I'm back

After a bit of a hiatus caused by good old-fashioned deadlines and a short spell of conjunctivitis, I'm back.

The T20 championship ended with that most shocking of results, India winning. Frankly, though it was a real humdinger of a final, and Pakistan were well in sight of victory. This was followed by a loooong bus-ride through Mumbai, and the Indian players now know why Sachin Tendulkar only drives his Ferrari at night.

Of course, all this was followed by the ODI series against Australia, where the predictable happened, India lost the series, despite Sreesanth's histrionics and quite a few decent performances from everyone except Dravid. Indeed, only 1 of the matches was completely one-sided.

Dhoni also showed why he's a good captain by supporting the big (and old) 3, after their performances in the Chandigarh ODI. Let's hope he carries forward from here.

A major worry for the Indians is the fact that they failed to play Brad Hogg and Michael Clarke well. Normally touted as amongst the best players of spin in the world, they were completely bamboozled by the Australian spinners.

I've also been following the Rugby World Cup, and the fightbacks of both England and France after initial setbacks were great to follow. England defeated France in their semi-final, and now face-off against South Africa for the trophy.

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.

Quizzing escapades

Quizzing this semester hasn't been particularly great. I've still to get into a final. My bad luck at Malhar continued. However, I finally had fun at the intra sports quiz we had here a couple of days ago! No, I didn't qualify for the final, but I still didn't do too badly. Plus, the questions weren't bad either, so it made for a decent night away from the lab, which is rarely a bad thing.

Compering again!

Prabhat, a Linux workshop organized by the CSE department has begun. The first day, consisting of a series of talks, is over and I'm quite grateful for that. I was one of the anchors, and was also involved in coaching those who gave the talks. Overall, it went reasonably well.

Breaking records

A few days ago, I logged into orkut after 8 months! This must be a record in IIT-Bombay, where every other guy seems to be "orkutting" (If it isn't a record it must be in the top 10). In fact, I think that orkut must be the numero uno bandwidth user in IIT-B, followed distantly by google.

One thing I really never could get was the names in orkut often have nothing to do with a person's real name or e-mail id or anything uniquely identifiable. This might be good for security, but could lead to embarrassing moments, particularly when you log in after a seriously long time. Yes, it has happened to yours truly, which is why he's whining about it!

Independence Day

Today India celebrates her 60th Independence day. Not bad! Apparently, Congo and the two Koreas share their I-days with us.

Nog finally blogs

After a long period of being beseiged by deadlines, I have finally found the inclination and strength to publish a post on my long silent blog.

Similarly, Real Madrid have finally won the Primera Liga after 4 long years. The season has been almost funny really. Halfway through the season, it looked like Barcelona had already won the league, but then they came up with a long run of poor form, while the chasing pack drew closer. Eventually a 1-1 draw with Real Betis, when they needed a win to stay top, knocked them of top position. This was a rather disappointing draw thanks to bags of missed chances. Real Madrid were, on the other hand, in terrific form thanks to their knack of snatching late wins, as they did against Villareal (4-3 after being down 1-3), just what they needed to go on top. There was also the dramatic second from last round of games, when Barcelona gave away a 2-1 advantage to draw 2-2, and Real Madrid managed another late goal to get away with a 2-2 draw, thus holding on to top spot. Fortunately for Madrid fans, there was no such drama on the last day of the season, Real eventually triumphing over Mallorca 3-1 to win their 30th league title.

Another once-in-a-blue-moon event happened recently(or rather a couple of months ago). I turned out for KReSIT's basketball team in PG Sports 2007. Finally, I've represented some entity in a sporting contest. Oh, and we did manage to reach the semi-finals, thanks to a last-minute 17-16 win over the Physics dept., and a bye against the Humanities department, whose team didn't show up. Eventually, we were stopped by IDC.

Ah well, such is life. Let's hope I don't take another few months for my next post!