Guru Team India!!!

Happy Ugadi to my blog readers!! Ugadi symbolizes the start of a new year in Telugu calender and will be celebrated grandly by every Telugu family all over the globe. But this time the celebrations started precociously on 2nd of April when Men in Blue crushed Lankans to grab the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. April 2nd marked the beginning of new era in Indian cricket.

Again, whole India was united in celebrations. 12.1 billion people forgot all their worries, insecurities, differences and shared the joy with each other. The sense of Indian was all over and national integrity was at its peak.

Enough of celebrations!! Every story has a moral. This victory song of the Indian cricket team has many morals. Many of my blog readers are engineering students gearing up for careers in software industry. Corporate culture has a lot to do with team management. We can learn a lot about team leading and working skills from this Indian team. Lets make an attempt to do the same.

Moral 1. Every Team Member will have a responsibility. Don't try too hard. Just fulfil your responsibility. Look at our team, Sehwag's responsibility was to give team a flying start and Tendulkar's role was to anchor the innings. Zak was asked to pick up a wicket when ever a partnership is building. Munaf is just his supporter. Yuvi was asked to step up as all-rounder. Raina is the man who has to stand the death over pressure and score valuable 20s and 30s. Ghambhir is asked to build up a partnership with Tendulkar after Sehwag gets dismissed. Kohli was asked to strengthen the middle order. Everyone did their job and that's crucial.

Moral 2. When someone in team fails, stop abusing him and try to make up the loss. Everyone fails some or the other day. If we consider our team, there are many failure stories. Yusuf, Piyush and Sreesanth never performed in this world cup. Munaf and Nehra also struggled initially. Dhoni found it difficult to score a double digit score. Harbhajan never played to his full potential. But we always had a backup. Zak, Yuvi and Ashwin masked bowling weaknesses. Raina covered up lower order failures. Viru, Tendya, Gauti and Kohli made our batting look invincible. On the big day their most powerful weapons, Viru and Tendya, failed to fire and we saw Captain Dhoni and Gauti stepping up to the cause and playing match winning innings.

Moral 3. Believe your team-mates. They are worth it. Don't doubt their potentials. Our players believed each other and gelled up quite well. Consider Yuvi. Everyone criticised his selection. Even Yuvi was in a very poor form and was not 100% fit. But the captain and his team believed Yuvi. Sachin inspired him to the core and brought out the match-winner in him. He was judged as man of the series. When many players like Munaf, Bhajji, Raina, Nehra, Yusuf etc were struggling in form, the team backed them up. Our team believed each other very well and played as a unit.

Moral 4. Don't yield to pressure. Do trust your team and its performance. Contribute individually to team's success. When our team tied its game with the English and lost to proteas very few had confidence on this team's winning chances. But the team never lost confidence on itself. All players understood that the team itself is important than individuals and contributed to the team glory. The players believed all the time that they as a team can win this cup. That's the spirit of a team.

Moral 5. Strategical mistakes do happen. Few wrong decisions might have been taken. We cant change it. But we can always try to minimise the damage. In semis against Pak, MS Dhoni wrongly read the pitch and took Nehra in place of Ashwin. They didn't curse themselves for doing it. Its a part and parcel of game. Mistakes do happen. Nehra stood up to the occasion and bowled brilliantly to be the best bowler of Indian side in that match. Chawla inclusion in squad was also a mistake but Yuvi covered it up. When your team has taken a wrong decision, step up and play hero to mitigate the loss. Its easy to curse but difficult to perform.

Moral 6. Learn from your team-mates. Its a very good habit. Teach your strengths to your teamster and correct your mistakes from them. Indian fielding was very poor during the initial games. But once Raina made it into the squad the whole fielding standards rose. Kohli brought out his best and Yuvi went back to his original backward point. Yuvi, Raina and Kohli formed an impregnable covers. Looking at them even less athletic men started to dive on the field. Observe how a 38 year old Tendulkar dived at the boundaries to stop runs.

Moral 7. Appreciate your teamster performances. Celebrate individual milestones as team milestones. This team is best at this. They all applauded each other contributions. They all celebrated each other milestones. Importantly they all played for each other and celebrated with each other. If any player performed well, Tendulkar never hesitated to praise him even though he is his utmost junior.

These are few morals I could learn from our team on their campaign for glory. If you found anything more please do share them with our blog readers by commenting this post with it.

Good luck....

What could be running in their minds?

Finally, here comes the day. Today All-Party leaders will be apprised of Justice Sri Krishna Committee's report by Union Home Ministry.

Now its very interesting to know how these three leaders react. K.C.R's stance is very clear, he wants the report in favour of Telangana (at least he says so). Congress Party Legislators will some how be convinced (?) by party high command.

Here, I will try to predict how these three leaders may react to the issue.

Chandra Babu Naidu: As he is the opposition leader of the state, his response carries huge weight. He has to act in a way that best suites vast majority of people. Unfortunately, Mr. Naidu remained silent on this issue as there is a divided opinion in his party. But now the time is ripe, he has to stop this circus and come up with a single opinion that would be regarded as party's opinion. Seeing Mr. Naidu all these days, I doubt him coming up with an opinion as he is no where interested to loose any political chance that would steer him to the CM seat. His decision to not to send any of his party representatives to today's meet shows his eagerness to corner congress through this issue. By not sending his representatives, he is also trying to buy time so that he could react after watching people's response to the report and there by creating a chance to gain political mileage. So my guess is that, after the report is known Mr. Naidu cannot afford to continue in silence, he will wait for people's response and will react accordingly to fuel the emotions of the agitating regions.

K.Chiranjeevi: Praja Rajyam Chief, Chiranjeevi has millions of fans who will be very eager to hear to his reaction. He once singled United Andhra as his goal, but looking at the loss he incurred in Telangana region he backtracked to the opinion that the party will adhere to Justice Sri Krishna Committee's report. But it wont be very easy for him if the committee's report comes against United A.P. as he once took charge of this camp. Now heavy criticism will pour on him if he wont lift the bow in favour of united state. At the same time he has huge lot of fans in Telangana region, he cant afford to loose them as his son is gearing up to be next Mega Star. Mr. Chiranjeevi must be applauded for declaring his stance in contrast to Mr. Naidu who preferred to remain silent and confuse people, but now he is in a jinx. My guess is that, if committee reports for United state he will welcome the report and will try to convince the people that Committee did a lot of research and came up with a genuine report. But if committee report is against United state, then he is in trouble. He cant agitate as he promised to adhere to Committee's report and at the same time he cant welcome it as he will be under severe criticism ( both in and out of his party) if he does so.

Y.S.Jagan: Son of Late CM Y.S.R, Mr. Jagan has huge support among the masses. Recently he walked out of Congress party and is planning to launch a new party. He once clearly showed his stance by exhibiting United State supportive placards in the parliament. His tour of Telangana was a bitter failure. So Mr. Jagan might be in favour of United State. But its not all, as he dreams to be Chief Minister of this state he cant afford to loose support of Telangana. So even he is jinx now. My guess is that, irrespective of Committee's report Mr. Jagan will use all his might to politicize the issue and hit death blows to congress. Mr. Jagan wants Congress to kneel before him and he wont miss this opportunity.

Let us see what happens in next 24 hours. I sincerely hope that committee report will show an effective solution to this problem.

Comments are welcome!!!

Accolade to a Great Man...

VVS Laxman... There were many occasions when Laxman played well and brought victory single handed. If it was Tendulkar entire cricket world would have gone crazy lifting him to the skies. But many a times, Laxman's brave efforts go away with a slight notice of appreciation. This never disappointed the batting giant, he bats for the country and he will always, irrespective of anyone's notice or applaud.

This year has been fabulous for him. Although Tendya is on dream run this year, its Laxman who was scoring consistently in fourth innings, that too knitting the innings with lower order. The story repeated at Durban. Although Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag found their way to pavilion early, Laxman established partnerships with Pujara, Dhoni and Zak. His 96 of 280 deliveries is what that made the difference.

I am not trying to diminish the bold performance of Indian bowlers lead by Zak and Bhajji, but it was Laxman who was the main cause of Indian victory. Bowlers from both the teams bowled well on a pitch that cooperated them. But to face such a ferocious bowling attack on such a grassy pitch for 280 deliveries and scoring 96 of it is not at all easy. Pressure is a bonus there. But Laxman had the commitment and perseverance that takes to play a winning innings.

This was not the first time and this won't be the last. India need not worry of pitch conditions or pressure in fourth innings, as long as Laxman is on the side. After him? Well this a question to which I hope we can find a solution soon.

Jai Ho Laxman!!!!

Comments are welcome.....

MSN Indian Of The Year: Nitish Kumar

The most awaited poll results are out!!! Every year many news agencies conduct polls for Indian of the Year title and in e-polls MSN Indian of The Year is the leading. Recently the polls were closed and the results were announced.

Most expected Maestro Tendulkar to lead the polls, but he was seconded by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Out of 30,303 votes Mr. Nitish Kumar got 8486 votes as Tendulkar got 8224 votes. Wipro Premji stood third followed by Ratan Tata. Minister Jairam and actor Salman stood last on the table.

Mr. Nitish is definitely the saviour of Bihar. The most under developed state is now leading the table of quickly developing states of India. All didn't happen overnight as floods grieved Bihar like anything, but Nitish acted very hard and provided relief to his state. Nitish concentrated on developing infrastructure in the state. Law and order increased considerably as he took up the ruins. His work includes increasing literacy and social awareness in the state. Mr. Nitish always maintains low profile and is very open for feedback.

Leaders like Mr. Nitish are very rare to find and he is very eligible to be claimed to be as Indian of year. God bless Mr. Nitish. Hope our power-thirst AP leaders learn a lesson from him.

Comments are welcome.........

The game isn't over!!

As an Indian supporter you might be in low spirits to see India faring too poorly in the first two days of the test match. During my college break yesterday, I was speaking to my friends about the score and India's position in the match. They were really disappointed with the way our batting giants collapsed. Pace bowlers' utter failure multiplied their sorrow. They were in opinion that its better to follow ashes now as India is sure to loose this match. Frankly speaking, looking at the position of the game at the end of day 2, SA has more than 90% chances to win.

India for sure has no probability to win this match. Expecting India to win this match is too much of optimism, but pragmatically speaking there is no chance of it. What I am trying to say is that India has still 10% probability to draw this match. The game isn't over. There are still three days of play. Look at the brighter side folks, Cricket is a game where there is every chance to turn the tables until the last moment of the game. All that is needed is a bit of fighting spirit and a tough mind.

What happened yesterday is not quite important (even if its important when you cant change it, why bother about it?). Today is a fresh day and Indian skipper knows it. Dhoni is one of the coolest captains India ever had and he knows how to hold the nerve in pressure and how to boost morale of the team. Indian dressing room has enough number of optimists and hence India will look forward to make a fresh start. Destabilizing settled batsmen like Kallis and Amla is not an easy job, but early in the day any batsmen will take some time to settle back and strike the cord. That's where the Indian quickies should capitalize.

Sree and Sharma should gather boost their morale and use their every skill to get rid of them. The pitch is getting better and better for batsmen and safaris are fortunate for it. So the quickies need to show some variations. Indians should use their prime weapon, swing, effectively as they are not getting enough bounce from the pitch. This is where we miss our Zaheer who can strike very effectively during the early overs. Rookie Unadkat is a disaster, he couldn't create any impact. There is nothing great to expect from this youngster, he doesn't even have the pace; he could barely cross 130 kph. Harbhajan needs to raise up to the cause, he needs to improvise more and should try to get some extra bounce; this did the trick for him, he got two wickets because of extra bounce. But this is not the pitch where we can expect ultimate from a spinner but bajji knows that he himself is the frontline bowler as Zaheer is absent.

If Indian bowlers can dislodge the safaris' innings before they could add 100 more runs on the board, the Indian batters need to protect the team from the lead around 300-350. Protecting the team from that lead is not impossible for the world's strongest batting order. Two batsmen showed up very positive signs during the first innings; Sachin and Dravid. They both started up very positively. They hit boundaries initially and didn't let themselves to get bogged up. They showed good aggression and excellent attitude, they sent a clear message to safaris that they are in no mood to provide the edge to their bowlers. But things quite didn't happen and they got out for good balls. Laxman's dismissal happened for a good delivery, but Sehwag, Raina and Ghambhir should do some introspection. They got out cheaply. India cant afford that again. Dhoni did his job to quite some extent but he needs to improvise being a skipper.


When time is tough, only the tough get going. Let us hope that India will sail to the shore safely. Catch you tomorrow with third day analysis. Till then good bye...


Comments are welcome.....

Pak will never learn!!!

In our age old jungle tales, cunning fox never learnt its lesson. It always tried to be 'over' smart and landed into some trouble. Same is the case with Pakistan now.

Wikileaks is on the news for quite some time by disclosing various concealed documents. Pakistan is now using it to spread gossips that could taint Indo-American relations.

Pakistan's most popular daily, Jang(Urdu) published that Wikileaks cables revealed the following info:

1) American diplomats view Indian military leaders as egotistical and genocidal.

2) Those diplomats are in perception that Indian Government has close ties with Hindu activists.

3) The diplomats are unhappy with Indian spies as they are encouraging Islam terrorism in Baluchistan and other tribal areas.

Guardian newspaper reported that they couldn't find any such info in Wikileaks. Their extensive search of Wikileaks Database by date name and keywords failed to locate such allegations. Guardian considers it to be the first misuse of Wikileaks for propaganda purposes.

Pakistan always waited for a chance to spread its propaganda that India is instrumental in spreading Islamic terrorism in its land. Every time it got one, it tried to exploit it to the most. This attempt just confirms it.

Its not any secret that it is Pakistan that encouraged terrorism. Pak's army and ISI used it as an effective weapon against India. You fall into your own ditch and the same happened with Pakistan. Now Pakistan itself is the victim of terrorism.

Pakistan instead of committing itself to eradication of extremists from its territory, is trying to accuse India for its plight. Pakistan just wants to divert the world's attention from it. US is very worried about Pakistan's nuclear establishments, they fear that terrorists could get a hand on it. Pakistan's only concern is that if US fears continue, then it may stop giving Pak financial aids. So it wants India to be blamed for every wrong reason.

Pakistan should now understand that its every attempt for disguise will be thwarted. So it should stop digging at India and focus on the task at hand.. Let us hope that Pak will learn its lesson atleast now..

Comments are welcome....