Rajiv Arvind

There will be reams written about the exit of India from the T-20 World Cup 2009. As MSD said, it's not as bad as the West Indies 2007 debacle when they got bundled out in the first round, but I guess the expectations from MSD & Co. were no less than to bring the Cup back home.

 

Team India can't play with the 'Favorites' Tag! That has always been the case. We had the best Team to win a Test Series in West Indies (2001-02), but we ended up losing it. We had the best team to win the WC (50 Overs) on a couple of occasions...but we lost it. And that's what makes the Aussies so good. They have played with the weight of expectations and won consistently, something that South Africa has started replicating to an extent. India has a long way to go.

 

Forget the Sehwag episode, forget the R Jadeja elevation before Yuvraj, we just couldn't handle the pace and bounce. Plain and simple. And oh yes, we gave some 15 odd runs by way of misfield/byes. Bhajji who was bowling flighted deliveries and foxing the Poms at one end, kept darting deliveries to Mascarenhas at the other, cauz he was scared he would whack him off the park (which resulted in 10 byes). When I was watching it, I kept telling myself, why isn't he bowling those loopies to Mascarenhas? C'mon Bhajji you can outfox him!

 

We played 'No Fear' cricket when we played the T-20 WC last time around. This time we were scared to lose. As Tendulkar got older, his aggressive instincts as a batsman got jaded and he's promptly got the 'safe' shots out of the book. And as Dhoni is getting older in the captaincy role, he's losing his aggressive streak and using the 'safety first' approach as well. Is it more of a cultural mindset? MSD's true test begins now.

 

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, GTalk; you name it, most of the Social Media sites or chat windows have the "Status" bar, where one can customize "Status" Messages. So you'll find messages like "I have nothing to do this weekend" or "Working all Night" and many more such comments / messages which are termed 'status messages'. Why is there this sudden urge to let everybody know about your current "status"?

 

Is Social Media influencing people or are people an emotional bunch today? Each one wear's their emotions or status' on their sleeves. Why so? A colleague once got fired by the boss on a Monday morning because of some unfinished work; so he promptly went back to his desk, you would assume to finish off the work; yes he did, but not before he changed the status of his GTalk to "A bad start to the week".

 

Is this a cry for help or attention? Is it just to give a peek into your mind? Or is it just something that people do for a lark? I don't know.

 

You're asking me? Well, I do it for a lark (if and when I ever do it i.e)!