India and Pakistan reach T20 final

The ongoing T20 championship has thrown up the advertiser's dream final, India v/s Pakistan. It is quite amazing how these teams after being dumped out of the World Cup, have bounced back with very young teams.

Pakistan did a good job of restricting New Zealand to less than 150, and then knocked off the runs without too much trouble.

The other semi-final between India and Australia was a cracker of a game. Australia initially kept the Indian batsmen on a tight leash. However, they didn't get too many wickets, and Yuvraj, Uthappa and Dhoni were able to put up a pretty big total. Yuvraj now holds the record of the longest six in the tournament, the 119m hit coming off Brett Lee.

When the Aussies came out to bat, RP Singh and Sreesanth were rather hostile to start with. Gilchrist and Hodge fell, but that brought Hayden and Symonds together, and they nearly took the game away from India. Fortunately, some excellent bowling by Sreesanth, Pathan, Harbhajan, and RP Singh, meant that both Hayden and Symonds were out and 22 runs were needed off the final over. Joginder Sharma, who had been carted around previously, ensured that the pressure told on the Australians, taking 2 wickets and ensuring that India won.

Dravid quits

Finally, Rahul Dravid has resigned as captain after a very eventful couple of years. Initially overshadowed by Greg Chappell, he never really came into his own as captain, despite several overseas successes.

Criticism has been forthcoming from all corners for most of his tenure. Detractors have accused him of poor tactics in the World Cup loss to Bangladesh, and of being too defensive in the final test during the recent England tour. Though the latter is questionable, as if England had won, the same detractors would have said he was too aggressive, and even worse, India wouldn't have won the series.

Still, commentators are there to comment. Dravid, has probably had enough of their talk, and will now go back to doing what he's best at, doing the talking with his willow!

Amongst the possible captains, any of the senior players would be little more than stop-gap options. However, Dhoni does seem to be a cool customer, and could be considered despite a lack of experience, a la Graeme Smith. However, India do have 2 big series coming up, against Pakistan & Australia.

Finally, a post on NogOnTech!

After over 7 months, a new post appears on my technical blog. This despite my mid-sems going on!

Finally, a quizzing victory!

I had my first outright victory in a quiz in over a year last week. It was an intra-IITB quiz. Fortunately for me, it was a general quiz. Teams were formed randomly, and I was paired with a freshie. Did incredibly well in the elims, thanks to some really "intelligent" guesses.

The points from the elims carried over to the finals, and we were able to maintain the big lead till the end. Rather satisfying to finally win! Though there have been quite a few second places over the past year.