Missed The Lake Tahoe Trip But Happy To See Sachin's Performance

We had to skip the 14th March Lake Tahoe trip due to Ahyan getting fever one day before the travel. Although we prepared a lot, purchsed skii gears, at the lasdt moment we decided to stay safe considering Ahayn's situation and hence Prakash also skipped the trip. Shahriar, Sochi, Safwan, Hasinur, Sigma and Nitol went to the trip Saturday morning and came back Sunday night. I saw their skiing pictures Tuesday night at Shahriar's house where we all gathered to discuss how their trip went - and I saw those were amazing.

Sachin Tendulkar's brilliant 160 in first test against New Zealand in Hamilton took india to a 10 wicket victory. He was adjudged Man of the Match. Dravid's 70 runs out and 105 runs partnership with Gambhir extended his lead of century partnerships in Tests. He has the record for most century stands (74) in Tests. Ricky Ponting has the next best tally with 72 century stands, followed by Sachin Tendulkar (71) when he added 115 run partnership in this test with Dhoni and Steve Waugh (64) and Allan Border (63).

Nitol gave a party in Fahrenheit Ultra Lounge & Restaurant in San Jose for his Indian room mates, friends and us. It was Prakash, Liju & Deepthy, I, Shusmita & Ahyan, Nitol, Gajendra, Kaustav and Bijon. We have talked a lot about Tendulkar's latest triumphing performances in New Zealand tour including yesterday's 160, his 42nd test century. We were also happy that the closest tralier of Sachin's highest number of test centuries, Ricky Ponting, made a duck in first innings and 12 in second innings against South Africa making sure it will be tough for him to catch up Sachin in this line. While I and Gajen were debating with Prakash and Nitol was Sachin's supremecy as a test batsman (as ODI batsman there is no one near him), Prakash was referring to why Sehwag was the true man of the match in Chennai test for his 83 runs off 68 balls. I had a quick visit to the scorecard of that famous first test. Here is a list of articles at that time and I am not sure if Peter Strauss or Sachin Tendulkar would be a better choice for man of the match than Sehwag - because of strauss' 123 and 108 and Tendulkar's 37 and 103* instead of Sehwag's 9 and 83. While Sehwag's knock was very important to set the mindset of the 4th innings, we have to take into account his first innings failure as well as match winning unbeaten century knock by Tendulkar and both innings century by Strauss as well. Reading all this, I believe Sachin or should have been the MOM.

http://content.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/382487.html
http://content.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/382457.html
http://content.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/382326.html
http://content.cricinfo.com/indveng/content/story/382320.html
http://content.cricinfo.com/indveng/content/story/382317.html
http://content.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/382314.html
http://content.cricinfo.com/indveng/content/story/382228.html
http://content.cricinfo.com/indveng/content/story/382035.html

Sehwag scored a trend changing 83 out of 68 balls in the 2nd innings. Very good performance. But there were other better performances. Think on this, first he was out, could not score the century. That's ok, as an opener he did his job of making the target more reachable. But Test cricket is not a 1 session game, it's a 5 days game. Do you remember how much he scored in first innings? 9 only. So if Sehwag gets credit for the 2nd innings heroic knock, shouldn't he get discredit for that 9 out. The better performers were Tendulkar 37 out and 103 not out in a 4th innings 5th day chase and Andrew Strauss for his 123 out and 108 out. Even both innings centurion was worse than a no centurion in that match? How come? Because one session decides the whole 5 day match result? Then what about the recent 5th ODI loss by India to New Zealand where Sehwag played his typically desctructive 40 runs and in absence of Sachin, India was all out for 149 and lost the game. May be you were expecting that despite Sehwag's 40, Dhoni should have scored a century to win the game so that Sehwag could be adjudged man of the match? No? Then how come you think Sachin's Chennai test performances were worse than Sehwag's? The strike rate? Are you playing stupid 20-20?

Shusmita started her chiropractic treatment under Doctor Michael Jones referred by Archana in Fremont. I was quite impressed talking to him.

We had a grand adda in Hasinur's house last night with all the friends bar Tufail Bhai.

Two good things I did in between is disconnected Comcast internet cable and took AT&T U-Verse High Speed internet and also order Dish TV with all the major Bengali TV chanels of Dhaka and also a Hindi package to discontinue Directv network. Now I will be more on par with Dhaka's latest news everyday.

Ranking of Indian Cricketers

While I don't agree with the ranking system completely, I enjoyed the Ranking of Indian Cricketers in this site. They have analyzed cricketers based on only their Test Cricket Performance although a short section on ODI ranking is also given separately.

You can download the book in PDF format from here. I wish someone would compile a similar list for Bangladeshi Cricketers!

I have enjoyed Tendulkar and Sehwag's batting in the ODI series against New Zealand. I am surprised that there is no declaration for player of the series for ODI. May be they will do a player of the series only in Test series. But if there would be a declaration it must have been either Tendulkar or Sehwag. Considering the chart, Tendulkar's average is quite better than anyone else and he only played in 3 games and would sure score a lot more runs if would play the other 2 games. So I would declare Sachin as my player of the series for ODI.

South Asia's largest shopping mall Bashundhora city in Dhaka got heaily damaged by fire yesterday. It's another bad news we got from Dhaka in recent times.

First Father's Night With Ahyan

I went to Father's Night in Montessori Children's Care in Fremont 2 days back. I came back from office early that day at 5:30 PM. It was interesting to see him trying to show me what he can do. He tried moving some small balls with spoon from one pot to another, tried putting some very small balls in a pot in specific places, tried moving plastic maccaroni's from one plate to another. But when it was turn for singing, he was standing beside me and not joining the other kids. Miss betsy (Ahyan's Teacher of Redwood class) told he normally sings everyday. I guess due to his ear pain, Ahyan is a little bit uncomfortable today.

My first father's night with Ahyan!

10 Good Cricket Related Web Sites

Here are 10 best cricket related websites. I use Cricinfo.com so much that I forgot that there might be some other sites that also may have some good info. In my iPhone I have installed plusmo mobicast so I always check live scores of current games and read latest cricket related news. However, at night when I am at home, browing in the internet using my favorite Firefox browser is easier.

1. Cricinfo.com
2. BBC Sports
3. Telegraph Cricket
4. Sky Sports
5. Yahoo Cricket
6. Cricket365
7. Rediff Cricket
8. Sify Sports
9. Hindustan Times Cricket
10. TimesofIndia Cricket

BDR Mutinee And Crisis in Bangladesh

Just when I was thinking we (Bangladeshis) are moving forward with the newly elected Govt bringing hopes for a better democracy, I was shocked with this week's BDR Mutinee and massacre killings of Bangladesh Army's high officials in Pilkhana right in the enter of the capital city Dhaka.

This is so sad that it can't be described in written words. We 6 families in Fremont were watching a movie Delhi 6 and at the end of the movie, Shahriar one of my friends told me that he just heard during the intermission of the movie that there is a mutinee happended in Dhaka little earlier against the Army officers. And it's widely suspected that DG of BDR Major General Shakil are of the many high officials who got killed as part of it.

We rushed to home to call back to Bangladesh to make sure our family and relatives there are safe. Yes, by almighty, they were. But this is not the same case for many of the others.

It's just hopelesss, sad, shocking and distrous in lack of words something worse than these...

How come a few BDR soldiers start a suiciadl missions to kill their officers. No one will do it for money and facilities. Ss there is something a bigger crisis behind it. We got to know, we have to know.