Sehwag belts unbeaten 99 to steer India to victory

India's comfortable victory over Sri Lanka has been soured by a controversy over Suraj Randiv's massive no-ball, which proved to be the winning run and left Virender Sehwag stranded on 99, though the batsman slammed it over long-off for a six. Sehwag celebrated what would have been century No. 13, only to be told later the six didn't count. After the match, he said Randiv had bowled the no-ball deliberately, and that the move "has no place in good cricket".

"Yes, it was done deliberately," Sehwag said, shedding the blase attitude with which he had reacted to the incident immediately after the match. "Because [of the size of the no-ball] ... that much from the crease. Till now in Test matches he hasn't bowled a no-ball [Randiv bowled two at the P Sara Oval], he hasn't bowled no-balls in one-day cricket, on 99 only why did he bowl a no-ball? And not a small no-ball, not a small margin, from one foot ahead."

Sehwag had blasted 29 of India's 33 runs in four overs leading up to the 34th to move to 99, and the team was five short of the target. He has reached several of his famous hundreds with sixes, including the maiden triple-century by an Indian in Tests, and there was an air of anticipation in Dambulla as Randiv started the 34th over. The first ball slipped past the batsman outside off and beat Sangakkara as well for four byes to bring the scores level. The next two deliveries were carved straight to the point fielder, before Randiv overstepped by about a foot to end the match; Sehwag's six off the no ball was futile.

"They [Sri Lanka] have done it because no team wants anybody to score hundreds against them," Sehwag said, "but they did that, they are happy and we are happy, we won the game, we got the bonus point."

When asked whether he felt Randiv had instructions from senior team members to bowl the no-ball, Sehwag said this was the second time Sri Lanka had ended a match by giving away extras to deny an Indian batsman a century. Sachin Tendulkar had finished unbeaten on 96 in a one-dayer against Sri Lanka in Cuttack last year after the match ended with Lasith Malinga bowling a wide down the leg side which went to the fine-leg boundary.

"I'm not the captain of the opposing team, so I can't say, but something must have been said by either the captain or the senior team members," Sehwag said. "It has happened before, when Sachin Tendulkar was left on 99 not out [actually 96] in Cuttack, they bowled four wides down the leg side This is not the first time Sri Lanka has done this, they may have done it with other teams but with India it is the second time."

Kumar Sangakkara denied playing any role in the incident. "I hope it was not deliberate," he said. "That's not the way I would like to play cricket. If that was intentional, and I have to find out about that, it has got no place on the field of cricket. I will also have to see if there was any talk about it on the field prior to that delivery."

Sangakkara also defended Randiv, saying the offspinner was not the sort of person to bowl a deliberate no-ball. "Knowing Suraj, he is a really nice guy. I have no doubt that it was not intentional. Maybe he was trying to bowl the doosra, and maybe get some bounce off it. But if there has been some talk about it on the field before the start of that delivery by other players, or maybe a bit of coaxing, I will have to address that very, very strongly in the dressing room."

Sehwag said he was not aware of the rule that stipulated the match was over once the no-ball was bowled, though it counts as a delivery faced. Sangakkara also appeared bemused by the rule, saying it had robbed Sehwag of a century. "I think if a batsman scores the runs, he scores the runs, whether it is a no-ball or not. I think if he scores runs off it, it should count for the batsman. The way Viru batted, he deserved to get a hundred."

Shame India Shame....

August 15th, 2010. India celebrated its 63rd Independence Day. The radio will be blaring ‘Aye mere watan ke logon’. TV channels will alternate between ‘Roja’, ‘Rang de Basanti’, ‘Border’ and ‘Lakshya’. Schools across the country will compel their students to shed Sunday morning sleepiness and partake in flag-hoisting ceremonies. Milestones will be recounted, leaders glorified and saffron, white and green will dominate the landscape . Indians across the country will wear patriotism on their sleeve.

But I’ve been wondering what are we actually celebrating? Are we rejoicing over how corrupt officials choose heftier bank balances over national pride? Or maybe we’re happy about how our elected representatives decide to put the country’s security at risk to further their own agendas.

Let’s sample a few headlines from this past week to determine whether ’tis the season to be jolly:

The two biggest sports stories of the year haven’t been those of individual excellence or teams defying all odds to come out trumps. They’ve been the stories of the IPL imbroglio and the Commonwealth Games Fiasco, with administrators from both events under the scanner for financial irregularities and other malpractices. After Lalit Modi, it’s now Suresh Kalmadi’s turn to be in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. Delays, tottering venues and an ever escalating budget were only beginning signs of the rot. Charges against Kalmadi and other officials over the past couple weeks have included corruption, money laundering and discrepancies in broadcasting and sponsorship deals. The CWG was supposed to generate pride among citizens and showcase India’s ability to stage a global event, but instead has only managed to be the source of worldwide embarrassment.

Industrial growth is at the lowest its been in 13 months even as inflation has returned to double digits. Petrol and diesel prices seem to be hiked every month. Prices of commodities like milk, cereals and fruits have touched an all-time high. Soaring expenses means that even the middle class are crossing out essentials from their grocery list and the poor are going hungry. This is even as surplus foodgrains lie rotting in godowns.

The oil spill off the coast of Mumbai last Sunday after two cargo ships collided has brought up severe environmental concerns. Marine life and migratory birds have been affected and the livelihood of thousands has been hampered with estimated losses above Rs 85 crore per day. This environmental hazard occurred even as 25 years after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the Congress party faced allegations of letting off the guilty under political pressure. Victims of the tragedy have till date not been provided adequate compensation and health care.

Elsewhere in India, an eight-year-old girl was mercilessly beaten up by her teacher for failing to contribute Rs 2 to an Independence day function. This is the kind of ‘freedom’ kids in this country enjoy, where corporal punishment is an everyday occurrence that rarely comes to the fore.

Nature’s fury hasn’t left us unscathed either. The cloudburst and subsequent floods in Leh, has turned entire towns to slush and has left the area to appear like a war ravaged battleground. The death toll is at 183 and mounting while over 200 people are still missing.

Kashmir continued to boil this week with this summer’s death toll from violence rising to over 50. The Indian establishment has been unable to win over the Kashmiri population through overwhelming force and the protests in the valley are directed against the military presence. Bunkers and security forces symbolise India for most Kashmiris.

It’s not just Kashmiris who are in the centre of internal strife. The Maoist menace rears its ugly head almost every day with murders, kidnappings and attacks now a common feature in Naxal-dominated areas.

Are all the above reasons, cause enough to celebrate? The optimist in me will still search for those odd success stories and attempts to overcome calamities. I too love my country and wish to be proud of what I see happening in it. To my misfortune, events of the recent past are making my wish seem like just wishful thinking.

I don’t know about you, but come Sunday, it will be difficult for me to go about chanting ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’. Instead, I might just be tempted to hang my head in shame.

Facebook has announced that the number of users from India has crossed 12 million.

This week, social networking site Facebook has crossed 12-million user base in India. Globally, the networking site claims to have 500 million active users every day.

Remember the days when Orkut was the foremost social networking site in India? Those days are long past, and pretty much everyone is on Facebook now. It is increasingly a hangout for the 40-plus generation who use it to connect to their old classmates as well as a public bulletin board for the teens to let everyone know every detail of what is happening in their lives. We do not have the numbers for Orkut in India, but we are pretty confident that facebook has beaten it hollow.

The other social networking site, MySpace, has never been big in India.

In the coming year, we expect the number of Facebook users to go up even further. Indian advertisers are also looking at facebook as an advertising platform to reach out to specific demographics – something facebook does better than Google.Last month, Facebook announced its first Indian operation location as Hyderabad, which is also its first office in entire Asian region.

However, India still lacks behind as compared to other countries in terms of population penetration. According to a story in WSJ, with this new 12 million mark, the percentage penetration is close to just 1%, which is far low than compared to rest of the world.

Facebook India page officially announced this 12 million figure yesterday along with its new initiative-Facebook-Stories. Facebook-Stories is a new tool introduced, wherein users can share their own stories about impact of Facebook on their lives.

The report also suggests that while users in India upload more than 53 million photos in a month, mobile usage also increased nine-fold in the past year.With ever increasing facebook user base, the popularity of this social networking site is increasing day by day in India leaving behind other giants in the race.

Manmohan Singh clocks 2,273 days in office, is now 3rd on list of PMs

Manmohan Singh has overtaken Atal Bihari Vajpayee to become the third longest serving Prime Minister of India — after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi — clocking 2,273 days in office on Wednesday. For a man who took over the country’s top job only because of an act of renunciation by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi , it’s been nothing short of a heady ride.

Singh was probably most surprised when Sonia chose him to lead the government, as she stepped aside to take care of the party and politics. It started the reign of a strange twosome at the top, where the non-elected Singh handled the government while Sonia took care of the politics and party. With a fractious coalition including the Left parties who wanted to run the government by remote control, nobody expected much out of him or the UPA.

But Singh turned out to be a man of strong ideas, and more importantly, determination. A spate of political commentaries of the time called him soft spoken and “not a politician” who could talk only in economic jargon.

Commentators were forced to revise their assessment after he showed remarkable pluck and forced the Congress to enter into a high-stakes confrontation over the nuclear deal. Singh goaded the Congress leadership to come along because he felt the nuclear deal was in “national interest”. In fact, returning from Washington in July 2005, after signing the nuclear deal with George Bush, Singh observed to some travelling journalists, “What the economic reforms did for the Indian economy, I think the nuclear deal will do for India’s energy and strategic future.”

It was this belief that made him the bulldozer that pushed the extraordinarily difficult deal through, manouvering through political minefields everyday.

By May 2009, the world was in its worst ever economic crisis. Singh seemed to be the only person who knew what was going on in the hoary world of economics. The Indian economy was doing fine, had actually weathered the crisis with some deft handling by Singh. He was a safe pair of hands.

By 2009 too, the UPA government was going in for elections. Naturally, Singh had ceased to appear the reluctant leader he had seemed five years ago. He surprised many when he aggressively countered BJP’s campaign theme depicting him as a weak leader. BJP had sought to contrast Singh with L K Advani whom it painted as a “strong and decisive leader” to turn the Lok Sabha election into a presidential contest of sorts.

Singh did not flinch from the fight. With Sonia and even Rahul Gandhi firmly behind him, he gave back what he got with more vigour. In its post-poll inquest, BJP admitted that Singh’s surprising tenacity turned out to be a big wrench in their scheme.

Singh carried that form into ministry-making when he surprised DMK chief M Karunanidhi with some tough talking when the DMK patriarch asked for a disproportionate share of berths.

But after that, Singh has appeared wavering and not in control of things.