The Price of Youth

Its all fine to see the average age of the Indian cricket team get knocked down by a couple of decades, but what price this shift in mentality? The last bastion of the late '90s team, the Little Master, still remains at the top to remind all and sundry that old might still be gold, but The Wall, The Prince, The Smiling Assassin, and of course Mr. Very Very Special, are now considered dented brass worthy of the junk yard. Funny - its these very same players who win Test matches for us. Is Test cricket so fundamentally different from Limited Overs cricket?

Granted, the elder statesmen are not the best on the field, nor are they the best runners between the wickets. But is it my imagination, or was the side less prone to humiliating 150s and 160s all outs a few years ago? Where are the 250+ scores? Where is the confidence with which the boys in blue won 17 consecutive chases?

The batting looks brittle, and the calmness of age seems absent. Dhoni goes to Sehwag...Sehwag???????...for advice...the same Sehwag who couldn't remember not to edge balls outside off stump to the short 3rd man placed especially for him about a half dozen times. And our lead spinner is none other than Mr. Diplomatique, who is vying to be the next Indian ambassador to Australia (specifically Sydney). The humiliating treatment meted out to Anil Kumble, which ultimately forced him to quit the One-day arena, cost India its best bowler in the 50-over format. Horrible.

Agreed, the one phenomenal area of development has been the fast bowling department. Glorious Zak, Ishanth Sharma, R.P., a rejuvenated Pathan, and a chastised Sreesanth look - and act - formidable. Youth was definitely needed here, and the team is the richer for it. The new breed came in at a time when certain 'fast' bowlers were making Kumble look even faster than he was.

But look at other teams who have invested heavily in youth, and only in youth. Zimbabwe, due to political reasons of course have a team of high-schoolers, but that apart, what about New Zealand? No Fleming, Astle, and Mcmillan - and all of a sudden the senior batsmen are - hold your breath - Lou Vincent, Jacob Oram, and Brendon McCullum. One waits to see how England plays them without being tough enough to alert Child Services. Pakistan resemble a bunch of pre-schoolers out on an excursion, with two nursemaids playing chaperone (Hint: One has male-pattern facial hair, and the other's name starts with Y too) - and they were made to look pretty ordinary over 5 matches by the whipping boys of international cricket, the Mugabe Cricket Team.

And what about the 'blends'? The fine balance of youth and experience? Australia are doing just fine with the grey hairs of Hayden, Ponting, and Symonds (a stretch, but let it pass). England have an experienced Collingwood, a mature Pietersen, a classy Strauss, Vintage Vaughan, and the fast maturing Ian Bell to offset the young 'uns that are showing up. And Sri Lanka have that marauder Sanath at the top of the order, bludgeoning mortals in middle age, much like Stallone in Rambo.

So please, BCCI, bring the experience back. The only way these young guns are going to learn to fire consistently is if they have a steadying hand pointing them in the right direction. And it feels good to notch up 300 + once in a while

The Merchant of Graduate School

If business school was its own planet, then classes would be different races, and teams would be socio-economic groups. Stuff like "Oh, you're a customer behavior student?? Eeewwwww!! I feel sorry for you. Which group are you in? You're with Mr.4 point O GPA? Good job!"

What on earth are people thinking?!

My teams are great...my classes are great...my professors are great...I love my course just the way it is, thank you very much. I am NOT a consultant, nor a number-cruncher. I am a marketer...a brand guy... and marketing classes don't make me inferior.

Hath not a marketer value? Hath not a marketer hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; paid with the same lucre to drive the same fancy car, hurt with the same budget cuts, subject to the same layoffs, heal'd by the same bonuses, warm'd and cool'd by the same airconditioner as a Consultant is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you brown-nose us, do we not promote? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not hand out pink slips?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
If a Marketer wrong a Consultant, what is his humility? Revenge by recommendation.
If a Consultant wrong a Marketer, what should his sufferance be by Consultant example? Why, revenge by recommendation!
The villainy you teach me, I will execute,
and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

So.......yup...pointless...just grinding my gears :)

We own the night - oh Eva!

Saw a movie today - We Own The Night. Started off like the Godfather (actually a bit like an A-class porn film, what with Eva Mendez flaunting her hoo hoos). And then, the movie became an Indian family epic!

Spoiler below......

One of my favorite Tamil movies, Agni Natchatram, has an amazing storyline. Brothers on either side of the law, and a father who dies halfway. Mani Rathnam brings the brothers back together in true Tamil movie fashion in the end, with the real bad guy handing his pail in as just retribution for daddy's death. Seems like the DVD made it to Hollywood.

WOTN is decent in parts, thanks largely to Eva, and a stellar performance from Duvall (who unfortunately dies way too early, bringing the acting talent average down rather rapidly). But Wahlberg doesn't talk much - an assassin's bullet parted his lower jaw from its moorings early in the movie, and Phoenix doesn't act much. All in all, a let down. Except for Eva :)

Oh come all ye faithful!

For a considerable period of time, I had the word 'blog' confused with another not-so-polite one, which lacked the 'l'. So, I frequently confounded people when they innocently asked me, "Do you blog?". I replied with a contented smile (as I believe in the goodness of fibre in one's diet) "Why yes - daily in the morning!"

All that's done now, and I have finally got my own blogspot! 'rangu the ultimate pornstar' wasn't available so I chose to revert to my alter ego and named it thus. Not 'thus', but named it what it is now...well, you know what I mean.

So, without any further ado, Welcome!