Happenings

Below Par Mumbai Indians Are Out Of IPL

May 21, 2018 Happenings

Defending champions Mumbai Indians are out of contention for this year’s IPL championship when they lost against the Delhi Daredevils on Sunday. Least to say, they have been inconsistent with their performances right from the beginning eventually managing only 6 wins from their 14 games. Through my analysis, not only did Mumbai Indians failed to capitalize on their home advantage losing 4 of their 7 outings at the Wankhede which primarily made a huge difference to the winning tally they also failed miserably in their away games. There’s another reason why they failed to register their place for the IPL playoffs, they were unsuccessful in beating stronger contenders like the Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Rajasthan Royals who have qualified for the playoffs. Looking at their dipping conviction on the field it wasn’t surprising that the Indians couldn’t even muster a win against a weaker Delhi Daredevils who crashed out of this IPL very early on.

Their batting never came to the party. Barring individual performances by Suryakumar Yadav (512 runs), Jasprit Bumrah (17 wickets) and Hardik Pandya (18 wickets), and the young wicketkeeper-batsman Ishan Kishan’s 21 balls 62 versus the Kolkata Knight Riders, it was a pathetic and most forgetful showing ever by the Mumbai Indians who I expected to at least qualify for the playoffs. Though, having won the IPL thrice in 2013, 2015 and 2017 — which is once every two years, I am hoping they could script a comeback in 2019. Only time can tell us, but unless they make changes both in the team leadership and coaching levels they might be looking at a repeat of their previous performances.

Mumbai Indians

 

India’s Games At The 2019 ICC World Cup

April 25, 2018 Happenings

I was marking my calendar with the fixtures for India’s 2019 ICC World Cup campaign being hosted by England and Wales. The first thing that I noticed was the remarkable absence of a group/pool system which is commonly seen in events of such great sporting value (like the FIFA and the FIH world cups). Although, after their stupendous performance in recent World Cups and the team’s successive wins in recent series led from the front by Virat Kohli, the ‘men in blue’ will automatically start as my favourites to lift next year’s World Cup.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]vs South Africa – June 5, 2019
vs Australia – June 9, 2019
vs New Zealand – June 13, 2019
vs Pakistan – June 16, 2019
vs Afghanistan – June 22, 2019
vs West Indies – June 27, 2019
vs England – June 30, 2019
vs Bangladesh – July 2, 2019
vs Sri Lanka – July 6, 2019
1st Semi-Final – July 9, 2019
2nd Semi-Final – July 11, 2019
Final – July 14, 2019[/perfectpullquote]

Strangely, this World Cup has been woefully reduced to just 10 teams, down from 14 from the previous two editions, and the other notable factor is that the groupings have been completely eliminated. Instead, all teams have been clubbed together to compete in a round-robin format of 45 matches. Firstly, a global platform such as the ‘World Cup’ deserves to have more teams competing, and a larger representation for ICC’s associate members like Nepal or Scotland would have enabled them to showcase fresh talent to their fans & audiences worldwide. Gone are the days when one could enjoy watching players from the Netherlands, UAE or Canada competing against the world’s best! And if this petition is to be believed, the 2023 edition in India would continue to feature only 10 teams. This dubious arrangement by the ICC, not only diminishes the significance of this mega event but also turns it into an exclusive affair between a handful of established teams.

Financial compulsions notwithstanding, eventually, with only a small number of teams contesting and with a complete lack of sporting standards for the event, the followers of the game are bound to feel miserable & cheated. Though, I would still look forward to a successful World Cup campaign by India next year.

Flickr Has Changed Hands Again!

April 24, 2018 Happenings

An active user of Flickr, I was astonished to read that it is being acquired by SmugMug. The email said, “We’re excited to announce that Flickr has agreed to be acquired by SmugMug, the photography platform dedicated to visual storytellers.” This would be the third time in over a decade that Flickr has changed hands with its owners since its launch by the Vancouver-based Ludicorp in 2004. It was in early 2005 that Yahoo! decided to buy this image hosting company for $35 million. Then in 2017 Verizon acquired Yahoo! and all its assets in a $4.48 billion deal, and now it’s SmugMug acquiring Flickr from Oath Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Despite its base of over 90 million users, I think it’s becoming harder to sustain itself in competing with the established photo-sharing social networks, although it’s one of the few places where professional photographers (the folks who experiment with DSLRs) still venture out. I’m not sure what the future holds for Flickr, I adore it, to be honest, but I doubt that it has a long way left now. Given that mobiles are adept at capturing & sharing incredible photos & videos at higher resolutions, only time will tell if the era of image hosting platforms is entering its last lap.

Earth Day - Sanjay Gandhi National Park, India

For The Love Of Our Planet Earth

April 22, 2018 Happenings

The winter this season showed no signs of abating and it was anything but ordinary. Then last week, just as I was expecting the spring to bring some warmth and sunshine to the chill, there was an unprecedented ice storm sweeping across the city of Toronto. It also resulted in some serious collisions on the roads & power outages in parts of the city. Some would have attributed this abnormality to the ‘wrath of nature’ or ‘God’s will’, but I believe it was a direct result of the effects of climate change more than metaphysical. Sadly, we only pay attention to ‘climate change’ from the media when a rising mercury scorches the earth or causes drought, though it also affects the monsoon patterns. In some areas, it brings incessant deluge that floods low-lying areas while displacing human settlements. Now, it’s anybody’s guess whether the forecast for this year would be chilly, soggy, or oppressively simmering! Nonetheless, on this Earth Day, we must pledge to ‘act green’ in protecting our planet, it’s the only place in the entire universe that we must love & preserve. Let’s go green!

Steve Jobs’ Dialogue on Consulting

March 30, 2018 Design Happenings

I came across this germ of discourse from Steve Jobs referring to the consulting industry. In his ridicule of consultants for their lack of experience in the implementation of their projects, there was a strong message for owning and understanding the experience from an end-to-end perspective. He says:

I don’t think there’s anything inherently evil in consulting..I think that..without owning something over an extended period of time, like a few years, where one has a chance to take responsibility for one’s recommendations, where one has to see through all action stages and accumulate ‘scar tissues’ for the mistakes and pick oneself up off the ground and dust oneself off, one learns a fraction of what one can. Coming in and making recommendations and not owning the results, not owning the implementation I think is a fraction of the value and a fraction of the opportunity to learn and get better. And so, you do get a broad cut at the companies but it’s very thin, it’s like a picture of a banana, you might get a very accurate picture but it’s only two dimensional. And without the experience of actually doing it, you never get three dimensional.

So you might have a lot of pictures on your walls, you can show it off to your friends like “look I’ve worked in bananas, I’ve worked in peaches, I’ve worked in grapes” but you never really taste it. And that’s what I think. You’re also a variable expense in hard times and you’ll find yourself…(getting fired, is probably what he meant)

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