Screw the "Lords".

An article from "The Hindu" making a case for India being the spiritual home of Cricket.

Read by clicking here.

Lights, Camera, Action

Cheeru received an email recently from Penn State TV - After Hours program asking whether our club would be interested in being interviewed on TV.. this would enable them to fill up their broadcast as well as provide much needed publicity for PSCC. Of course, PSCC doesn't entertain offers unless they are from Channel 9 or ESPN.. but in this case, we decided to give Penn State Student News TV a shot. After some deliberations, it was decided by the powers that be, that James O'Brien in twin capacity of coach and token white guy, and yours truly (as the veteran of the club and also as the event coordinator for the upcoming cricket tournament and karthik might say - wannabe black guy) will go for the TV interview.

I looked up the show's website and realized that there was a good chance that they will have no idea of what cricket is. And I was proven right, Yet again. Good thing I decided to take a cricket bat, cricket ball and the cricket tennis ball that we'd be using for the tournament.

It was a good time over all. Off camera, we had a good time talking shit up and they got to see the kind of dynamic that we have as a team on the field. James and I were sledging people as well as each other. On camera, we got to explain the rules a little bit, talk of the upcoming tournament, nets, DC trips and 'sledging' among other things. Oh yeah, we taught the host to swear in Hindi, which he plans on using on his indian roommate!! Excellent!

The show comes only on Penn State CC TV, so you got to be on campus to see it. It will be aired on Wednesday night 10 PM. The guys at the show promised to send us the DVD of the episode which we could upoad to our website. Also, we requested them to make a piece either from our tournament or the nets sessions. And have us over any time they need guests. I thought it went pretty well. Of course, James had a great time what with the co-host chick being impressed with the Aussie accent. MothaF******.

profiles and aliases

This is a message for contributors. Please identify yourselves for the purpose that we know who is sharing the comment. After all this is supposed to be PSCC blog site and not individual blog site. While most of them are identifiable, I am talkking about Flavor_chemist ( I assume it is Potineni) and Pieces of Eight (no idea). I like Kings though (chinee Indian)... hahahaha... clever.

Spring Tournament 2006 - Committee

Event Coordinator
Subash Jayaraman

Finance/ FundRaising Committee
1. Subash Jayaraman
2. James O'Brien
3. Karthik Shanmugasundaram

Publicity/ Public Relations
1. James O'Brien
2. Rajaraman Ramanarayanan
3. Karthik Sarpatwari
4. Rohan Shirwaiker
5. Subash Jayaraman

Website Management
1. Vivek Natarajan
2. Gautam Wagle

Logo, Banner, T-shirt Design
1. Abhishek Srivastav
2. Gautam Wagle

Umpires
1. Gautam Wagle
2. Rohan Samsi
3. Subash Jayaraman
4. James O'Brien

Scorers
1. Venkatesh Rajagopalan
2. Ramprasad Chandrashekhar

Announcers
1. James O'Brien
2. Rohan Samsi
3. Gautam Wagle

Gameday Volunteers
1. Mahesh Krishnamurti
2. Ramesh Ravella
3. Vivek Natarajan
4. Rajaram Ramanarayanan
5. Ramprasad Chandrashekhar
6. Venkatesh R
7. James O'Brien
8. Allison Roney
9. Uzair Qadeer

P.S. If we have interested people wanting to join, we'll add them as we go along. We should have a meeting ASAP. How about this evening 6 PM in the IST Building?? I'll need finance, PR, webdesigners and logo designers to be present without fail. Others not necessary, but if you want to partake, that's fine too.

Third Eye Blind

Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on? No seriously.. This is the second time India has gotten shafted by the Instant replay/TV umpire/Third Umpire technology thingy in the last 3 matches. In the current on-going test series against England, looks like the TV umps are just doggin' it! (They are freakin' Indians as well.. No less!)

Case 1. First test match at Nagpur, Day 4, 2nd session: Anil Kumble to Kevin Pietersen, simple C&B, Straight Ump Aleem Dar refers to Third ump as the ball seemed to come off the toe of the bat. After 10 minutes of examining all the angles (it looked out 100 million percent from the first slo-mo itself), TV Ump Mr. I. Shivram (I guess the I stands for I-dont-give-a-rats-ass-in-hell-so-screw-you-guys) declared KP to be not out.. and Ian Botham who was in the commentary booth said, "I don't know what to say!!!". Beefy -- Here's what I'd have liked you guys to say on air "That's the worst decision EVER! Technology is only as good as the moron sitting in front of it." I think that test got away from India from there although it ended up being a draw.

Case 2. Third test at Mumbai, Day 3, 2nd session: After hitting 3 consecutive boundaries off Flintoff, MS Dhoni tried to pinch a single to farm the strike. James Anderson from short mid-on picked and threw the stumps down (Kind of) at the non-striker end. The ball made contact with the stumps before Dhoni made his ground but "the bails were not completely dislodged" before he did make his ground. The Third umpire ruled him out. Here is the ruling on run outs from ICC Laws of Cricket. (Ruling on when the wicket is actually fairly down)Now, any of you that actually has seen this happen, know exactly that Dhoni was NOT OUT. This time, the moron upstairs was Mr. K. Hariharan. This (in)decision also cost India's chance of clawing back into the game.

WTF mate?? Is there some kind of conspiracy going on that we don't know about?? Its about time these assholes got a refresher course in the laws of cricket. At this rate, I won't be surprised if these jackasses are officiating in the WMCB or vice-versa.

Even Stevens!

I am sure a lot of you would have seen the Seinfeld episode in which George's luck changes to Elaines and vice versa while jerry always remains Even Stevens. That is exactly the way Indian cricket seems to be headed.

A while ago the Indian test team boasted of one of the strongest batting lineup in the middle order. With names and stats of people like Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Laxman in the middle order the only deficiency was a stable opening partner for the explosive Sehwag. Bowling teams used to tremble bowling at this lineup. We could back ourselves to bat through days and put up miraculous performances like the India-Australia 2nd test match at Calcutta in 2001. However we lacked the bowling strength to bowl out oppositions twice in a match. We still relied on the aging Kumble with Bajji showing spurts of brilliance expected since the monstrous 2002 he had.

Oh How the fates have reversed! Finally we have a potent bowling lineup with an even mix and variety. Fast pace bowling and accuracy of Munaf Patel and the swing of Sreesanth and Pathan. The assorted leg spin of Kumble and the offie in Harbhajan. But the batting is now at its weakest. Time and time again, the lower order is having to bail out the failures of Sachin and Sehwag. With Jaffer not quite yet a fixture and Yuvraj still digging his shoes in, Dravid has been the lone man fighting the Indian cause.

The batting woes has also spread its cancer in the fielding department. With new people in, the slip catching cauldron has dried out. With no place for Laxman in the side, the second slip has gone to Sehwag who still seems to be thinking about his batting woes while in the field. Jaffer is trying to fit into the short lef position. The saddest part is that the team management thinks that Yuvraj and Kaif being the spectacluar fielders that they are can be plugged in to any position to back up the bowling scenario at that time and it is failing miserably in that. Both of them look totally out of sorts at the shortleg position and Yuvraj's drop at 3rd slip at end of yesterdays play was the most pathetic display I have seen. While he physically was in the 3rd slip, his technique was still in the point region.

While success of test teams has been sttributed to the presence of an allrounder (batting and bowling) to provide stability in the team, one overlooked aspect has been an allrounder in the field (bowling and slip catching). While Australia has had Shane Warne a fixture at first slip since the departure of Mark Taylor, South Africa has Kallis (earlier McMillan) and England has Flintoff. India and Pakistan seem to be lacking here and hence the spurt of many dropped catches. Bowlers have big bucket like hands and have a decent technique. I wonder if we need to cultivate Bajji into a slip fielder for when the fast bowlers are operating? I think right now the only thing that would appease the Indian fans is to see an Indian lineup with 5 Dravids and the keeper and the bowlers. Atleast they will bat and support the bolwers.

Greatest ever??

James -- DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING TWO LINES.

To watch the highlights of the Australia V South Africa epic ODI game where SA made a monumental 438-9 in 49.5 chasing Australia's 434-4 in 50 overs, click here.


Welcome back James --

However, the World Cup 99 semifinal (AUS v SA, again) and the PSCC v Alexandria CC (2005) would lay claims to the greatest cricket game ever played!!

Let's go Lions!

In yet another effort to improve the club we have decided to start a blog site where club members can share their comments via match reports, ideas to improve the club and in genereal their passion for the game of cricket. We can discuss upcoming series, post links to improve our game, keep connected even as we endeavour past Happy Valley.

Since this will be a shared effort, please maintain a sense of decorum while posting blogs. You will be accountable for your words. We encourage sledging but if that goes beyond some point, the admin has the privilege of deleting the post.