June 21 report:

 
Once again We continued our domination by winning both the matches comfortably. It was a complete team effort especially with our bowling to contain the opposition team on both the occasions . There were many good contributions like Satish batted well especially in the second match and he got good support from Mani. 

It was really good to see Ilan back in action . I would not say that he is at his best as we all know what he is capable of especially with the bat. However , one can see his determination to back in form and I am sure he will be at his best soon.

Dear Friends, we are all playing together since almost 2 years now and I am sure all of you would have supported charitable causes ( in some way) that helped the larger good in this world. We think we have been fortunate to have a great life and then have an opportunity to play the game we are all passionate about, with our friends round the year. Our contribution will certainly help underprivileged children pursue higher education. Some of the children in our country hold excellent academic records and are passionate about pursuing higher studies despite economic challenges and adversities faced by them. We will need to allocate time in our schedule to conduct some activity - where our focus would be to help local charities (schools, food banks, foster homes etc). One such activity that straightaway comes to my mind is organizing an annual cricket tournament and raising money to help charities? Let’s do something good guys as a team/foundation..

Thoughts/Comments?

June 15th Report

We started our new tournament campaign on a winning note. Though our opponents (Quest) did not put up a fight either while batting/bowling, this victory will boost the team's confidence for the upcoming matches. Overall it was a complete all-round performance from our team though I still have concerns about our fielding effort which is one of the key factors for our progress to the next level.
We scored 110 runs in 10 overs which I think is the highest total from our team till today and then we contained the opposition team for only 35 runs. This also is our biggest margin win till today. Rana, Arjun , Athreya, Kiran and Satish were simply good enough for the opposition batting.

In many ways this match will be a special one for Satish. To start with he was not feeling completely well and infact was doubtful to join the team. We should be thankful to his wife as she convinced him to play and then , there was a rain interruption which halted the match for a while. With all these interruptions/impediments, Satish provided us one of the best starts till today. He started with a six! and along with his opening partner, Preetish he took our score to 50 runs in just over 4 overs.  He did not give up till the end and was not out for 64 runs, more than half the overall team total. Though he was not feeling well and then batted through the innings I thought he would take at least some rest during the second innings. He proved me wrong by standing at mid on! Truly a committed player. and rightly rewarded with couple of wickets with his slower ones. Finally it was an easy option for the expert panel to adjudge him as the man of the match. I am really happy that he could achieve all this in front of his beloved wife!
I am particularly impressed with his approach. Very first ball of the match and he hit that for a six over mid wicket. That does not mean that he was simply slogging but he was more aggressive with calculated risk.

We hear the term "calculated risk " many times and hence I wanted to share a few thoughts on risk and whether we can take a calculated risk!!If you notice the definition of Risk, it is understood that we are entering into a situation fully understanding that it could result in losing something or an outcome that could be unfavorable.
If we were to calculate risks, we may not have had any innovations on creative ideas for the fear of rejection or failure. Come on, let us face it, taking risks itself means being unrealistic. When we are going against the odds, it is pretty much given that we are ready to fail. So, why calculate at all? I think when someone makes the statement about taking calculated risk, it primarily means that ‘I will / we will not take risk’. It is just that we put it in a more polished and politically right language.

So, how do we define someone as taking risk – and when is it Good or Bad? The intent here is not to say that risk itself is good or bad, because we cannot take a good risk or bad risk. The intent is to understand if we are not making any foolish decisions – such as let us say, I will take the risk of competing with Usain Bolt, without practice and preparation. Another likely example on risk is to start a business – which is itself a risky proposition. Now, can we take a calculated risk here? I am not sure if we can do that! Some people say that take a calculated risk by continuing in the job you are in and quit when your business is up and running – how many of such startups have succeeded! We could potentially prepare to start the business by doing homework, and not starting something we do not even know – that would be a foolish act and not taking a calculated risk.
The only calculation I can think of on risk is let us say we put our time and money into anything that we want to risk, and the returns out of that could be zero, nothing else can be calculated!

Thoughts??



 

June 7th Report:

Last week we played 3 match series and won the series 2-1. The pitch was slow and sluggish and that made all the batsmen to struggle. Only 3 boundaries scored in almost 50 overs from both sides which clearly tells the story. Our bowlers, especially slow bowlers Satish and Sanjay took stock of the situation and made an impact with the ball. In particular, Satish was brilliant with his slower ones and he clearly edged others to get the player of the week award!

People are commenting on this blog which is really a good sign. I agree with Satish that we need to be more aggressive while playing against our regular opponents on Saturdays. However, we also need to think about the pitch and conditions we are playing. Last week's play gives us the clear picture on how crucial the condition of pitch for quality batting. we definitely need to think about improving the quality of the pitch which will automatically improve our batting /bowling and overall cricket quality will improve.

I was thinking on planning and forecasting about our upcoming tournament match ( this Sunday) and I just want to share some thoughts on planning /forecasting in general.

For us, Indians, the concept of life planning maybe new in the media, but has long existed – maybe the importance that was given in earlier times was less, for they knew it was bound by many unknown factors. Recently, I think it has reached crazy proportions. Any newspaper or magazine you take, it screams on our faces the amount of planning we need to do, and how much we need to save, how to save, and the crores and crores that we need to accumulate to reach our life’s ambitions, and lead a comfortable life, until we cease to exist. We get expert advice on how to reach there, knowing very little about our background, how we have been raised, and our lives are driven by the values we have been shaped since our birth. These articles also predict how long we live based on our ancestry and hence how much planning we should do!

Many of us, have started to fall prey and heed to these – buy homes beyond our means, invest in areas that we do not even understand, the risks that they may carry, and without even thinking if we really. Note that all the recommendations do not take into consideration what our life should be, what we like, what our memories are and should be. We shape our happiness based on these softer aspects.

How many of us can look back – look back just one day, and see what happiness meant for us, and what memory stayed with us yesterday (yes, just yesterday). Did we plan for that memory / happiness moment? More often than not, we would have created something that made us, our family members, our friends, and colleagues, feel a lot lighter, made them feel better, happier, and hence created a memorable situation. None of these need us to have tons of cash or bank balance, now or in future.

So, I am puzzled, if all these planning and forecasting we do, deserve that much attention? With so many situations we have no control on, so many unknowns happening in the world, dependencies we have to achieve our goals, is it worthwhile to even spend a moment on planning or forecasting? Is it better to live in the moment, after we do all the planning?
 I still do planning, but have started to realize, I may go horribly wrong, and it could be just around the corner, so mentally preparing for that situation!!





 

June 1st 2014 Report

It is really disappointing to lose one more quarter finals! Honestly, if we review our performances in this tournament, we are very inconsistent. Out of 3 matches, lost 2 and won 1. Consistency is very keen to win any tournament.

Though we lost the way in the beginning overs I think our bowlers came back strongly and provided us a chance. We needed to achieve a target of 80 runs in 8 overs to qualify for the semi finals. Though we lost couple of crucial wickets we had a brisk start to our innings with the score of 22 runs in 2 overs. I thought couple of more good overs would have ensured our semifinal berth. Instead, we managed to score only 37 more runs in next 6 overs and I think that was the critical phase of the game where we could have may be batted a couple of good overs there. The guys have tried their best and it's just not worked out for us in this tournament. Including other main batsmen, I let the team down by not contributing with the bat when it required the most. Overall it is very disappointing as I think this was our best chance to lift the trophy and we all know that we are capable of doing this.

Despite the immediate disappointment of failing to qualify for semifinals, I am very optimistic for the coming tournament (starts from June 15th onwards), as this side would only get better with these experiences. I think there's a lot of positives from this tournament as well. The performances of people like Arjun has been exceptional, even people like Kiran and Preethish performed well whenever they got opportunities especially with the ball. Arjun, who played only a couple of games with us (including a match against our regular opponents on Saturday) and showed there is a potential for the future. Satish batted exceptionally well in one match and was okay in the quarter finals as well. I still believe he has much more to contribute with the bat to this team. Though Rana did not bowl to his standards in the quarter finals, he performed well in the league matches.

Harsha, Athreya and Ilan batted well in the second league match and I batted well in the first match but all four of us were not consistent as we failed to perform in other matches.

Having said this, there is always a next chance and I hope our team delivers better next time. I must thank the team for their efforts and those guys who missed their important personal works due to this match.