Pyaar Ka Punchnaama

Sometimes, when you watch a trailer, you just know what to expect in a movie. I was sold on the movie, from the trailer that plays on youtube. I was expecting it to be a laugh riot, and it turned to be a awesome flick, simply because of the ease with which you can relate to the movie. I loved the script and the dialogue, which struck a perfect chord, as none of the humor was manufactured, it just came out so naturally. 


Every guy goes through a phase in life, where his life changes, once a woman enters his life, and that is what PKP comically presents. The women were rightly chosen, right amount of clothing to keep the audience plugged in :-), and I must say the same of the guys too. Recreating a guy's room is no mean task, with so much attention to details. Underwear's strewn about, books lying all over, beer bottles all over, clothes lying on the floor....looking at that, it felt so much in connection with the halcyon days of college life, where a guy is yet to wake up to the realities of life.

The case of the Overheated and Overcooled Wood

When I look at a piece of wood, that makes my door, I wonder how temperature makes it grow and dwarf in size across summer and winter. The process of growth and reduction is gradual and slow, such that the door can retain its character and adapt as per the temperature outside. But for a moment, think how would it be, if it were subjected to intense heat one week, and intense chillness the next in alternating fashion. Will the wood in the door be able to maintain its character? Would the wood be as strong as its supposed to be and can it last the distance of time? My guess on that would be an obvious NO, and I am sure your guess would not deviate too much from my answer.
If we apply the same yardstick to the way the various formats of the game are scheduled, we see that switching between 20 overs, 50 overs and Test cricket at an alarming pace, is only going to harm the quality and shelf life of our players. 20 over cricket has transformed cricket into a consumer centric game, which unites the family when it comes to evening television. Is it 20 over cricket or league cricket that’s been able to hit the consumer jackpot? My gut feel is that league cricket has evoked higher TRP’s and with India’s latest World Cup victory this year, the feeling of watching India compete in a global completion could well be the flavor of what the consumers may want for the next few years, and its understandable that they also want to watch their favorite players in action, in a combination that has all the best cricketers across the world, on a single stage.
Keeping the above point, I am wondering, if ICC should shift the T20 cricket to a model, where its played as part of the domestic league (IPL,SPL,Big Bash and the likes) and the ICC World 2020. This is where the 20 over cricket can get the maximum bang for buck. 20 over bilateral cricket should be scrapped for the time being, so as to allow players to concentrate on the bigger formats of the 50 over cricket and Test Cricket. The difference of adjusting between test cricket and 50 over cricket is still not huge, as the average run rate is 4 an over in test cricket, and 5.5 runs an over in One day cricket, while T20 cricket hovers in the 7+ range. This is where the wear and tear to the subjects playing the game is witnessed more. The advantage of not having bilateral T20 series is that, it increases focus on tours to the traditional formats of cricket, and lessens the mental strains that players need to undergo while playing between these formats.
In the ongoing 50 over ODI series between India and West Indies, one can see the youngsters in both the teams, batting aggressively and mindlessly slogging against quality bowling. The problem with this approach is, youngsters having problems in their technique against quality bowling, will try to hit their way out of it, rather than correcting their technique. This approach to the game makes the game terribly one-sided, with either the batsmen winning a temporary short battle, or the bowlers winning it against batsmen who are risk prone. Cricket was supposed to be a war, which had a series of battles. The beauty of the war was to see the see-saw swings, between the battles to translate into a script that made the war beautiful to watch. If we have an overkill of the battles, then the game loses its character, players lose their natural abilities by shielding chinks with brute brawny abilities, and finally the TRP’s succumb to gravity.
So, should the ICC take a decision against bilateral ODI series, and save the wood from extinction? Or Maybe PETA can do a campaign against saving Leather and Wood, with a nice model, doing a brain dead nude photo shoot, since the ICC has tons of money.
What do you think about not having Bi-lateral T20 series?

50 First Dates

50 First Dates!




The concept of Adam Sandler, trying to woo Drew Barrymoore, every single day for 50 days, to me reflected a sense of achievement, as it was against the tide of Drew Barrymore’s short term memory loss. Every day was a new day, where Adam Sandler had to start from scratch to woo her, and all his hard work would be negated at the end of the day, as Drew Barrymore would have forgotten what happened earlier in the day.




I am applying the same concept to leading to cricket and more specifically T20 sides. Every game gives both the teams an equal opportunity to go one up on the opponent. The skills on display are for a very short period, so flashes of brilliance doesn’t need to go through the test of sustenance across 50 overs. Teams that are used to waiting for things to happen, before going for the kill, would find that the format of T20 is sometimes unforgiving. M.S.Dhoni found that out one summer evening at Mohali, when an unknown youngster’s (Paul Valthaty)carnage helped Kings 11 Punjab, down the Chennai Super Kings, after a spectacular 180+ chase. MSD, has been one of the better captains, who has managed to win 4 major T20 titles, and if you notice, in each of the tournaments, MSD never looked completely in command, but managed to work hard every single time, when he was in a problem, by wearing a smile, and trying out different things to woo the lady called Victory.


Most teams, when they reach the mature phase of the winning curve tend to go off the boil, as they stop focusing on experimentation and start looking for a template to win. While it may be a nice methodology to study the DNA behind successful T20 sides, what works on most occasions is the fact that the single biggest factor is the ability to start from scratch to carve out victories every single time. Taking things for granted, is where you distance yourself from victory, as you believe that you don’t need to earn it, as it is already in your lap. The fact is the victory that is in your lap, is a memoir of the good times, you had as a team, and just that. To retain the victory in your lap, you need to fight doubly harder with sides, who keep throwing newer challenges at the champions.


The Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers, both had excellent runs of form, but it was not quite divided between all the members of the side, and secondly these teams opted for a lot of familiar tactics to keep the points graph go northward. The lack of focused experimentation, and the nerve to succeed when not placed in a comfort zone, proved to be their undoing.

The Chennai Super Kings have done well to keep their date with wooing the goddess of victory, time and again. It is very visible in their work ethic, with players like Hussey and Badrinath, who have been examples of sustained excellence over a longer time period. It was probably the creation of a new hunger every day, that made them chase success, resembling Adam Sandler’s enthusiasm and patience in the movie ’50 First dates’.

So, the 2 questions to ask yourself, to bask in the shade of the silverware would be to ask, how much have you done to woo your date? If you can manage to woo the goddess of victory that way, the silverware should be one of the many destinations on your road trip to the peak of Success!