.....u want to hit the ball as hard as u can and Sirish tried to do exactly that and missed the line of the ball and got bowled......we lost 3 wickets in 3 balls!!!!!!! and the last man Guru walked in. He survived one ball....12 balls 18 runs to win....I was hoping to see a couple of big blows from Raj....and he went for one and got stumped!!!!!!!! So that was the end of the last of the gifted wickets and as u can see most of the wieckets were gifts but no credit should be taken away from the CCC team that played very well and their bowlers unlike our bowlers didnt give away 50 wides!!!!! they gave 30 wides!!!!! and that was the exact margin of victory!!!!!!

But for our next game the batting will be strengthened with Brijesh coming back into the side and the fact that we will be playing our best 11 for the next 3 games tells how determined we are to win.

Have a great weekend and I hope I have something positive to write abt in my next blog

Game with CCC

I had just written a long draft for the game and the computer froze!!!!!!!! I could not save the draft and now I will have to start all over again !!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. that sucks.

But anyway, i am not going to give the details like usual as I had already written all that in the lost draft and I am in no mood to repeat all the things.

We played the game with Colombus Cricket Club, CCC, on Sunday and we lost the game by 17 runs!!!!! The main reason for the loss are the 50 wides that we bowled on that day. we were very very disappointed that we lost and we were very angry with ourselves as we bowled 25 more wides than normal and we lost by 17 runs !!!!!!!!!!!!! I dont recollect such a bad performance by the Akron CC bowlers. I mean we bowled well and got them for 166 but 50 of those runs were wides !!!!!!!!!. The fact that Adi had single handedly brought us into the game with brilliant piece of work on the field. He got two top order batsman including Bharat (one of the biggest hitters and top scorers in mid-west) runout with direct hits to the non-strikers end. It was simply brilliant work and we thought that we had the game in our grasp after having them 78/6. It was really frustrating from then on, as the partnership bulit well and we were denied once again by the lower order. I mean, in almost all the games we have played, we could get rid of the top order without much damage but the lower order has been the problem all along. This has been a long time concern for Akron CC as we lost both the play-off games in the previous two years by letting the opposition to recover from 41/6 and 55/5. can u believe that !!!!!!!!!

Hari got the initial break through with an excellent ball, the batsman was all beaten and played all over the ball completely missing the line of the ball and was bowled comprehensively. Manpreet and Hari bowled 15-20 wides among themselves in the first 8 overs. In the mean time Adi got one of the openers with a briilaint pick up and through from his favorite covers position. We were all very excited and thrilled as that was our first run out of the season. In walked Bharat, one of the most feared batsman of the league, he was playing sensibly by taking ones and twos. I introduced Sirish into the attack, considering that the last time he bowled he had 3-1-4-1 figures!!!!!!!!! He had been working hard in the nets so I decided to give him the relatively newer ball. He started off with a couple of wides and I thought he would get a control sooner or later, but unfotunately for him he could not get his rhythm on that day and we was clobbered for a 4 by Abhi and a 6 by bharat. the over costed 16 runs....hmmmmm. who next. I had asked Kiran to start bowling and was thinking who should bowl the next over.....I had been thinking for a long time to come and have a bowl earlier on....I promoted myself up in batting the last game and I got my highest score so i decided to have a go. Kiran was bowling really well but he was having wide trouble too....I usually dont have that problem as I dont bowl that fast and I concentrate on the line and length. IN the mean time....Adi got Bharat with another brilliant peice of fielding at the covers position. he got another direct hit. thats it !!!!!! I thought, with Bharat gone we can restrict them for a small target. I started off with a wide down the leg side and I had a bad feeling that I would be bowling a lot of wides that day.....and how true by fears were...i bowled 9 wides in my 7 overs.....but I bowled well and finished with 7-1-22-1. So only 13 runs of the bat, I was very happy and I was glad that the short and rising ball that I had been practising in the nets was very useful. for the first time in 3 years at Akron my slower ball went for a wide down the leg side.....that must have summarised what a day the bowlers were having in the middle. At the drinks break they were 73/4 with 35 wides!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After the break I finished my spelll and Kiran was bowling well too....he bowled 7-0-27-1 with 8-9 wides so thats only about 19 runs of the bat. So it was good bowling by him. I brought on Adi and Raj, both of them have been very very effective for us this season, especially raj in taking wickets and Adi in restricting the runs.....so far he has played 3 games and in all of them he got a wicket in his first over. He got a wicket this game too. He got the well set Abhi who was playing on 41. Abhi had 10 lives in the game I think!!!!! the best was when he got a top edge and the ball flew to phani at the point position, the ball went high in the air Phani, Hari and Puneet all of them could have made it to the ball. But Phani called so the other two stopped their run towards the ball, he was judging the ball and was perfectly underneath it, then all of a sudden he slipped on the grass and the ball fell to the ground!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can u believe that luck!!!!! well anyway, Raj got him atlast but not before some more action.....abhi pulled the ball straight to Avinash who was positioned just for that, he caught the ball but it popped up and went over his shoulder, I thought "One more life!!!!!!" but Avinash showed good reflexes and caught it with a brilliant dive on his second attempt. At last Abhi was gone. But the other guy who was looking very very uncomfortable in the middle came into life all of a sudden and started hitting 4's and 6's.

I brought Avinash and Hari into the attack and I guess lot of people on the team considered a bad decision. Adi and Raj were bowling well so why did I even think of changing the bowler????? Well, Avinash bowled very well in the death last week and Hari is our fastest bowler so I thought that would do the trick for us. but unfortunately both of them were hit for sixes on the off side and also for 4's. So the last 7 overs had costed 55 runs without a wicket. That was very very disappointing for us. they finished with 166/7 in 35 overs.....the only consolation I had was that I got a runout off the last ball of the innings and got the guy who was hitting sixes and fours. But he finsihed with exactly 50 runs!!!!!!!!! he played really well for his 50 and he deserved it. So all in all it was 166/7 with 53 extras!!!!!! 41 by Abhi, 50 by Manju and 53 extras=144 runs....the rest of the team 22 runs!!!!!!!

we had pizza for lunch for a change.....we were glad that the lunch wasnt from Subway :):)

our batting tommrow.........

continued.....

After the night long battle with the bugs I woke up next morning with the break of dawn.....man!!!!!! can u believe that I saw sunrise two days in a row!!!! How many of you can boast of that ????? We had decided to go to the Lost River Cave near Bowling Green. It was supposed to be a boat ride on the underground river. By the time all of us got ready and took the tents down it was 9:30ish. the packing of the tents is a tedious job!!!! we had to make sure that we got everything even the rope on which we dried our wet towels and make sure all the trash has been removed from the campsite.

We were all very very hungry....we went to WAFFLE HOUSE...have u ever been there??? well, we thought that we would get all kinds of waffles but to our disappointment we only got the basic waffle....I was all excited when we entered the place to get a chochlate Chip waffle :(:(. I had to be satisfied with a plain waffle. It was first time for Sindhu, Rajesh and Jyothi....Rajesh and Jyothi had never had a waffle so it must have been exciting to them. We all had a big breakfast!!!! Rajesh liked the waffle but Jyothi said that she will not prefer eating a waffle again. Well...everybody has their own tastes!!!!

We then got to the Lost River Cave which was surprisingly located in the heart of the town !!!!!!!! We missed the 10:30 boat so we had to wait for the 11:30 tour. we waited at the place where we were told that the guide would meet us. We waited till about 11:45 when the guide finally appeared...she was very young surprisingly...probably her summer job. She talked abt the history of the place for abt 20 mins!!!! Then i remembered that they had said that the tour was 45 mins !!!!!!! That means we had wasted 20 mins just listening to her!!!! Then we got to see the actual lost river which was only 4-5 feet deep for most of the way and 10-15 feet at some places. The boat ride was ok and very slow I was disappointed by the tour as it was probably a 700 foot tour thats its!!!!! I had my hopes high so I guess I was disappointed.

On the way back we were stuck in a traffic jam so it took us nearly 8 hrs to get back. The worst part of the return journey was that Nisha got a ticket for speeding. The Kentucky fines were pretty high she was clocked at 84 m/hr in a 65 zone !!!!!!!!! but the cop was considerate enough to enter only 75 so that there wont be any points on her record. But the fine was $130 !!!!!!!! So that was pretty steeep. well we got home at around 1 am. I was very tired and slept almost 10 hrs!!!!!!

That was the long weekend for me. It was fun and hope to go camping again before the end of summer.

The last three saturdays have been very very different for me but all of them had one thing in common....I was out of town on all of them......two weeks ago I had gone to Pittsburgh to attend a friend's wedding.

I had been wanting to go the SV temple for a long time and due to some reason I have not been able to. Last time I had gone to Pittsburgh I could not go to the temple due to heavy rain, but this time I knew for sure that I would be going to the temple....well..the wedding was at the temple. I got to meet a lot of people whom I had not met in quite some time. In general we had a good time and it felt good to attend an Indian Wedding as it has been a long time since I had attended one.

A week ago....I had gone to Niagara Falls..... on behalf of the Indian Students Association in Akron we had taken some of the members to Niagara. They are the largest (not tallest....Victoria Falls are the talllest) falls in the world....700,000 gallons of water per second...!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can u imagine the magnitude and the quantity of water?????. Its a beautiful sight. I had been there in my first year at Akron with the International Students Club but had not been there since....not that it changed in 3 years...we were 10 of us in 2 cars. The trip was subsidized for the members of ISA....ISA paid for transportation and lunch. So the people had to only pay for the rides and dinner on the way back. we had a good time in the car in both the directions. we had our lunch at an Indian restaurant 30 mins from Niagara. We had a little confusion with parking as both rajiv and me parked in different lots. I parked near the Rainbow bridge (the bridge connection US and Canada) and Rajiv parked near .....the cave of the winds.

after a bit of waiting and confusion we met at the cave of the winds......thanx to the cell-phone technology. Cave of the winds is where you get to go under a smaller fall next to Niagara.....the place has 3 falls...Niagara, Americal and Bridal veil falls. Niagara is by far the biggest and Bridal the smallest. All of us got wet under the falls......Rajiv went beserk and started acting crazy...Hari was resisting from getting wet but eventually gave in. At the end of the whole thing I was the only one who was dry :):):). I religiously held on to my Poncho so I was dry everyone esle got wet. Then we went to Maid of the Mist which is a boat ride that takes u right to the feet of the Niagara falls..... I mean not directly under it but as close as we can get safely. It was a great experience as all of us wanted to get on to the top deck of the boat and get as close to the falls as possible. here too alll of us got wet....that includes yours truly....booo boooo....everyone conspired against me and pulled the hat of my poncho down and they all pounced on me...so I had to give me. but it was fun....here too rajiv went beserk. During the whole trip Rohini was constantly filming.....she was trying to get as much footage as possible during these last few months in the US. On the way back we had dinner at Subway:):):) It for pretty late by the time we got home and I had to play the next morning...but I wanted to wish Brijesh Happy Birthday and also just goto Hemant's party for some time so I went there...spent around an hour and left as I was dead tired. I and Hari had gone home early from the party when people grumbled saying that it wasnt fair that we left the party so early.......but both of us went home got the nights rest......guess what !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! both of us get Fifties the next morning and were involved in a century partnership....so wasnt it a good decision to go home early????? just kiddding guys!!!!

This past weekend.....I had gone to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky for Camping. we were 6 of us.....Rajesh, Nisha, Amol, Sindhu, Jyothi (Sindhu's friend from KY) and myself. We left Akron thursday night and stayed over at Nisha's place in Ashland (50 miles from here). The next day morning we wanted to leave by 8 am as we had a 6-7hr drive. All of us (with the exception of Rajesh) got up at around 7 and were ready. I was delayed in getting ready by a hour as I let rajesh to get in to the restroom before me.....a mistake.....Atlast we got ready and packed everything into the trunk of Nisha's car. We started at 9:15 listing to songs we knew that we will be needing a large collection of songs for this trip. Nisha found this website....entertain123...from which we can download hindi Mp3's for free. She had a huge collection which lasted the trip.

we got to the campsite at around 3 in the afternoon...Central time....Nisha and Sindhu went to pick Jyothi so Amol, Rajesh and I were left with the resposiblity of setting up the tents.....Amol and Nisha had a tent of their own and I borrowed a tent from my advisor. The tent hadnt been used for a long time so it was having a bad odor. We assembled all the rods needed to erect the tent and put them in a tensioning triangular piece at the top of the tent......which we thought was enough for setting the tent up.....we bent the rods to peg them to the ground and out of nowhere one of the sides of the tensioning device broke!!!!!! Oh-noooooo. we thought we can still manage.....then another broke....now it was useless....so we asked the girls to get some kind of super glue on their way back.....we then set up Amol's tent without any hassles.....we then had to use .....early man technology......stones and wood chunks to nail the pegs of the tent into the ground. Atleast we had one tent so we were happy. Then when the girls came back with the glue we tried gluing the broken part but to our disappointment it just didnt stick... :(:(:( . The we erected the tent as best as we could so that we were able to put atleast our bags in there. After the setting up and everything....we went to the near by amusement park....we went Alpine Sliding later in the day...its nothing but coming down a hill on a little plastic car....u have a lever to control the speed and to brake. It was fun especially at the turns...u would literally turn sideways.....alll this is based on the speed ur coming down with. Then we did the Bumping cars....we had fun bumping into each other and some of us were going in circles making sure not to touch any other car....but the others ganged up and repeatedly hit them. we got back around 7pm so we decided to play some volleyball...

After a while we decided that we were getting hungry so we started our BBQ experiment....we started a campfire and the campsite provided a grill so we had to only make sure that the fire was burning. It was big deal starting and then keeping the fire going. We had a lot of veggie patties and a box of chicken patties. Each of us had a couple of burgers each with onions, tomatoes and lettuce....it was a great dinner and the BBQ burgers were good stuff. We then started playing Taboo in the dark...it was first time for Sindhu, rajesh and Jyothi but they caught up pretty welll. we had fun playing and we came up with vague sentences and phrases to describe the word. The we decided to go to bed as some of us were going to sleep outdoors and we would be woken up by the Sun early in the morning. So Sindhu, Jyothi, Rajesh and I slept outside on the sleeping bags...we had 2 pillows and 2 blankets between the 4 of us. I couldn't sleep well as something....ant or some other bug......crept on to my legs every 30 mins or so. eventually I was woken up by the sunlight. We then got ready to go to the Cave itself.

We drove with six of us in the car...2 in the front and 4 at the back. It wasnt a long drive thankfully. we got there and to our disappointment most of the tours were sold out and the only reasonable (time and cost factors) tour was called The Frozen Niagara . It was supposed to be a 2hr long tour. So we decided to go on that. The guide was pretty funny but was wasting a lot of time just talking rather than taking us on the tour. The Cave was magnificant......it was great site...the rocks around and the dripping water....slippery floor and a long flight of steps to the bottom of the cave.....250 ft below the ground. The Mammoth cave spans over 365 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...Now Now , dont come to conclusions that the caves will take you to Chicago from kentucky :):)....they are in 5 levels and each probably 70-80 miles long. No wonder its called a Mammoth Cave, the biggest and the longest cave in the whole world !!!!!!!!!!!. The next biggest cave in the world is half the size of Mammoth cave, that speaks volumes abt the cave. At one point the guide said that he will show how the rest of the mammoth caves looked as the tour covered only 3/4 mile. He asked us to switch off all the sources of light...cell phones, cameras and camcorders. he then switched off the cave lights!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was pitch dark !!!!!!! trust me it was absolutely dark and he said that the human eyes will never be able to adapt to that darkness so we will not see a thing. we could not even see the person next to us....man!!!!! just imagine living in such a cave ???????

The Frozen Niagara is nothing but a formation of limestone 70 ft tall that looks like a statue of a water fall. Its a look alike of frozen Niagara falls hence its name. it was great site...all in all it was paisa vasool. Then we had lunch at Pizza hut and went to a hauntd maze against my request to play putt putt....but i guess now most of the members of the group must be thinking..."why didnt we go and play putt putt ????" The maze was really scary....it was literally pick black and it had all the ingredients needed to scare a person.....some of the group members got very scared (I will not disclose their identities) and wanted to get out of the maze.....but it was a maze..so we needed to find a way out ....we came to a fork which had two options to go ahead...Cowards way and Brave's way....we went out the cowards way and dropped off the scared people and went back into the maze to finish the brave's way. It was really scary and we had to feel our way through the maze. somehow we made it out and we were glad that we were out....but before we could exit the maze there was one more scarry and unexpected surprise for us!!!!!!! All in all even this was paisa vasool.

then we went back to the camp and thought of swimming for some time. The mission for all of us for most part of the swim was "lets drown Rajesh". he cant swim so that made it more exciting. we played basketball and then even played Marco Polo of which most of us targetted Rajesh again......we then had the repeat of last evening......BBQ and then Taboo...we tried playing UNO but the light was insufficient to distinguish the colors... we then went to bed and like the previous night 2 pillows, 2 blankets and 4 people and lots of bugs!!!!!!!!!!!

to be continued.........

I made an important decision last week......I have decided to go for my PhD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes....after a long deliberation with myself and after talking to a lot of friends and family I decided to go ahead with this decision. This is an important decision for me becoz I will be changing my field of interest from Biomedical Instrumentation and Image Processing to Biomechanics and Orthopedics......thats a big step for me...

The fact that there have not been any jobs up for grabs in my field also influenced my decision....over the past 3-4 weeks I had applied for only 3-4 jobs...not becoz I didnt get time but becoz i didnt find any jobs that fitted my criterial or vice versa.....there were a lot of jobs in orhtopedics but I could not apply for those as my background didnt match with their requirements. I had tried hard to find a job for 3 months and ended up with only 3 interviews over the phone of which only 1 resulted in a personal interview. That tells the story by itself......

I was against the idea of doing a Ph.D from the begining.....not becoz I didnt want to do it....but becoz I didnt want to do a PhD to just to stay in this country.....but now to find a job I needed a field change which would be possible only with another Master's or a Ph.D. My advisor offered me a fully funded PhD last weeek but with a field change.....it was a very lucrative offer as the project dealt with spine (which is the hottest topic in orthopedics) and with a software called Abaqus...which is the popular Finite Element Modeling software.

My parents said that they would support and encourage me with whatever decision I took and now after a week long....thinking and comparisons with other careers and jobs....i decided to accept my advisor's offer....thus I start my quest to be Dr. Battula...hehehehehhe...thats a distant thing as of now

Our Innings.....

Chasing 200 in 35 overs is not an easy task....so I asked Phani and Brijesh to take their own time and settle down and then play their shots. The ground was holding up nice and grass was cut low so we could drive the ball....so it was unlike the match against VCC where we had to take the aerial route. Puneet wasnt playing in the game so Phani got his preferred opening slot and he was due for a big knock. Brijesh on the other end was fresh from his 65 in the previous game and was brimming with confidence. I walked in with Raj for umpiring. I am glad that Raj finds umpiring interesting and readily walks out to umpire unlike most of the other members of the team. It was good that we were playing from both the ends as both of us were being invloved in the game unlike most of the places where we play from only one end and the main umpire gets all the action and the leggy gets bored to death. But there is a catch...the main umpire has to make the decisions and has to concentrate a lot but leggy doesnt have to do the same...its easier being the leg umpire...but what ever may be the case I enjoy umpiring but if I am bat soon then I would like some rest too before I got into the middle.

Brijesh started off confidently but defending the balls and he looked good as he hit the middle of the bat whenever he made contact ...on the contrary Phani played a flashy shot and missed outside the off stump...which is sooooo unlike him. The second over was bowled by Dixon...i remember him as he got me out the last time I played them. He has decent pace and has good line and length. He beat brijesh a couple of times and that was the key for the next ball which was picthed up and Brijesh played completely across the line and got bowled!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. That was the first time that Brijesh has failed to atleast stay till the 10th or the 12th over (barring the washed out game where we got to bat only 6 overs). He was very disappointed with that shot and walked back slowly. Hari walked in with a quick trot as usual. He played well in the last match and was unfortunate to get run-out but he looked confident. We had discussed that the HCC guys werent very atheletic and that the field would be deep so we can take easy singles. It is easier said than done but Hari and Phani stuck to the task. Hari's first scoring stroke was a pull shot that fetched him a boundary. In the very next over he slashed outside the off-stump got a thick edge and it flew for a four just outside the reach of the slip fielder. The captain of HCC was visibly upset with the way the things were going and he was shouting at his fielders....which is not a good thing to do. Hari then quickly settled down and played more solidly cutting out all the loose and rash shots. Phani on the other end was looking confident and was middling the ball well so I was happy for him. He was making good calls for singles and his on-drive was the most productive shot initially. The fielder was deep at midwicket so both the players took good advantage of it. They ran pretty fast and they were making good calls for 1's and 2's. Only once there was a misunderstanding but Hari made it safely.Phani was geting tired and complained that he had never run as much before and that he was hungry. I just asked him to go on. Just when I was thinking that everything was going well and that we are target with runs and that both the players are well set....Phani went for a shot across the line and was found in front of the stumps....thats it. I think the wicket fell at 62. I told phani jokingly that he did not cross his previous high score ....19...but I was confident that he might have scored around 23-25....but to my shock he was out for ....18.I asked brijesh to take over umpiring from me as I had decided to promote myself up the order. I asked Avinash to come in and I was getting ready to come in next. Avinash had been playing well in the nets and this ground is perfect for driving the ball so I thought that it will be ideal scenario for him get into runs.

As expected he started off well and with Hari going great guns at the other end we looked at ease. I guess too comfortable....Avinash played two late cuts into gap between the short thirdman and the keeper and was looking supremely confident when a hesistant call from him and a sllight hesitation from Hari ended in Avinash getting run-out. Getting run out is the most painful way of getting out when u are seeing the ball well and when u are playing confidently. I was run-out my last couple times in the middle so I can telll you how it feels. The score read 70/3 in 13 overs when I came into bat. I told Hari "behind the wicket non-strickers call" and he said "yeah yeah". I dont know why I say that but I am used to saying that, I make sure that I tell that to every batsman I am in the middle with. I was on strike and as usual took the leg-stump guard and started off on a confident note by leaving the ball outside the offf stump:):) I was happy. Hari was constantly encouraging me from the other end. I hit the second ball to a four between the deep-midwicket and the fineleg. I like to play on the legside and pull is my favorite and runscoring shot. I hit another four to midwicket fence that one was lucky as I got the ball high on the bat and it went up in the air......luckily for me...it fell in a no-man's land. I was happy that in no time I got to 8!!!!!!!!! From then on Hari asked me to calm down and take ones and twos. He was playing very well and was running hard for every run. At the drinks break we were 102/3 in 17 overs with Hari on 40 and me on 13 (all runs scored on the leg-side). AT the break everyone was hyper and were encouraging us for our good batting. It was probably one of the few times in my time here that I got to play a lot of overs. I usually go when there has been a collapse or towards the end in the run-a-ball situation. so it was a different situation for me. Kiran and Brijesh told us "Finish the game and come back, both of u are playing very well and u dont have to play any rash shots","the runrate is excellent just keep playing the way u guys have been playing". Everyone was saying some encouraging words or the other so it felf good. we were at the half way stage with no risks taken and I could sense a partnership building up between us. Raj wanted a break from umpiring so I asked Phani to come in. when we were walked back the HCC guys were still chilling in the pavilion having cake so it was me, Hari, Brijesh and phani in the middle ofthe field with no-one else onthe field. One of their players came and offered us cake which I and Hari gobbled up. We were hungry as we had not had any lunch. One of their players said jokingly "we are feeding u so that u wont run and will get out" and I retorted "look at the positive side for us, we will get power to hit 6's and 4's" without even expecting that I will be doing the same.

After the break Hari and I decided to cut down all the risky strokes and to keep the ball down...i was trying my best to hold on. In one of the overs I saw a short pitched delivery and rocked on to the back foot and pulled the ball....the ball hit the sweet spot onthe bat (meat of the bat) and it went on and on and all the way for a SIX !!!!!!!!!!. I usually never hit sixes. So i was very excited and enjoyed my shot as it went on to the other side of the road. Brijesh liked my shot too. But Hari came up and said "Look Captain, it was a good shot and the ball was meant to be hit, now u will be tempted to repeat the feat and tend to get more aggressive so control"....I tried to do excatly that....the next couple of ball were almost yorkers and were in the block-hole that just barely managed to dig out. Then we ran three for a shot from Hari which he thought was a four....and then immediately we ran one more three for my shot. Man!!!!!!!! that was very very tiring and in the next couple of overs we ran 1's, 2's, a 3 and even a 4!!!!!!!!!!! yes we ran 4 runs!!!!!!!! U dont get to see that very often in our league. I was literally exhausted. Hari has decided to play the anchor as he saw that I was scoring fast...so he considerably slowed down in his scoring and kept his cool even when he could have gone for the big one. Thats the kind of batting that has to be done by all the other players on the team.....he can hit the ball well but he controlled himself brilliantly adapting to the situation and playing a mature innings. On the other hand I was trying to be cautious but was being tempted time and again to go for the big shots. he got to his fifty......a well deserved 50 . We had even crossed the 50 run partnership in the mean time. We were going great guns. After he got his fifty I went down the pitch and embraced him....I think I have been in the middle only once when my partner got a fifty...that was RAM against WVU last year when we had a 96 run partnerhsip of which I had only 22!!!!!!! but this partnership was much more balanced and we were scoring equally.

The first thing Hari said after getting to his fifty was "now its ur turn to get a 50"..till then i had not even considered the possibility....me!!!!!!!! and a 50 !!!!! . Ihave scored a fifty only once before... and that too in a practice match. So I was all excited and started to play more agressively to get to my fifty....Hari said "I told you abt ur fifty so that u will play cautiously but U are doing the other way around". I hit like 4 fours in the next 3-4 overs and was on 48 when Hari actually that I was on 49. i scored a single and started applauding "well done captain, well done" I realised that I have not yet reached 50 becoz no-one in the audience shouted or clappped so I thought may be one more run. In the mean time we got our 100 run partnership...that was my first century partnership so I was very happy. Then finally I took a single and got to my fifty...for the first time I could actually lift my bat for the teammates and audience to applaud. Its a great feeling. we were 20 odd runs shy of the victory and the ball difference wasnt a lot so I thought I will go for the kill......I hit a four and then tried it once too often when finally I got a top edge off the bowling of the spinner who had trouble me all along. 12 runs were needed and I felt disappointed as I got out when 9 runs needed last year too. I mean it feels good to be there at the end and most of all....it improves ur average:):). I wanted to kick myslef for getting out when victory was in sight. But Hari was in the middle and I had full confidence in him. Kiran came in next and did exextly what I feared.....he heaved across the line the first ball he faced....I would have killed him had he gotten out that way.....to spare me from going to prison he played till the end...even hit a four. Hari was still playing with his head down....thats the difference...I could not control and he could control his temptations. ACtually I was more controlled if u see the number of ball he hit in the air and I did. He even got a life!!!!!!!!! BUt he deserved all the runs he got 65 not out (4 fours). Kiran had 8 runs that also improved his average as he was not out. I had 57 (7 4's and a Six). I was happy with my performance. I wanted Hari to hit the winning the runs as he deserved to do so....but Kiran didnt run the second run on Hari's shot which would be the winning run....Kiran wanted to hit the winning run...Brijesh said "Dekh abhi bowler wide dalega aur kiran ki jalegi" and thats what exactly happpned:):)

Adi, Manpreet, Sunny, Hemant and raj were still to bat and we won by 6 wickets!!!!!!!!!!! Yes we chased 200 in 33.4 overs with 6 wickets in hand!!!!!!! Well done Akron CC. I was in a hurry to finish this post before the long weekend so I might have missed some details but I did the best I could think of........

Have a great July 4th weekend.....

Match against Hashlingden

I had gone to Niagara Falls the previous night and was tired as I had little sleep over the past couple of days. I had to get up at 8 AM on a SUNDAY!!!!!!! Can u believe that?????? I had to get up that early to return the rental car. I got late and got to ADi's place at 9:40 expecting people to jump on me for coming late.......as we were supposed to meet at 9:15AM. Its probably the first or the second time that I got late in my three years here. BUt I was surprised to see Hari and Sirish on my way to Adi's house and when I got there not all people had arrived. People told me that Brijesh was missing and that he was sloshed from the previous night......*....flashback....flashback....*...it reminded me of RAM MOHAN who was our star player of last year and was invariably late for every match as he used to drink late into the morning and go to bed only at 5 or so. Kiran had apparently gone to wake Brijesh up.....one thing which I always tell people but they never follow is....not to wake people up by going to their houses....thats one thing I hate the most..call him 100 times if u want but dont go to his house.....if he is not responsible enough to realise that he is a part of the team and has to make sure that before a game he has to got to bed early or if thats not possible get less sleep that night......I mean if one knows that he has to play the next day it doesnt make sense to goto bed at 5 in the morning and them come and complain that he got less sleep...not that Brijesh did that...once he got up he was all set to play and wide awake.But I hope people realise that they will be responsible for their actions and will have to pay a price for letting the team down.....last year RAM was untraceable for a game and I dropped him from the playing Eleven....though the match got rained out and Kiran had gone against my decision to go to RAM's house to wake him up. I was angry with him for that....

ok ok now back to the game.....we left at 10:15 in three cars...Sunny, Kiran and Adi drove... we got there at 11ish and to our surprise we found that some players from the other team were already there....thats very unusual of Hashlingden. BUt the other players lived up to our expectations and got there only by noon. We started warming up and got into our whites and for the first time we had a team jog where all the players took a jog around the ground together. It was good to see Vikas and Sirish joining us for the game.....thats one thing that I have seen this season and hats off to those guys....the people who are being rested for the games were also attending the matches!!!!!!!!! Thats what is team spirit all about. Sirish was involved in an incident, which I would not like to disclose, in which he showed tremendous character and selflessness which cannot be compared to anything I had seen before. I am glad to have such a friend....great spirit Sirish keep it up. All this inspite of the fact that he was dropped from the game after his good bowling performance....as a CAPTAIN i have had to make lot of tough decisions which might have hurt lot of people but I have to make them and I am glad that my team is respecting the decisions.

I went in for the toss with their Skipper and I won!!!!!!!!!! thats 3 out of 4 tosses. I am proud of myself. There was no doubt in my mind to chose to field and my team was happy too. We were experimenting with the new ball...we had Hari and Manpreet bowling with the new ball and our regular bowlers...Kiran was keeping and Sunny was to come on as first change. Hari started off with a wide and had 3 wides in the first over..he was getting a lot of swing in the over cast conditions...manpreet bowled well with the new ball in the previous game but he started off with some short and wide stuff which were dispatched to 4's by the opener. The opener was good on the off-side so I packed the offside field. But the openers were picking 1's and 2's at will and an odd boundary. They raced to 33 from 5.3 overs.....then Manpreet got the ball to come in and got the batsman bowled!!!! That was the break through we were looking for...In Hari's previous over Raj could not latch on to a difficult chance at Point. the ball was struck pretty hard and it had come very quickly to him giving him little time to react. the Fielding in this match had been the worst we had fielded so far in the tournament. The ground itself was uneven making fielding more difficult. there were instances when the ball abruptly changed directions due to uneven bounce making the fielder look like a fool !!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that we got one wicket we thought we will apply brakes and contain them. I gave Hari an extra over than usual ....I take him off after 4 and bring him back in the slog overs. But today I decided to give him a 5th. There were a couple of close calls for leg before appeals. But the umpiring was decent and infact we got lot more than we expected. they were fair on the wide calls and were very very lenient on the balls down the legside. In the mean time the game was halted due to rain for 15 mins!!!!! we were very impatient and wanted to get along with the game as we have already lost two matches due to rain.....I mean they were washed out. With the new man in I put some pressure by bringing in the fielders close but they still succeeded in running the singles and twos. It was frustrating me....they were scoring at a healthy rate and freely. So i brought our most economical bowler for the season....Adi. He sure did apply brakes on the scoring rate. This made the batsman play the shots in the air and Sunny who came in as a first change bowler induced a false stroke from the batsman...he got an edge trying to drive the ball and ballooned a catch to me at Cover...that was the first catch I had taken on the field this season. Their captain walked in and started off in a majestic fashion by hitting Sunny for 2 fours. Sunny was again hit for a 4 in the next over and he was proving a bit expensive...though he got the wicket I was considering to replace him with Raj.In the 15th over a ball was hit straight to me with lot of power....I was at short mid-off....the ball hit my palm and it bounced on to the open cut on my palm and I dropped the catch but I was in great pain. So I went off the field to ice the injury. But before leaving I asked Raj to bowl the next over and he struck gold in his first over itself.....he got the wellset opener for 32 in a similar fashion as the previous wicket...caught in Covers by Adi....that would have been my second catch had I not gone off the field:):).....today we were very very lucky....Raj could not hold on to a tough chance in the initial overs and the batsman who got a life was bowled in the next over and I could not hold on to a powerful drive from the opener but he got out in the very next over so in that way we had our slice of luck.....

Their captain who was playing well and aggressively was then caught by Manpreet in Raj's same first over when he tried to go over the top once tooo often...Manpreet took a really nice catch running side ways......I came on to the boundary line to cheer the team for their success and they start yelling..."Tu field pe math aaa,udhar hi rook, hum ko wickets mil rahe hain".....soo much for being the Captain of the team:):)....nobody even appreciated my bowling change...ggrrrrrrrrr. then we had the break...98/4 in 17 overs....we had water and plum cake and then discussed the strategy for the next half of the innings. Those guys took a long time to comeback on to the field. THe umpires were changed and a person who I know is very irritating came on to the field. Kiran and I have been a part of the teams that have played Hashlingden for the past 2 yrs and we know who plays well and who gives good decisions as Umpires...this guy on the field is a nightmare to the bowler....he doesnt let u err in ur line if the batsman plays and misses the ball its a wide!!!!!!!!!!!!! Once the game resumed after the break...Raj and Adi continued to hold up their line and length so the runs were hard to come by and the fielding had improved too...so we were hoping to bowling them out for 150 or so. Then one of Adi's goodlength ball held its line and hit the batsman on the pads in front of the middle stump ...all of us roared for an LBW decision....but the umpire just turned around and didnt even look into the eyes of the fielders and the bowler...well...thats his style of saying...."Its out but I dont want to give him out"..the next ball ADi did the same thing and to his and our surprise the umpire raised his finger.....shock.....Adi could not belive it....he confirmed by asking the umpire...."does that mean he is out???" and the umpire said "yes" thats it ....there was no stopping to our joy. The umpire will be in for a rude shock when he goes back to the pavillion i thought...he will have a tough time justifying his decision for an LBW......as far as I remember thats the first LBW decison from HASHLINGDEN that I have seen!!!!!!!!

The next man in was Summers, he is a hard hitter of the ball and was caught brilliantly by Phani last year on the long on boundary....so we all knew where he was going to hit the ball and how hard.....so I sent the boudary fielders deep and asked the squareleg to fall back...Adi finished his spell for a brilliant...7-1-27-1. Those were extra-ordinary figures considering the fact that they were scoring over five an over. Raj also bowled well in the circumstances and got the next man bowled .....he finsihed with 6-0-32-3 those were great figures too.I brought myself and avinash on....the umpire called my first ball a wide...that was a good call as the ball was far outside the off-stump but the next two ball were on the off-stump and just moved away beating the batsman both the time and the umpire called them wides!!!!!!!!....thats it I thought.....enough is enough its time to set the things right....i called the skipper on to the field and got the umpire changed....by the way he later told me that he called my second ball at chest height a wide ball and that he could have even called it a no-ball.....he put his foot in his own mouth and was changed for the opener who was reasonable. I finished the over well and Avinash came on....he was on the spot right away....now there was a righty-lefty combination in the middle....both of them were playing well and were scoring freely. My next over was a bad one for us and a good one for them...as far as I can remember I have not been scored off that many runs in an over in my 3 years here..i gave away 13 runs!!!!!!!!! Thats a lot of runs. i was angry with myself...i was hit for 2 4's and I was contemplating whether to continue with the next over or not...and decided to bowl the next over. In the mean time Baji got a Maiden wicket.....that wicket was planned by Kiran .....he asked Baji to bowl short and on off-and-middle and he bowled 4 balls in the exact same spot and on the fourth ball he got the batsman bowled!!!!!!!!!!!!! great job Kiran and Avinash. My next over was an eventful over as I beat the batsman twice with the slower ball!!!!!!!! I always get a kick when I beat a batsman or rather fool him with the slower one. He was completely foxed both the times and I was very happy with myself. That over went for 4 runs ....then Baji continued bowling his good length and short balls....those were yielding only singles so I was happy. In my next over I stopped a hard hit straight drive that hit me on the bone at the bottom of the thumb on my right hand....the blow was pretty hard and i wasnt able to grip the ball well. But it wasnt that bad either.I finshed the over and asked Hari to start from the other end. Baji was bowling well so I kept him on and took myself off. Hari had 2 overs to go so I thought I will bowl him 33rd and 35th overs. But he was hit for 8 runs too so I thought why not try Manpreet he has 3 left. So I asked Manpreet to warm up to bowl the last over that decision was apparently not welcomed by some people on the team as they thought that Hari would bowl the last over. Manpreet started off with some balls down the leg and I was forced to think whether my decision was a good one or not, but he finshed the over with two brilliant yorkers enhancing my faith in him.

They finished with 199/7 in 35 overs....and we went for the break. We hoped to eat something for lunch as most of us had not even had breakfast...but there was no lunch but we were told that there will be dinner at the end of the match.... GREAT...we thought. Phani and Brijesh were all set to open the innings with Raj and I as the umpires.....

Our innings tommorow................................