Is MSD better than DADA????!!!!!

Indian cricket team is in its victorious path. We are No 1 in test ranking for the first time. This post has nothing to tell about our journey to No 1 position. But I’m trying to figure out ‘Who is the best captain? MSD or DADA’. Yes, I had a great fight with some of my friends regarding this. But I’m the only one who supported MSD.

While discussing …. no debating…… sorry sorry….. while fighting on this topic I heard a lot of rubbish things against MSD like ‘He is winning because of luck’ , ‘He is coming as a lower order batsman’ , ‘He is not a good wicket keeper’ , ‘He has changed his game’ , ‘He is not performing but only others in the team are performing’ and finally ‘His team is very much stronger than DADA’s team’. Are this all valid reasons against his captaincy?. I could only laugh after hearing all these non-sense.

Name	Matches	Won	Lost	Drawn	Win %
Ganguly	49	21			42.8
MS Dhoni	18	12	2	4	66.67

42.8 might look like a very good winning percentage. But in this 21 wins 6 were against minnows(Bangladesh –3 and Zimbabwe- 3). Now the winning percentage goes down to 37.5. If we do the same thing for MSD , his winning % will go down to 64.7. To my knowledge 37.5 is much lower than 64.7 (How about you?).

The next thing they say about Ganguly is that he is the one who made India to win test in overseas. Yes he won 4 overseas test series. But the interesting truth is that 2 against Bangladesh and 1 against Zimbabwe. The win against Pakistan is really a good win. In the mean while he lost 4 overseas test series. Even Dhoni have 2 overseas victories in this short duration(NZ-1,Ban-1).

Now comes the most important thing they (supporters) tell about Ganguly – his win against Australia in 2003(Series drawn). Is this the reason why they call him the best captain? Then we should include the new contender into the list ‘Sunil Gavaskar’ who had done the same thing in 1980. The supporters who raise their collars for this achievement should know that Ganguly lost the home test series(1-2) against Australia in the very next year.

The final thing – ‘MSD’s team is better than Ganguly’s team’ . But is it true?. Let us take a look at the team

Sachin, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Srinath, Kumble, Nehra and Zaheer were in the Ganguly’s team.

The new team have Ohja for Kumble , Ghambir for Ganguly, Ishant for Srinath and Dhoni for Patel.
Now can you tell which is the stronger team?

Now let me deal with the negatives against MSD. ‘Luck favours Dhoni’. Yes luck favoured Dhoni in 50 ODI wins, 20 T20 wins and 12 test wins. He is the fastest Indian captain to reach 50 wins.

‘He is not a very good batsman’. Yes, he is a worst batsman who tops ICC ranking list for past 3 or 4 months with an average of 50.28.

As a wicket keeper he have 387 dismissals in his record.

‘He is coming as a lower order batsman’. This is the thing which I like about Dhoni. He is not playing for him but for his team. Is it a wiser decision to send Raina or Yuvraj to his position. But Dada did a blunder while dealing with such a situation. He came as opener even when is in very bad form instead of sending Sehwag. If you mistake that Dhoni cannot perform as higher order batsman then take a look at this

Position	Avg	50s	100s
2	49	1	0
3	82.75	6	2
4	81.55	8	1
5	52.96	6	3
6	38.75	9	0
7	39.26	4	1

I gave a lot of information about Ganguly and Dhoni but only now an important doubt raises in my mind – ‘How will they select a good captain?’ - By their performance during captaincy period or by their team winning records or by some other criteria.

If it is by his individual performance during his captaincy then MSD(avg 71) is in first position followed by Sachin, Gavaskar and Dravid. If it is by his teams performance then again Dhoni tops the list with 66.6% of winning record. Then how some idiots are supporting  Ganguly.

My Personal Blog

I joined my job this Monday and five days of my training are over by now. The training in Academy is better than I expected and I’m really having a good time so far. I’m in Mainframe domain along with 23 other Engineers.

My training is from 9.30AM to 6PM and so I had no time to update my blog last week. But I will try to find some time for my blog in coming days. I have planned to write the reviews of ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ and ‘Nights in Rodanthe’ for next week. I’m not sure to what extent I will stick to this plan but i will try my best.

I have also started a new blog ‘A Corporate Guy’s Memoir’. Yes, this is my personal blog. It is easy to scribble something that is happening in my life than to write a book blog. So I started this blog. I request you all to have a look at my new blog and give your valuable comments.

Artemis Fowl

First Line : HO Chi Minh City in the summer.

Artemis Fowl is the first book of Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. This is a die-hard fantasy(as said by its author).

The protagonist Artemis Fowl, 12 years old boy, after whom the novel is named is a geeky, cunning, self centred and criminally minded guy. He believes in the existence of fairies. After putting some hardwork he gets his first lead about fairies’ book. With the help of this book and latest technology he abducts a dwarf(LEPrecon). Artemis asks a tonne of gold for ransom. But the dwarfs would do anything to protect what is theirs. A normal child in this situation would have abandoned the mission but not Artemis.

Eoin Colfer had showed the rough nature of Artemis even in his first meeting with Nguyen. He is ‘stop-at-nothing’ guy. His attribute created a hatred in me. I had never hated a novel character like this before(not a hatred because of boring). Artemis way of decrypting the fairies’ book was really interesting. Yes, Artemis is a talented guy. But at the same time most of the fairies are equally talented like Artemis. So there is no need to tell about the clash between two equally poised opponents. Both the groups were devising their own plan to get the better of the other.

This work of Eoin is interesting with rich fantasy stuff backed by science. He has successfully characterized the personalities of each character. The strength of this novel is its suspense and thrill so this is not a stuff which we can read over and over.

On the whole this novel is worth a read. I’m sure that the fantasy lovers will have a great time with this novel. I give a little above three and a half but a little below four stars to this novel.

My First Award - 'The Versatile Blogger'

I just received my first blog award ‘The Versatile Blogger’. I should thank Zee of Wordly Obsessions for considering my blog as worth to receive this award.

Now that I’ve received this award, the rules are I have to pass it on to 15  other fabulous blogs that I have just discovered. I also have to link back to the person who gave me the award (as done above) and say 7 things about myself that you wouldn’t otherwise know… ok, so here goes!


7 truths about me
1)I just now received my joining order from my company. Coming Monday is the first day of my job. So I’m little nervous.
2)I like to mosey with my friends after 10PM to enjoy the serene and beautiful night. Nothing in this world is more pleasing than a night walk.
3)I’m a tea addict. I will do anything just for a cup of tasty tea.
4)I love to travel in bus for a whole night. I will sleep better in bus than in my bed.
5)I’m an insomniac. Normally I will be awake till 3AM.
6)I love to read Bible. The best book I have ever read.
7)Then about pets….I don’t love pets. That doesn’t mean I hate pets but I didn’t get a chance to spend time with them. I have no special affection towards them.

My 15 Bloggers:

                                                                                                                                                                  

Lovely Little Nisha

Edgy Inspirational Romance

Ravin Rants

Alisha’s World

My World…..in words and pages

The Perpetual Page Turner

Sam’s Book Blog

Stiletto Storytime

The Fiction Enthusiast

Writing is a Blessing

Read Sam, Read!

Tahleen’s Mixed Up Files

You’re Killing Me

The Tower of Stories

The Eager Readers

 

Thank God!

Yesterday evening I started from my home town to Chennai. Thirteen hours travel that too by train. I hate train travels but my mom  and dad are accompanying me so I had no other option but train. We were sound asleep. It was midnight. While sleeping I felt some movements and suddenly woke up. I was surprised to see a dark man standing in our cabin with his right hand in my bag.

I rubbed my eyes with my hands to make my vision clear and asked him ‘What are you doing?’.

‘I’m searching for seat twenty-five’, he lied.

 “Why are you searching for seat twenty five in the first cabin?’, I raised my voice.

Without replying he left the compartment in haste. The bag had my laptop, my U.G mark-sheets, my job offer letter, debit card, passport and some cash. Thank God! My bag was saved.

After Dark

First Line : Eyes mark the shape of the city

The idea of reading Murakami’s book came out in my mind after reading some reviews of his work in Zee’s Wordly Obsessions. ‘After Dark’ by Haruki Murakami depicts the events taking place in the course of night in a city.

After Dark just connects both the dream and real world. Mari, a nineteen years old girl, is sitting in a restaurant and reading a book. She is awake even at this wee hour but her sister Eri is asleep most of the times in her room. Murakami tells us how the life of Mari, her acquaintances, Eri and the software guy are interlaced.

The story is narrated by a third person, most likely an entity. The entity is something like a camera which can show the events taking place there but it has no power to intervene the events. Yes, a camera with some emotions. This gave me the feeling of watching a movie.

The narration switches between Eri, Mari and the software guy. Murakami ends a chapter with suspense and then he switches the narration to some other place. Thus my curiosity to break the suspense made me to read the next chapter with great speed and interest. Murakami also had given the choice to the readers to speculate the reason for Eri’s sleep.

This thin book just sucked me into the story by its suspense and excellent narration. Murakami had done a great work and surely I will look out for his books. I give four and a half stars to this book.

Book Blogger Hop!

Once again I welcome you all to the Book Blogger Hop organized by Crazy For Books. This hop is open from July 23-26. The Book Blogger Hop is a place just for Book Bloggers and readers to connect and find out new book related blogs. Please feel free to leave some comments and also your blog URL(if you have one).

This week's question:

Tell us about the book you are currently reading.

Now I'm reading 'Darkly Dreaming Dexter' by Jeff Lindsay. I had finished just 40 pages and the book is very interesting. This is about a monstrous guy Dexter who is obsessed with killing but also following Harry's Codes to channel this practice in a constructive way.

Friday 56

Rules:

• Grab the book nearest to you. Right now.
• Turn to page 56
• Find the fifth sentence
• Post that sentence (Plus one or two if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comment section of this blog.
• Post a link along with your post back to this blog, Starting Fresh and to Storytime with Tonya and Friends
• Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Here is mine from 'Midnight's Children' by Salman Rushdie,

 He invited the leaders of the dozens of Muslim splinter groups to form a loosely federated alternative to the dogmatism and vested interests of the leaguers.

Waiting For You

First Line : The best thing about summer camp is the last day

After reading this book of Susane Colasanti, I had the gratification of reading a splendid Romance novel. Yes, I liked this one a lot. I had read few romance novels which I felt like ‘something is missing’ after finishing but not this one.

After the summer vacation, Marisa is waiting for a fresh start with new plans. The main objective of her plan is to get a boy friend. In real life hardly anything goes according to the plan. Her life becomes more and more screwed. Everything is against her and is forcing her into darkness. But the anonymous Dirk in the program ‘All Talk, No Action’ is the only one who understands the problem of Marisa. But she don’t know who he is?

‘Waiting for You’ depicts the life of a teen girl who is trying to overcome her depression. Heyyyyy…. stop… don’t think this is a sad story of some loser. Susane has presented this story in an interesting and hilarious manner. The feelings, dreams and expectations of the teens are portrayed as such. This novel is interesting because it shows the things which happens in our daily life and at times I felt that I had faced this situation in my life. Susane even made me feel that Marisa and XXXX(don’t like to reveal the name to you) are made for each other.

On the whole this is a wonderful novel and I’m sure that this may take some of you back to your high school days. I give four stars for this novel.

One For The Money

First Line : There are some men who enters a woman's life and screw it up forever.

‘One for the Money’ by Janet Evanovich is the first book of Stephanie Plum series. This is about Stephanie Plum, a bounty hunter, who solves the mysterious cases.

Stephanie Plum has lost her job and was searching for a new job. Her financial crisis is forcing her to take the bounty hunter job. She finds herself in deep shit before learning even the first step of her new profession. Now she has no other option than to face it with guts.

Stephanie Plum series is slowly becoming one of my favorites(I had read book 2 already). The story is completely enchanting from the beginning to the last. I like the characterization a lot. Generally, in a mystery novel the protagonist will be brave, intelligent or with kiss-ass attitude. But Evanovich has not portrayed Stephanie Plum as an audacious fellow with great skill. She has shown how Plum, who was initially an amateur turns into a professional. Moreover the humour content adds some extra points to this novel.

In this novel Plum didn’t find anything with her skill but she is lucky enough to bump into the persons she was looking for. Everyone in the novel praises Morelli as a man with great brilliance but he does nothing more than waiting outside Plum’s home or driving Plum into nuts. The story would be more interesting if few sleuthing stuffs were included. The more pathetic role was given to the cops. Morelli and the missing witness were just in the city but the cops are too incompetent to locate them.

Apart from these few flaws this is a well written novel. I didn’t feel like boring or wasting the time by taking this novel, not even a smidgeon. I give four stars to this book.