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.