India wins first series against Pakistan in PAK 3-2

India won its first series in PAK today, its been a long time since India had won a One-day series. It feels good to see the Indian team bounce back from 1-2 down in the series and also shedding the tag of chokers in the process. It was a very very close game, the margin of victory (40 runs) doesnt tell the story of how close the game was.....ask those who were watching!!!!!!!!!!!! everyone was very tensed and was hoping that Pak gets all out as we had the doubt that if they batted the stipulated 50 overs they may attain the target, though it seemed improbable...but thats how the series had been!!!!!!! when a team was counted out of th game it bounced back tremendously to make the match close if not win it.

India-Pak series has always been a much-waited series as the tension in each of the games is unbelievable....u need to expereince it to know how it feels!!!!!!!! the joy when the indian team wins and the disappointment when we lose....but its a part of the game....this series was termed "Friendship series"....it was a friendship series off the field not on the field!!!!!! u could see the intensity in the players during all the games.....that didnt look like a friendship series!!!!!!!!! I think the politicians coined that term for the series as I feel cricket is a game and the players had gone there to win matches but not to solve the Kashmir problem or to reduce the tension between the two countries so the term "Friendship series" is very veyr inappropriate.

Back to the matches.....each game had a common factor....Ganguly losing the toss..hehehehe but I guess that was lucky too as we ended up on the winning side. I find it really strange when people I watch cricket with start commenting on everyone else expect Sachin.....I find that very very irritating and the criticism the other players have to face (not in person) is unbelievable....Ganguly...such a great player...yes, he is a great player....a player cannot make over 9000 runs by fluke!!!!!!!!!! he is having a bad patch that doesnt mean that he doesnt deserve a spot on the team as a player....he has been criticised a lot but never supported....everyone fails...sachin had a bad patch in AUS, then everyone said that it was a bad patch and it will go....he was very very inconsistent and failed in the first three tests before he fought back with that double century....people were patient then but the same people are not ready to give Ganguly the time to get back into touch....I still feel he should open the innings...he was the best there and he belongs there....like how sachin didnt click when he came down the order and was back in form once sent back to the opening slot I think Ganguly will fire too if he gets the opening slot. As a captain what he did is unparalleled....people often forget that he made the difference in the attitude of the players by backing them up when they were down and encouraging them when they did well.....he gets under the skin of the opposition with his verbal volleys which none of the past Indian captains were successful with....u can see the results of the Indian team since he took over as the skipper....the records speak for themselves....

Laxman.....he did a splendid job today....people were cursing him for not firing so far this series but he laid all the questions abt his form to rest with his century today....I found it absolutely disgusting when people started cursing him for slowing down in his 90's when he actually was scoring run-a-ball or more (same thing with dravid in the first match)...people were like...this guy should get out then only india will score more....he is wasting balls....he is costing us the match.....rubbish talk all this....whats wrong if he slows down for an over or 2 to get to his century and then accelerate he worked hard for the century and he deserved it so let him get to it......the so called "genius" and "little master" also does the same thing....once he gets to his 85's or 90's he slows down too...that too considerably....then these same people will say whats wrong with that....thats bias...I agree there is nothing wrong with that but that should apply to other people too.....someone said that sachin would have gotten his century by the 35th or 40th over had he been there so its ok if he slows down then.....so is it laxman's or dravid's fault that they come down the order and get to the 90's in the slog overs????? thats very unfair to ask them to try to accelerate and in the process miss the hundred for the team sake....people say "they shoudl think abt the team....and not abt the records" thats rubbish....whats wrong in scoring a century and also scoring runs for the team......century is not a everyday thing...so when u get close to it u tend to get a bit cautious....there is nobody who is an exception to this.......the only person I have seen who never stays in his 80's or 90's for long is Azhar....I have atleast seen him hit out 4-5 times when he was in his 90's and get to his hundred. in one instance....he was on 82 the next 4 balls were....6,4,6,4.....now thats something one cannot do everyday.

dravid.....scored 243 runs this series.....highest aggregate for India and 2nd only to Inzy in the series.....but people still criticise him....what else should a player do ??? people criticise his keeping....but i guess he is such a true team person that he is taking it in his stride....he is not a keeper but took up the role for team's sake....the team management has forced him to continue keeping when he has expressed his dissatisfaction.....and when he misses something people will be extra critical....he is doing his best for the team so give him credit for that and try to be a bit more open minded and less critical of this outstanding player.

as a matter of fact....let ask the sachin fans a stat.....how many times in the past 3-4 years has Sachin come good in a clutch match....I am sure there are some but not that many....he is a great player...no doubt abt that... but dont look down upon the others and criticise the other players....people will say sachin scored a century in the Chennai test against AUS.....but the clucth was Calcutta when laxman and Dravid came good......chennai test against PAK....sachin on 100 something....great knock...didnt take us home....considering that he was the last of the recognised batsman barring mongia....same scene Adelaide test.....dravid saw us thru to the end when it looked that India might get all-out....stood there till the end.....

I know that the sachin fans out there are ready to jump at the chance to criticise the above blog....but i had to put forward my thoughts:):)

Done at last!!!!!!!

I am done with my PhD qualifiers at last!!!!!!! Man !! thats a good feeling....I have been studying like crazy for the past couple of months and i am glad that I am done with studying for some time now.....atleast i feel I have done well so i should clear the exams!!!!!!!!!

It was one hell of an experience which i would not even like to repeat even in my dreams!!!!!!!! It was an exam marathon of 7 exams in 6 hours.......the dreaded day started at 7:30 when i got out of bed lazily and by 8:30 I was ready to go as i had the exam at 9 am.....I needed Sindhu's help to take the huge pile of books that I had....some of the exams were open book so i didnt want to miss any book concerned to that book....it took 2 trips up and down my apartment to get the books down to my car.....when i stepped into the office in the department the secretary was stunned to see me with a ton of books and going back down stairs a couple more times to get the remaining books!!!!!!!!!!! she was laughing and couldnt understand why i was getting that many books!!!!!!!! I was set up to write the exam in the department library.....I got the morning session papers at 9 am.....I was told that i will have to find another place to write at 11 am as there was some kind of meeting at that place!!!!!! I found that very strange as I was writing my PhD qualifiers (which was a big deal for me)and the department couldnt even reserve a room for me!!!!!!!!!

The morning session comprised of Physiology, Biometry (I hated both the subjects) and Biomedical Instrumentation....all these are core courses and i did well in them when I took them in my first 2 semesters!!!!!!! but now it was a diferent ball game......I dreaded Physiology as it entailed all the systems in the body and many other things!!!!!!!!! I studied real hard for that and I was surprised to see one of the questions from the first chapters of the book!!!!!!!!! it was an easy question and the next one was hard but I did well in that subject and i was thinking....that wasnt a bad start for the day....one of my dreaded subjects out of the way and I am feeling good!!!!! But little did I know what was in store for me in the next paper.....It was biometry....statistics.......yuck!!!!!! i am not a great fan of the subject but i can do with it......but t my shock....I saw alll theor questions in the stats paper!!!!!!! my heart sank!!!!! i was expecting to get atleast 1 or 2 problems to solve but Dr.Sheffer (instructor of the course) had other ideas!!!!!!!! I could make sense of 2 questions but the other 2 were bouncers to me!!!!!!!!! i answered the first two and then decided to get to my instrumentation paper....that I was expecting to be a cake walk.......when i looked at the questions I thought I will breeze thru them but when I started doing them i realised that it wasnt as easy as it looked...and my neglectance and over confidence in the subject was now showing as i realised that I wast prepared enough to answer the question.....I struggled to get the Fourier Coefficients for the given signal and I didnt manage to get them....I was disappointed but the second part of the question was a bit better as it had Laplace Tranform....I got the answer and I was elated but in the mean time i lost track of the time and I realised that I had 15 minutes to answer the 2 questions in biometry!!!!!!! i wrote what i felt was appropriate as i wasnt sure abt either of the questions!!!!!!! i had to dig into the reserves of my skills honed over the years of writing crap in the answer paper in India!!!!!!!!! when U didnt know the answer beat around the bush and fill up the pages!!!!! thats exactly what i did but anyways, i was done in time and I had an hour's lunch break.

Had lunch at Sindhu's place and came back for the second innnings!!!!!!!! this time it is 4 papers in 3 hours!!!!!! the subjects were easier than the morning session....Circuit Analysis, Signals and Systems, Numerical methods and Analysis and Linear Algebra....I expected linear algebra to be a easy but it turned out other wise.....I answered the first question and the second was a bouncer......if A is a matrix then find A power n........I had 4 books for linear algebra and i couldnt find a answer to that question!!!!!!! I started with Signals and systems which turned out to be Signal and Image processing!!!!!!!!! now that was a blow below the waist as I was told it would be only signal processing!!!!!!! it was 1 and half questions Signal processing and 1 and 1/2 questions of Image processing.......I thought I was doomed but the only good point was I had to answer only 2 questions of the 3.....so i thought I will try my best to answer the signals part and answer the half Image processing question.....thats exactly what i did.....the i started with Circuits next......It was like clock work as I had practiced a lot for that stuff!!!!!!!! It went smoothly.....I was left with numerical methods.....I saw the questions and was stunned as I didnt now a lot of them.....but I had abt 45 minutes left so i decided to think calmly and went abt answering the ones I knew and finally I finished the exam on time and the feeling was amazing!!!!!!! it felt like a big burden taken of my shoulders and then i got to watch the Ind-pak match so i was very very happy....though it was a close game we could have played better and should have won the game.