if cricket doesn't work out

Andrew Flintoff, the new singing sensation! Don't believe me, check this out. Flintoff and Sir Elton John are doing a duet song. And they seem to be members of the 'mutual admiration' society too. Flintoff says that Sir Elton is a legend and singing with him seems a tougher task than playing against the Aussies. Sir Elton on his part says that Andrew is a crowd puller and plays the sport in the right spirit.
What next, can we expect Flintoff to solo 'Ring of Fire'? Even though it worked against India, I suspect England will need a lot more than that to retain the Ashes.

justice

I was chit chatting with a friend last night and we happened to talk about the laws in Saudi (having nothing better to do) and in particular, the penalty for robbery. Now Saudi follows orthodox Islam and Saudi Law is based on the Sunnah. The punishment for robbery in Saudi is to cut off the hands of the perpetrator of the crime! This seemed to me to be extremely severe and disproportionately harsh when compared to the level of the offense committed and I mentioned it to my friend. In defense of this law, my friend said that the law is not just a punishment for the crime but is also meant as a deterrent to potential thieves. He said (without quoting actual facts and figures) that thanks to this law, the crime rate in Saudi is much lower as compared to other countries, where the law is more humane and supposedly not so ‘anachronistic’. I countered this by saying that if the primary aim of the law is as a deterrent to potential thieves, then why not the death penalty for burglary. Surely, the death penalty is a much more effective deterrent than just chopping off someone’s hands. But if the death penalty sounds too harsh and if the law is also trying to incorporate a balance between ‘just punishment’ (commensurate to the level of offence) and ‘deterrence’, then the balance in this case is very much tilted towards deterrence. In my opinion, once all details of the crime are determined and the guilt is also established beyond doubt, the law must seek to balance three components; 1) compensation to the victims of the crime, 2) punishment to the perpetrator commensurate to the nature and severity of crime (compensation to the victim is part of the punishment), 3) A further penalty to the perpetrator to act as deterrent (this could even be something like community service, it need not necessarily be monetary or corporal and need not be related to the victims of his/her act)
My friend didn’t have much to say to this. In truth, I have been in the Middle East for close to 3 years now and I was completely aware of this law. I was just trying to draw my friend into an argument to see if he could provide me with any real justification for this law. This law seems more suited to the temporal milieu of an Arabian desert of some centuries ago.

Exciting Times for Maharashtra Cricket

These are interesting times for Maharashtra Cricket. With so much happening in the Maharashtra Cricket scene, sometimes I feel I should have stuck on and played for a few more seasons. Ever since Ajay Shirke, second son of one on Pune’s most illustrious businessmen, BG Shirke who is the Chairman of the Shirke Group of Companies, took over as the President of the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA), I have seen the MCA take concrete steps for the all-round development of the sport in Maharashtra. With all due respects to the former President, Mr. Dnyaneshwar Agashe, I think his group had run its course and Maharashtra Cricket was ripe for change.
Ajay Shirke track record in Cricket administration shows that he is quite smart when it comes to developing Cricket academies. He started the Cadence Cricket Academy in Pune in the late 90’s. The academy now boasts of some excellent playing facilities as well as a very good team of coaches (former Maharashtra Captain and dynamic Cricketer Surendra Bhave as permanent coach and Kiwi David Trist as visiting coach). The Cadence Cricket team has developed from a fringe team to one of the better teams in Pune and will no doubt continue to show impressive growth.
As President of the MCA, Ajay Shirke was largely responsible for roping in Chandrakant Pandit as Cricket coach and Darren Holder as Cricket director. Both appointments happened late last year so I’m really keen on seeing how Chandu Pandit, whom I have played under while he was captain of Mahindra and for whom I have a very healthy respect in terms of his knowledge of the game and his canny understanding of situations, performs as coach. I am particularly interested in seeing how Darren Holder grows into his role as Cricket Director. The Aussie, who is a bachelor of health science from Griffith University (a course that I had applied for too) and is just 30 years old must surely be one of the youngest coaches in the Indian Cricket scene. Even though Darren is by and large untried and the MCA is taking a significant risk in making him Director, I think it is a step in the right direction. The only question that troubles me is that I believe there is a considerable overlap between their roles (Chandu and Darren). Both will be traveling with the team for all away matches and both will be present on the ground during training. I just hope they have clearly defined roles in this whole scheme.
Over the last season, some of the top players, especially from Mumbai (Munaf Patel and Sairaj Bahutule come to mind immediately) have moved to the Maharashtra side. Maharashtra also has Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Iqbal Siddiqui and Dheeraj Jadhav, all very high caliber players. This heady mix of an administration that is willing to spend (it must have been a significant wallop to the purse to get Chandu Pandit and Darren Holder, besides getting all these Mumbai players as well) and experiment, a coach and director who combine acute cricketing acumen and hard sport science knowledge and quality players should help Maharashtra step up their performance in the 2006/2007 season. Here’s wishing them well.

Obese Chinese

Yesterday I saw something that very few people in this world have had the privilege of seeing. I actually saw a FAT Chinese. Now isn’t that something! How many people can claim to have seen a fat version of a people who are constitutionally very nearly incapable of putting on superfluous weight? And this Chinese specimen wasn’t merely fat; he was massive...humungous...gargantuan...colossal. Hah, it felt good writing that last sentence. After all, how often can one use these adjectives in the same sentence with ‘Chinese’, unless of course, one is talking about their economy or population?
So if any of you want to share my experience, take yourselves to ‘Buhaira Corniche’ in Sharjah at around 1900 hrs of a weekday evening and you may be rewarded with a sight which is worth traveling many miles to see. And then imagine what a hit you will be at parties. At your next party, when Mr. Braggart claims to have done...whatever the hell outlandish claim that these people make, you can shut him up by saying, ‘That’s nothing, I once saw an obese Chinese’. That fact itself along with the fortuitous rhyme should make you an instant hit with the women.