Gurgaon-Delhi-Noida

Boy, this part of India has growth and development on steriods. The number of really cool office buildings and malls in Gurgaon is simply mind boggling. As always the roads are forgotten until the very end. The Govt. steps in to fix the roads after all the fancy stuff has come up. The malls are superbly designed, and the local crowds are thoroughly enjoying it. If only the overall infrastructure planning were better!

Peace process "irreversible"

On his recent visit to India, President Musharraf insisted on adding the word "irreversible" as part of the joint statement with India. Firstly, what's he trying to tell the world? Previously the peace process was reversible?

For a guy who is infamous for his political and diplomatic doosras, this one was some kind of master stroke? Didn't find much in the press either explaining what he might have meant by "irreversible". One thing is for sure, the confusion from the statement is certainly irreversible.

New Pope

I was surprised at the euphoria over the announcement of the new Pope. Radio and TV networks dropped regular programming to focus on the announcement. I was really surprised that NPR dropped its morning program to report live on the announcement. Its possible that media acted in a similar fashion in Europe, or at least parts of it. I can understand a quick announcement followed by return to regular programming, but this was not the case! Maybe this is an extension of the red states-blue states split facing the US, maybe the majority are in favor of this from the media.

Viru the new Bradman

Woolmer thinks Viru is like Bradman. That's quite a compliment especially coming from a shrewd thinker like Woolmer. The irony is that every few years we produce a Bradman-like player -- it was Gavasker in the 80s, Tendulkar in the 90s, and Viru is the 2000s -- the team as a whole can never unfortunately deliver consistently. I wish everyone especially Indian cricket fans stop praising individual team members to the skies by making such pointless comparisons and instead focus on the team performance.

Its time to open the flood gates and romp in youngsters to form a new look ODI team in preparation for the next world cup. Viru has to play a big role in grooming the team for the next world cup (perhaps as captain). Pak has come so far only because they invested in their youngsters and dumped 7 of their top players after the last world cup. Its time India did the same.

Adobe-Macromedia acquisition

I think this is a smart move on the part of both companies. Macromedia is reaching a point were an imminent threat from Microsoft is inevitable. Adobe on the other hand has always seen Microsoft as a threat. Coming together of these two companies gives Adobe a solid installed base of users and whole bunch of new products. Macromedia on the other hand can develop a more comprehensive strategy to counter the threat from Microsoft by being part of Adobe's suite of products. Besides, Macromedia has so many products now accumulated from so many acquisitions over the years, that its a good time to evaluate its long list of products. The only downside in my opinion is that historically large mergers have never worked. And of course, some users will suffer because Adobe is sure to end of life some Macromedia products. While Microsoft is all focused on IE and Search, its nice to see parts of the software industry joining forces to beat them in other areas.

Final ODI: Pak wrap it up

Good show Pak. Well deserved. On their way to a fine series win. India clearly has lot of talent but lacks spine, good leadership and most of all good strategy. Time for a fresh start with John Wright's departure. Personally, I think India must make some drastic changes to the one day side.
The senior players must be phased out in favor of younger promising talent. This would require some tough, careful decisions to be made with an eye on grooming a team for the 2007 world cup.

Final ODI: Golden chance for youngsters

India is struggling at 65-3 -- huh! So what's new about it? Our top celebrities Sachin, Viru and Dravid are cooling their heels in the pavilion after playing useless knocks. The good news is that it opens up a golden opportunity for the next generation of Indian celebrities (Dhoni, Yuvraj, Kaif, Agarkar, Mongia) to rise to the occasion and take India to victory. It certainly sounds good to hear but a tall order to accomplish. If you are a die hard Indian cricket fan, this is a great chance for you to raise your hopes.

Final ODI: India likely toast

Pak did well to run up 303. To give credit to the Indians, I think they restricted Pak to a smaller score than they should have reached given the flying start from Afridi. Given Indians recent performances and our typical lack of spine when it comes to chasing big score, a defeat seems very much on the cards. I hate to be so pessimistic, but that's how India has performed lately.

India-Pak Fifth ODI: India Grilled

India was thrashed by Pak. Shahid Afridi was at his best. Throwing his bat at all the juicy deliveries being sent down, Afridi piled on a rock solid 102. Even I could have batted at the other end! Indian bowlers were so badly demoralized.

Balaji was celebrating the new year by serving Afridi pongal like deliveries. Dravid soon decided to serve Afridi a full course meal by bringing in Kumble whose full tosses and leg breaks served up like bissibela bath only to be promptly slammed across the fence. It was a battle of sambar, pongal and bissibela bath vs raw halal beef.

Lets hope the last one day match is more balanced and not like a trip to the slaughter house. I hope India at least has a plan for Shahid-bhai, though this might turn out to be a match for Razzack who has looked very dangerous but hasn't fired in a big way.

Fifth ODI: India struggle

Pak has a gett-able target. India struggled and then recovered to put up 249. It hard to see how India can defend such a small score against the solid Pak batting line up. To start with India never really has a plan for Afridi. At a min India must knock out his wicket early if it even stands a chance.

Fourth ODI: Hats off to Pak

A fighting perfuming from Pak. Man, these guy are true fighters. Its amazing how Pak comes together as a team, especially against India. Thoughts from the match and after.

Ganguly:It appears as though the selectors were in a hurry to get rid of Ganguly. The appeal has not happened as yet and the selectors almost instantly named the new team and captain. Sounds like they were in a hurry to bid Dada "bye-bye". His decision to come in at number 4 has come in for a lot of criticism. Personally, I think he did the right thing. The spinners were on, and he is very capable of belting the spinners. Unfortunately, he never really tried to force the pace. For this he certainly deserves plenty of criticism.

Dravid: This could be a make or break for his captaincy hopes. If he delivers two victories and some of the younger folks shine, Ganguly's fate may be sealed for ever from the one day side. He has a lot at stake here. Its also a chance for him to set things right and show his ideas with regard to the ideal team combination. Kumble is back, Dhoni appears to have grabbed number 3 slot, Kaif is a terrible misfit at number 7, Murali bowled well in the last ODI, our opening bowlers suck repeatedly, he has a new deputy in Viru. All in all he has an opportunity to make some interesting decisions. Besides in addition to these two games, he has four more to go before Ganguly is back in the reckoning. In short, there is a lot at the stake for India's most reliable batsman. Will he scale the wall?

Sachin: Played a superb innings. I only wish he had retired hurt once he was hit by cramps. It was a painful site to see him struggle and bring down the run rate along with Ganguly. This is a pitiful example of a complete lack of strategy on the part of the Indian team management. Either Sachin should have attacked and given Ganguly the time to settle. Or Ganguly should have attacked from the word go and had Sachin rotate the strike. Unfortunately neither of the two scenarios happened, and both perished leaving India with a loss of momentum. But for the super cameo by Yuvraj India would have ended up with a score lot lower.

In the final analysis, India never played as a team. A few super performances and that's about it. As always we continue to create celebrities out of individuals in the team for their personal performances, while the team as a whole continues to languish as a totally unpredictable bunch.

As for Pak, they are a terrific team, but equally unpredictable, especially when the opposing team is not India.

Windows Update-Firefox problems?

I installed the latest Windows update yesterday. Since then my Firefox browser icons have started to look rather weird. All the icons appear to have a black/dark colored square around them! Anyone seen a similar problem? Any ideas?

Book Review: The Lovely Bones

Read the book (fiction) The Lovely Bones, By Alice Sebold.

The story is about is fourteen year old girl who gets raped and killed by a weirdo in the neighborhood. The book focuses on how the parents and others deal with this loss over time. Interestingly, the little girl goes to heaven and gets to see and participate in this process. Great idea and hats of to the author for the wonderful writing style and creativity. The story and writing is truly engaging and depicts the grief and sorrow that the family has to deal with in great detail. Unfortunately, I found that there was very little beyond this! I was hoping that something would come out of the crime and waited the entire book but nothing came about. The story is certainly very moving, but I found myself disappointed overall, because the entire book was pretty much an emotional trip and nothing else. If you are the deeply emotional type, you'll love this book.

Cheers leader for cricket teams?

The days when cricket teams have cheer leaders is not far off. Check this out.

Third ODI: India Spineless

India put up a spineless response to Pak's 319. Veeru failed and India collapsed barring a decent show by Pathan with the bat. For an ardent Indian cricket fan, it was disheartening but nevertheless familiar sight of a procession of Indian superstars walking in and out after failing to settle in and dominate the Pak bowling. For the third consecutive time Sachin returned with a single digit score. For all the pressure on Ganguly to perform, Sachin, Yuvraj, Kaif are not far behind.

Dravid was out to a nasty delivery. The rest had no excuses. Dhoni threw his wicket away to a poor shot just when he looked set for a big score. The sad part is that for once the famed middle order got a golden opportunity to build a score because of the early loss of wickets and simply failed to deliver.

Pathan could use a break?After his dismal show with the ball, Pathan had to redeem himself somehow and he certainly managed to do that with the bat. In any case, Pathan's bowling seems to have completely lost its venom. In a relatively short period he has regressed from being India's lead strike bowler to a potential weak link in the bowling. In short, I think he could use a long break, a la Zaheer Khan. The break certainly helped Zaheer regain his bowling form at least to a certain extent.

The Wicket: The Jamshedpur wicket was certainly not a bad one, in that it wasn't a batting paradise like the earlier ODIs. The truth is that the Pak bowlers exploited the pitch while the Indian bowlers simply failed to. It won't be a stretch to speculate that India would not have put up a big score even if India had batted first.

Changes in the Pak team: Younis Khan was reduced to a mere passenger (he did manage a catch or two) while Danish wasn't really tested given the way the Indian batting collapsed. The true test is when Viru starts slogging him at the top of the order, just as Pathan did to him at the end.

Thank God, no Agarkar: Dada's choice of Pathan over Agarkar shows how little confidence he has in him. He clearly prefers an out of form Pathan over Agarkar. Wonder who is behind Agarkar's selection when the captain has so little faith in him. The next one day might unfortunately see Agarkar in action after Pathan's poor show with the ball.

Overall a very convincing victory for Pak. The Pak bowlers bowled well and the batsmen had no trouble scoring against the Indian bowling. Hopefully, the next one day will be hard fought and won't see another "wuzzy" performance from the India superstars.

Third ODI: India-Pak

Pak put up a fine batting display. As often happens, India has the rare ability to bring out of form batsmen from the opposition back to form. In this case, it was Salman Butt's turn. He played a fluent innings and deserved the century. Pak seemed set for a score higher than the 319 they ended up with. They lost too many wickets at the end to achieve the 350 target.

In any case, I had predicted that India would make 220 in reply. India is now struggling with a pathetic 76-5. I still think it will take a miracle for India to win and we'll be lucky to cross 200. Pak seem set for a morale boosting win. The psycological impact of this Pak victory here will be huge. India could well find itself in a post third test mind-set. The dependency on Sehwag is similar to India's dependence on Sachin in the 90s, and is cause for serious concern.

Google Maps: Classy Stuff

Check out Google Maps. Slowly these folks seems to be offering everything that the portals of dot com days offer/used to offer, but with a distinctive class of their own. Here are some initial observations.

• Just as Gmail, Google Maps are easy to use once you get a hang of it.
  
• The satellite pictures are way cool!
• The maps views when you zoom in are nice and uncluttered and show you the street names very clearly.
  
• You can select the map that appears after you type in your start and end points and actually move it around with your mouse. Check it out, enough to give goose bumps!
  
• No matter what you do to the map, the directions that appear on the right of the screen always remain. This is a really nice feature, as opposed to the whole page refreshing.
• The links to start address and end address lets you zoom in on specific related to the roads at the two end points. Very useful feature.
  
• The ability to fire up the satellite picture within the inset/pop-up window while the map remains in the background is simply awesome.
  
• Can't seem to print only the directions without the map view.
  
• I could not figure out the use of "Link to this page" feature. Didn't see it in the help either. I didn't spend too much time (who cares to read manuals anyway!) trying to figure this out.
  

Overall, I love Google Maps. Its amazing how these guys repeatedly figure out a better way to offer existing services. Impressive stuff!

Second ODI: Cool Victory!

Glad that India won in style. Hats off to Pak for putting up a fight. Dhoni is a great find. I hope Dada will continue to send this guy up the order. Dhoni and Viru at the crease is electrifying cricket. Man, that guy Viru, is like Kapil Dev on steriods.

Razack's batting was very impressive. He is a master of improvisation and placement. Nehra was completely clueless about where to bowl to this guy. It was not that Nehra was bowling badly. This guy just had an answer for every kind of ball. In my opinion this guy is more dangerous than Afridi. He indulges in sensible hitting and is hard to keep in check.

Btw, can someone tell me what on earth is Agarkar doing in the team for the third one day! What happened to Dada's pool of young fast bowlers -- Bhandari, Munaf Patel, Gagandeep, etc.etc. Anyone can do better than Agarkar. I can't imagine Agarkar bowling to Afridi is full flow. Agarkar has a strange knack of putting people in a "zone" where their free stroking skills simply come alive! God, I hope he doesn't play in the third one day! Even an injured Balaji is a safer bet!

Second ODI: India 356 for 9

India recovered quite a bit in the last few overs, after losing a flurry of wickets, thanks to some lusty blows by Balaji and Zaheer. Pak need a flying start from Afridi if they have to make this score. Veeru went completely berserk right from the start. After the early loss of Sachin, Dhoni joined Veeru and did a super job of keeping up the run rate. After Veeru's dismissal, as always Dravid played a sensible knock and took the Indian score to a respectable 250+. Then a flood of wickets and finally a cameo from the tailenders helped India to a very good score. Hats of to the Indian team management for promoting Dhoni in the order. If this guy proves to be a good keeper, Dinesh Karthik better watch his place in the test side. His batting was very impressive. And finally we have found someone other than Veeru who can really whack the ball! He is definite asset in the one day side and should be used whenever needed to accelerate the run rate.

Pak need a flying start from Afridi if they have to make this score. A run rate of 7+ can obviously be daunting. Should be an exciting match ahead provided Pak can remain in the chase.

Note: India made a decent score even without Ganguly striking form.

Indian batting procession

just started...Dhoni, Dravid and now Kaif....just when 350+ was a must. At this rate 330 seems more likely.

Second ODI: India 241 for 3 in 36

India has batted superbly so far. A 350+ total is a must. But India has never done well in the lasty 10-15 overs. The same could happen here. Dhoni is a great find. Hats of to Dada for sending him at number 3. With Afridi to open the run chase should be exciting.

The Captaincy Conundrum

The Indian cricket captain has the toughest job in international sports. Several millions watch the game very closely. Everyone has an opinion and plenty of advice. No matter what you do, there will always be plenty of criticism simply by the sheer volume of followers of the game. In this day and age, media scrutiny is another challenge.

Despite all this, our current captain, Ganguly has achieved the unique status of being the most successful Indian captain ever. Yet, there is not a day when someone somewhere calls for his ouster. Persisting with Ganguly might not be so bad after all, and here are a few reasons why.

1. Transition to a new captain takes time. If a new captain is named it definitely requires an adjustment period both for the team and the new captain. I think it takes close to two years for a captain to get comfortable with the job and form his own trusted team of players. With the world cup round the corner in 2007, India must dump Ganguly now if it were to give the new captain sufficient time. At this stage, this seems unlikely, given Ganguly's record as captain, unless India loses very badly to Pak.

2. Ganguly is the first Indian captain who is not the mainstay of the team! Historically, the top player in the team has always been made the captain. For once, India didn't do that (more so by circumstance, than by true intent, after Sachin's failure at captaincy) and we ended up producing the most successful captain. He is at a stage in his career where he has nothing to prove! This is a good position to be in when captaining the side. Since he has never been the teams top batsman, bowler or fielder, he can focus more on the team. There is no other name that comes to mind which fits, this "not the mainstay" criteria and can still enjoy the confidence and respect of the other team members.

3. The alternatives are Sehwag or Dravid. Choosing either would go back to our common mistake of burdening the best player with the captaincy. The result, we end up with the loss of a consistent performer, and a failed captaincy. The other alternative would be Sachin! The less said about this, the better.

In short, Ganguly might not be a genius captain. But he is by far the best we have had and will be so for the foreseeable future. So rather than criticizing him at the slightest opportunity, lets come to terms with the fact that Ganguly might be our best bet under the circumstances.

India-Pak ODI series crucial: If we absolutely have to have a change of captain it might be best to put the new captain in charge of the one-day team first (especially with the world cup in view), a la Australia. If India loose very badly to Pak in the ODI series, a change of captain right way for the one-day side, might be a good move. This will give the new captain sufficient time to prepare for the world cup, and put Ganguly on notice for his Test captaincy. A nice way to phase out the experienced and usher in the youngsters.

High-tech and Silicon Valley

There is an article in today's Mercury News about how the San Jose Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez is struggling simply to get some content online and frustrated about it. Being in the Silicon Valley does not make everything automatically hi-tech!

Another example from my personal experience is Silicon Valley Bank's online banking system. You would expect them to have the coolest online banking facility given that they are based in the valley and their bread and butter revolves around start-ups. But God, their online banking system sucks big time, and they charge for it!!

Yet another example, is the lobby of many high tech companies. When you go in they check your bags, collect your laptop tags etc etc. But unfortunately, everytime you go in, they have to manually enter your name, company name etc. At a min I would assume that this manual process need not occur each and everytime! If my name is entered in the system as a visitor, shouldn't you store it for retrieval at least for a brief period of time, say a month or two? So we don't have to go through this exercise of spelling out your details every single time?

Other examples that come to mind. Doctor's offices in general are mostly paper based. Most restaurants never bother to track their customers and their dining patterns.

Being in Silicon Valley does not make everything automatically hi-tech. So I am not surprised at the Vice Mayor's predicament.

Pak dream combo

After watching the first ODI, IMHO that Pak team for the second ODI be as follows in batting order:

Hafeez (very steady bat and can bowl too, I believe he is an opener)
Afridi (Can give Pak a solid start by unsettling the India bowlers)
Younis (In great form)
Inzy (In great form)
Youhana (struggling but an asset nevertheless)
Malik (useful bat, unfortunately his bowling is not an option at present)
Razack (super all rounder)
Kamran (good keeper, useful bat)
Sami (good second fiddle to Shoaib)
Naved (very deceptive, effective seamer)
Shoaib Akthar (he is available and fit)

Sooner or later I think Pak will settle for this line up. Look at the bowling options!! Shoaib, Naved, Sami, Razack, Afridi + Hafeez! (Man, these guys have a heck of a team, at least on paper).

All this fuss about Ganguly

There has been quite a ruckus being created lately by Ganguly's recent failures with the bat. Personally, I think it is fine for Ganguly to struggle and be a total wuzz, provided of course the team can win. The truth is that the team can still win while Ganguly continues to fail, like it has done for the most part, since the start of his captaincy!

However, winning at a minimum, requires a coherent strategy barring which all we can do is sit back and hope that the individual brilliance of a Veeru (or I dare say Sachin) take us to victory. The recent Test at Bangalore was a complete failure of leadership more than anything else. By this I don't mean Ganguly's failure with the bat. It appears as though the team had no strategy whatsoever. At least none of the post match statements seem to imply a coherent strategy of any kind. Here are a few clues.

1. When quizzed about what was told to Sachin when he went into bat, Ganguly said in Azhar-esque style that Sachin was senior and didn't need to be told what to do! This is a huge mistake. Much like in a corporate environment, even the best of performers need to be clearly communicated (not to mention reminded) on what the team goals are and what the overriding strategy is. In fact, these things change from time to time and everyone concerned needs to adapt accordingly. There is no room whatsoever to leave ANYTHING for interpretation with regard to the overall strategy. Leaders can choose to give individuals the flexibility to contribute to the common goal in there own style. So for instance, if the goal was to save the match and play out the overs, and Sachin chose to pat half volleys down only to give Pak the upper hand and finally choke under pressure. Then it reflects very poorly on the genius. On the other hand if he went in with no clear instructions (as it seems to be the case), it understandable that he flumfed around and finally choked. I am tempted to throw in a variation of a cliche, "If you don't know exactly what is expected of you, no matter how great you are, chances are you can never deliver"

2. Veeru wrote in his column that only he could have taken the team to victory. While this is very much true he does not spell out clearly what the team strategy was. "Perhaps playing for a draw was not such a good idea since most of our batsmen are cast in the strokeplaying mould. Even at tea, the general mood was that we would scratch out a draw. The possibility of defeat dawned on us when Sachin Tendulkar got out." In other words, he was not inclined to play for a draw, he thinks the team screwed up by playing for a draw, which btw, was only an idea and not a clear overall strategy.

3. The fast-fading VVS said on day 4 of the test match that we are going to go for it and that anything is possible when Veeru is around. Besides, the time when Veeru was around, it never looked like we were going for it. Wonder what the basis of his comments were.

4. Ganguly said "We had decided to play normal cricket and weren't thinking about the target. After lunch we got a bit defensive and lost a few wickets as a result. It wasn't a conscious effort to get defensive but it cost us the game." Normal cricket? What on earth is that? To me that spells, "No strategy, just play and lets see what happens". With all the modern analysis techniques its a shame that it came down to this. Since we were not thinking about the target, we obviously weren't thinking about winning. Since it wasn't a conscious effort to get defensive, we weren't obviously trying to "defend and draw". Then what on earth were we doing??

Despite these bits and pieces of info, there is no candid response from the India team management that this was our strategy and this is where and why it failed and this is what we learnt from this. To me this is more alarming than Ganguly's repeated failures with the bat.

If Ganguly were to regain his form it will require a lot of focus and energy from him on himself more than the team. Its highly possible that the team will fail while he redeems himself as a batsman! So I would much rather have him focus on the team and forget about his personal exploits. After all, that is the true challenge for a captain.

I think the Indian cricket lovers should stay more focused on the team successes and failures than on its captain's failings. If we did that, we wouldn't be complaining about why Sachin has never played a match winning knock in the recent past, why VVS was dropped though he scored x and y, why Ganguly is still in the team, etc. Instead we would be obsessing over why we don't win consistently despite so many super stars.

Chill out, stop talking about individual successes, instead focus on the team successes and failures, and hold Ganguly responsible for the team. India won the first one day despite a duck from the captain (see, I told you, India can win even if he flunks :-) , 4 insiginificant runs from an all time great, and two centuries one each from each our top run-getters. Frankly, I don't don't care, to me, what matters is India won.

For starters, lets give Ganguly some credit for this win, if not for anything specific, at least for the final result.

First ODI: Pak crash to defeat

Pak never really put up a fight. Barring the start and a brief period when Inzy and Hafeez were at the crease Pak never really looked in control of the run chase. It was certainly an attainable total provided the batsmen applied themselves because there was hardly anything in the pitch for the bowlers. Sachin bowled a clever line and Inzy's wicket was a precious one. A fast ball that Inzy tried to work down to third man and missed brought down his right bail.

This victory will certainly help India regain some confidence. On paper India is a better Test team while Pak is the better one-day side. After the draw of the Test series Pak had the upper hand and might have just lost it a little bit. Pak have what it takes to recover as a one-day side despite this defeat, but the the psycological battle does play a big part. One more defeat can put Pak on the defensive.

India's last 9 overs produced just 41 runs. Our batting order was walking in and out as though they had come to bless the bride and bridegroom at a mallu wedding in the intense kochi heat.

In the quest for his century Rahul Dravid slowed things down quite a bit. Another example (which is quitely overlooked by most critics) of a star puting self ahead of the team. In any case, this inability to accelerate just re-inforces a point that everyone knows, India lacks a big hitter in the lower half of its batting order and its long over due to experiment with a few new comers to fill in this role.

Pak 152-9

Bad batting from Pak. None of the batsmen other than Inzy and Hafeez applied themselves. Sachin bowled a tight line and was rewarded a couple of easy wickets, Sami and Razaack being his two gifts. Virtually impossible for Pak to recover. Blew a fairly easy victory. Credit to India for keeping things tight.

Why was Dhoni wearing white pads instead of colored one? Btw, the dishnetwork broadband deteriorated in the second half. Wonder if it was comcast playing tricks.

Pak: 76-4 Struggling

India fight back. Asking rate inching up. Fine bowling by Zaheer and Nehra. Youhana's wicket a definite setback for Pak. Bhajji just into bowl. Inzy looks solid nevertheless. India needs wickets, as Pak has some very late strikers unlike India's batting order which sadly lacks big hitters.

Pak Innings: 52-3 : Two quick wickets

Salman Butt choked after a good start. Nehra getting a break in his first over as Ganguly (of all people) snaps up aa good catch at square leg.

Balaji strikes in the very next over. Malik plays a shot in the air straight to Yuvi. Good chance for India to get back into the game. But this is a very familiar situation for Pak. The top 3 consistently fail. Then the re-building starts. Interesting to see how things shape up. Another quick wicket here will put Pak under tremendous pressure.

Pak innings: 45-1

45-1 right now. Fine start by Pak. Salman Butt looks set to score a 100. He is middling the ball well and seems to be in good touch. India's bowling has been average. Nehra confirmed that he is still a shameful fielder as he let one through for a four. Ganguly displayed some of his personal field inneficiences as well in addition to his poor form with the bat.

Overall the body language of the Indians indicate no confidence whatsoever. They badly need a win here, else its going to be a painful one-day series.

India Pak first one day at Kochi

India struggled to a total of 280 despite the two 100s from Dravid and Sehwag respectively. Had India played more as a team, they should have crossed the 300 mark. Dravid slowed down so badly towards the end in search for his personal milestone, that the rest of our heroes crumbled under pressure and India was bungling through the last overs like they were playing for a draw (perhaps a hangover of the third test). All in all a lousy performance barring as always, lately, from Sehwag. Unless Pak loose early wickets or throw this match away, my guess is that Pak should wrap this up in style.