Great win for Test Cricket!

India, England, and Test Cricket won the first Test at Chennai.

England had the upper hand for a good part of the Test.  387 is a good target but when Sehwag gets going there isn't much that can be done!  Sachin played a winning knock, Gambhir, Yuvraj contributed a good deal too.

Strauss joins an elite list of Herbert Sutcliffe, George Headley, Vijay Hazare, Clyde Walcott, Sunil Gavaskar, Andy Flower, and Brian Lara with two centuries in a losing cause!

Photos from the India-Aus first test at Bangalore

I've (finally!) uploaded pictures from the first India vs Australia Test match (9-Oct-2008).

Hope you like watching Sachin, Ponting, Ishant, and some unorthodox shots!

Thank you, England

We are grateful to the English Cricket Team for agreeing to play the Tests in India. It is a very courageous decision and India appreciates the cricketers for being united during the tough decision making process.

I hope that the does very well. You've won already!

Speech is Silver!

Recently I discovered that "Speech is Silver"!

Speech == Argument

Silver == Argentum

Speech is a mumble-jumble of Silver ...
QED

Statistics, where does it lie?

Consider that a team has lost 5 wickets, where is the final score likely to lie? The last 5 wickets are likely to add only ~113 runs (110-116) irrespective of the starting scores (e.g. 300/5, 400/5, 500/5, 600/5). Strange but true ...

Charles Davis, on Cricinfo's It Figures, does a fine statistical analysis of the likely final score for an unfinished innings!

Which would be a bigger final score, SL's 952/6d or WI's 790/3d? SL might've reached 1028 vs WI's 996!! WI's chances of exceeding 1028 is 24% ...

Can this technique be applied to 'not out' innings as well? We could possibly determine Sachin's final score for 248* but it would be tricky for 400*, I guess. Would the averages be affected drastically?

Who says that cricket is just aggression? In this case, it is regression ...

Our country ...

During a recent chat with friends, a few statements were heard ...

"We, in the US ..."
"India is my country ..."

I chimed in: "Malaysia is .my country" ;-)

She taught me that ...

On a fine morning my daughter (< 3 years old) was trying to pick up a soft toy (a black and white panda).

(Conversation in Malayalam, our native tongue)
Doter: "Can you get me that chimpanzee?"
Me: "I don't see any chimpanzee!" (despite knowing she was looking for that panda!)
Doter: "That chimpanzee over there ..."
Me: "That is not a chimpanzee"
Doter: "I want that chimpanzee"

I decide to teach her about classes/generic/specifics ...
(after all, my age in years is more than hers in months :-))
Me: "If you ask for that 'animal', I shall get it"
Doter: "Ok, get me that animal"
Me: "Here it is. It is called a 'Panda'"

Doter: "In English it is called 'chimpanzee'"

... and I learnt a lot!

New Zealand's Ire on Ireland!

An Ireland vs New Zealand ODI match entered the cricket record books.

• The 290 run victory is the biggest ever!
• Both openers scored 150+ runs, the first such instance. Dravid and Tendulkar had scored 154/186 in an ODI but this is the first by the openers.
• 154 runs were scored in the last 10 overs, beating the earlier record of 146.

Why are these matches official ODIs? They aren't worthy of being one!

Chanderpaul - The long lasting ...

... Duracell of all time?

During the Aus-WI series, Chanderpaul repeated his long standing ability! During his 18 hours between dismissals, he had seen 18 wickets go down at the other end!! It is an extremely rarely incident. Against India (2002) he saw 21 wickets fall, which could be the record! He had 20 wickets in 2007.

This is his fourth stint of 1000 minutes between dismissals, which is a record!!! Nasser Hussain, Sachin, Dravid, Kallis have all done it once each ...

Sangakkara had a streak of 18 wickets during his 100*, 156* knocks where he had scored over 50% of the team's score in two consecutive innings! Jacques Rudholph had a streak of 18 wickets between dismissals too.

Get the Factz right!

How well does Powerset get its Factz right?

1. A cricketer's favourite query is Is Sachin God? Factz gets it right! :-). Of course, Sourav is not far behind ;-).


2. A traditional set theory query of Is Null set a Sub set gives a Power Set response! This definitely is a conspiracy by Powerset ;-)


3. Another query "Who killed Gandhi?" ...
   Factz from Wikipedia: we found that the following kill Gandhi
   madman, Nathuram Godse, Nathu Ram Godse and assassin
   
   Nathuram Godse He said, "No one should think that Gandhi was killed by a madman".
   
   
   The results also correctly include the assassinations of Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi.
   But Nathuram Godse did not intend "madman" to be listed as an assassin of Gandhiji!

I believe that in Semantic Retrieval it is important to handle "negation". It is non-trivial but very important as it modifies the semantics. "Negation" highlights the need to use NLP technologies in improving retrieval quality and "the intent" ...

Overall I'm impressed with the results of Powerset. It does get the Factz right ...

Firefox-3 World Record effort

Are you participating in the Firefox Download Day record effort? Well, I've pledged to! 17/June is THE day. What do the astrologers say? :-)

One factor that could prevent enthusiasts from switching immediately would be the extensions! Not all extensions would've been made FF3 compatible :-(. In my case switch proxy would be an example, I'll now have to look for an alternative (foxy proxy?). The guys with too many extensions that haven't been upgraded will find it difficult!

An Elementary search on Powerset!

A search for the only liquid non-metallic element doesn't yield Bromine but liquid nonmetallic element does! "non-metallic" and "nonmetallic" are not treated the same ... Maybe it isn't elementary after all :-)

Searching for the Eight Degree Channel?

Check out the Powerset Factz for the Eight Degree Channel!
Powerset identifies that the channel actually "separates" two islands!
Wow!!

Factz from Wikipedia: we found that Eight Degree Channel separated the following

Eight Degree Channel Eight Degree Channel	separated :	Laccadive and Amindivi Islands.

Photos from the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary

In early May, I'd visited the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary (near Mysore, India). The birds are lovely and present in large numbers though many had already migrated out of the sanctuary in April. Check out the full-sized images on Zooomr or on Flickr.

Which one did you like the most? I loved the orange little egret, snowy egret, the details of the black headed ibis, and the geometry of the stork wings ... I enjoyed capturing a 10MP image of a stork in flight - it was perfect timing and I may not repeat it again! :-)

What is in Flynn's name?

Q: Daniel Flynn of New Zealand made his Test Debut on May 15. What is the significance (since the days of C.B.Fry)?


A: Flynn probably has the longest name with no vowels (beat Fry?).

Flynn is not first one with 5 consecutive consonants in the name. Notable ones with 5 consonants include: WW aRMSTRong, STRYDom, CoNYNGHam, LiLLYWHite, etc. The ODIs have seen DaLRYMPLe (6!) and Eric SzwaRCZYNSKi (7!!)


Of course, I should Ask Steven this! Ah, that reminds me that Wisden has SYCLD Berry and Steven LYNCH ...

Birds of Kannur

I've uploaded some animal and bird photos on Flickr. They are mostly from Kannur except for the elephant and gaur at the Muthanga Wildlife sanctuary.

I liked 'the call of the sparrow', 'Suspended Flying fox', 'Strolling up', and the mongoose.

I should find the names of the birds and update the photos.

Birds of Ranganathittu

Recently my friend Thej posted lovely pictures of the Birds of Ranganathittu. Ranganthittu is on my wish list of 'must visit' places now!

I requested my avid bird-watching friend Jayachandran (JC) to comment on the birds. He has identified most of them! Thanks JC and Thej. Hope our Ranganathittu trip materializes in May ...

Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 WA lens

The Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 is an interesting wide angle lens. Wide angle lenses rarely come a fixed f/2.8! The zoom range is fairly constrained due to this (unlike Canon's 10-22 or even Tokina's 12-24)

I see a couple of reviews; Ken Rockwell, Koh Kho King. I am tempted to get one to cover the wide angle range! :-)

Outscoring themselves in the second innings!

In the recent SA-India second test, the Indians recovered in the second innings. Each batsmen scored more than their first innings score!

How often does that happen? I think that SL did that recently. Bangladesh swapped the innings in their very first test (first innings was better)!


Earlier in the first test, the first seven partnerships were each worth at least 47 runs!! Nice team performance indeed! The Indian team on the other hand scored 86/8 (sans Jaffer, Sehwag, Dravid); is the 76/10 of the second test a big surprise? ;-)

Boos is the secret of my energy!

Huge boos as Harbhajan walks out to the crease
47.3


And later in the day ...
25.4 Harbhajan Singh to Symonds, OUT, got him! ...
ML Hayden run out 55 (68b 7x4 0x6) SR: 80.88
Australia 121/4 A Symonds 40* (54b 2x4 1x6) Harbhajan Singh 4.4-0-21-0
25.6 Harbhajan Singh to Symonds, OUT, ...
A Symonds lbw b Harbhajan Singh 42 (56b 2x4 1x6) SR: 75.00
Australia 123/5 MEK Hussey 0* (0b) Harbhajan Singh 5-0-23-1


Harbhajan wants it louder! (Cricinfo image)

later, India wins the finals ...
(on Cricinfo) Harbhajan loves it, watch out for the pics on this website and in the papers tomorrow, grabbing a stump and celebrating hard and harder with pure joy in his eyes.


Boos is the secret of my energy!

Heavy weight Indian team!

In the 3rd test at WACA ...

1. 9 Indians have already scored centuries in their career! Ishant & RP have some catching up to do :-)
2. 6 double centuries! (309, 212, 270, 248*, 239, 281, 148, 102, 112*)

It doesn't happen often. 9 centurions in a team is the record, I think. I recall reading about one of the NZ teams having 10 players scoring a century (Shane Thomson or Adam Parore scored his century later).

Ping, Pong celebrations!

Yesterday, I was chatting with a friend after a very long while.

me: Ping
he: Pong

me: Pong-al celebrations? :-)


Pongal, the harvest festival of South India (esp. Tamil Nadu), was celebrated yesterday!

Ponting Code of Conduct!

Would this fit on a Placard?

Ponting Code of Conduct

"offend, insult, humiliate, intimidate, threaten,
disparage, vilify"
Taunt
SLEDGE
Listen (for racist words)
Complain

The first set of words are taken from the ICC Code of Conduct :-)
And Ponting is larger than the Code of Conduct ;-)

Johnny's integrity

Just a rhyme of yore ...

"Johnny, Johnny"
"Yes, Papa"
"Eating sugar?"
"No, Papa"
"Telling Lies?"
"No, Papa"
"Open your mouth"
"I think if you are actually questioning my integrity ..., you should not be standing here."

Disclaimer: The people and events in this case are fictional. Resemblance to real events or to names of people, captains, living or dead or a bad spirit, is entirely coincidental.